Rwanda & the media: imagery, war & refuge

This article critically examines The New York Timesphotojournalistic coverage of Rwanda from 1989 through the events of 1994. It shows which stories were left out (French/South African arms sales, Belgian colonial heritage, and World Bank/IMF interventions) and which errors were retained (tribalism as causation, dark continent/exoticisation theories). The images that the media projected to the United States public show the multiple ways in which agency remains unproblematised especially with regard to gender and stigmatisation. Through these images, the rhetorics of journalism frame much of our understanding of global events and consequently our responses to them. Finally, this article ends by making an argument for using critical social theories to engage the media and politicians for change.