This excellent article by @NyadolNyuon exemplifies my research into media narratives and what I call media’s propensity to follow each other on ‘train track narratives’. A thread.
The narrative is provoked by something, whether it be a real problem, or one made up for political purposes (such as African gangs), and a media outlet sets an agenda through sensationalism, exaggeration and often hyperbole.
Other media outlets at this point have a choice. They can either a) ignore the agenda - particularly if it’s a political one aimed at helping vested interests win power, b) look at story from different angle and uncover if it is true, or c) report from same view, and add to story
In vast majority, journalists pick option c). They then mould whatever information they can into the ready-made narratives being reported by their competitors. African gang violence became a political issue long after police said there are no ‘gangs’ and not to call them that.
Each outlet then searches for more ways to write stories adhering to this original ‘gang’ narrative and do their absolute best to ignore and discount any contrary evidence to the narrative they’ve committed to.
That means they don’t talk to sources who could dispute their stories. They don’t go looking for expert advice or objectively analyse statistics, or go looking for stories that show African people in a positive light doing good for community.
Most importantly, they mostly don’t call out the political nature of the original agenda and narrative, or acknowledge their part in advancing that political agenda through their adherence to the same narrative.
Even when there are demonstrably false aspects of this narrative - such as crimes that weren’t committed by young African people being blamed on young African people - these false aspects are left there to keep the momentum going. The narrative survives all myth busting.
People often ask me - how do you stop a media narrative like this, that was born from politics and is being used to misrepresent reality for political gain? I have some ideas but it’s not something that is easy to do.
We’ve just seen Matthew Guy use mythical African gangs as the centrepiece of his law and order election campaign (hopefully unsuccessfully). Morrison has also put race (racism) and anti-immigration at heart of his election pitch.
Research like mine shows how this can happen. How literally fake news can become so pervasive, so widely reported, that the community believes it because they hear it so often. A lie can go around the world before the truth gets out of bed.
One last thing. Even those outlets who haven’t played into the African gang train track narrative are often still guilty of reporting context free that Matthew Guy is campaigning ‘against African gang violence’ without explaining the fact this campaign is based on a lie.
If journalists want to do their job properly and hold politicians to account, they should be thinking a little harder about the part they are playing in enabling political lies and supporting these fake narratives that are hurting the very fabric of our communities. End.
