Macgilchrist, Felicitas. (2014).

Media discourse and de/coloniality: A

post-foundational approach. In Chris Hart & Piotr Cap (Eds.), Contemporary Studies
in Critical Discourse Analysis, (387-407). London: Continuum.

16
Media Discourse and De/Coloniality
A Post-Foundational Approach
Felicitas Macgilchrist
Georg Eckert Institute for International
Textbook Research

1 Introduction

C ritical discourse analysis of media is a broad enterprise with its roots in the seminal
analyses of the 1970s and 1980s. In this chapter, I outline three relatively new
developments, and point to directions in which media discourse analysis is now
beginning to move (Section 2). To illustrate these new directions in a concrete
analysis, the chapter explores media accounts of Africa (Section 3), and explores
the potential of drawing on decolonial thinking to analyse media discourse
(Section 4).

2 ‘The media’ and critical discourse analysis

‘The media’ have provided a core set of material to analyse discourse since critical
linguists began to question the neutral role of linguistics and argue that linguistics had
a salient role to play in social critique (e.g. Kress and Trew 1978). The media were
central to arguments that critical discourse analysis cannot focus only on texts but
must embed textual analysis within analysis of the contexts of production and
receptions (e.g. Fairclough 1989; Fairclough 1995). Media discourse has also been

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used to support the recent argument that ‘critical’ discourse analysis (CDA) is one-
sided in its top-down analysis of dominant discourse, and must be accompanied, if not
replaced, by ‘positive’ discourse analysis (PDA) (e.g. Martin 2004).
This central role of media in discourse analysis points to three new directions in
which media discourse analysis is now turning. First, what is understood by ‘media’?
To date, the vast majority of discourse analysis which refers to ‘media’ actually analyses
journalism. Journalism is, of course, a particularly prominent medium in the daily lives
of discourse analysts. There are, however, a host of other media which could be the
focus of critical discourse analysis (e.g. Stephens 1992; Benwell 2005).
Second, how are we to analyse the contexts of production and reception? The
majority of discourse analyses still primarily analyse textual products, although this is
often augmented by accounts of the production contexts and considerations of how
the texts may be used. If we are to take seriously the call for discourse analysis to
be embedded in its discursive contexts, however, it seems necessary to go into the
field and observe media practices, or at the very least, interview practitioners and/or
media users (see NewsTalk&Text Research Group 2011). In this sense, discourse
analysis is analysis of ‘text plus’; always analysing text, and also always analysing more
than text.
Third, what does it mean to do ‘critical’ or ‘positive’ discourse analysis? Despite
differences among various approaches to critical discourse analysis, overall they share
the presupposition that there is some sort of relation between structure on the one
hand and language use on the other (see Weiss and Wodak 2008: 19ff.), i.e. they
presuppose that there is something which ‘mediat[es] between the social and the
linguistic’ (ibid.). If, however, discourse analysis is about ‘bringing a variety of theories into
dialogue, especially social theories on the one hand and linguistic theories on the other’
(Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999: 16ff.), then this presupposition need not be the only
useful theoretical frame.1 A post-foundational approach (see Section 1.3), which posits
among other things that the linguistic is the social, enables instead a discourse analysis
which aims to highlight ambivalences, tensions and contradictions in discourse rather
than to demonstrate how discourse appears to be coherently dominant or consistently
alternative.
This explicitly ambivalent discourse analysis (ADA!) in turn supports the aim of
(critical) discourse analysis to contribute to social change. The thinking behind this is
that if we repeatedly demonstrate how ‘dominant’ discourse is entrenched and stable,
our analyses are themselves part of enacting and reproducing this discourse. By
pointing to ambivalence and the accompanying gaps and instabilities, analysis can
potentially widen the gap, contribute to destabilizing a given discourse, and encourage
the development of new discourse.
Drawing on these three new directions, this chapter: (i) explores educational media,
i.e. materials explicitly designed for use in educational settings; (ii) includes ethnographic
observations from the production process; and (iii) draws on a post-foundational
approach to discourse.

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2.1 Educational media

Commercial educational media offer a particularly rich source of mediated discourse,
since many educational media producers explicitly describe their role as balancing the
demands of commercial media publishing – with its profit-orientation, tight deadlines
and strict space constraints – against the more utopian goal of producing materials
which will captivate and inspire students (Macgilchrist 2011). A sizable market is at
stake: although they only publish for the German-speaking market, the three top
German educational publishers are among the top 50 global book publishers (Publishers
Weekly 2013). At the same time, these media aimed at younger users play a role in
shaping what counts as acceptable, desirable ways of being.2

2.2 Production practices

In the ethnographic discourse analysis which underlies this chapter, I followed the
production of educational media such as textbooks and other school-based learning
materials at a leading German publishing house from 2009 to 2011.3 I observed teams of
authors and editors engaged in lively and controversial discussions about what should
be included in the minimal space available in textbooks for secondary level History and
Politics/Social Studies in Germany. Two aspects of how textbooks are produced in
Germany are particularly relevant to discourse analysis. First, very rarely are books newly
designed. Instead, old series are regularly revised and updated. Second, any given
publication was the result of numerous redrafts and changes by a broad set of individuals
(authors, co-authors, editors, layouters, designers, etc). Thus, iteration, selection and
reduction – which are intrinsic to any discursive practice – become explicit as the core
practices in developing a publication for the market. Also, this means that educational
media is highly unlikely to incorporate radical views. In this sense, the instabilities or
transformations in this media discourse make it particularly fruitful for identifying
hegemonic formations and discursive shifts in contemporary society.
At this stage, some may ask what distinguishes a media discourse analysis from
other media analysis or media ethnographies. I see three particularities. First, as I
understand it, media discourse analysis stresses the situatedness of knowledge and
assumes that knowledge is intricately interwoven with power, i.e. it has an
understanding of power as productive of knowledges, subjects, desires, societies, etc.
Second, media discourse analysis is not interested in what media texts mean, but in
the conditions of possibility which enable texts to make sense (to be ‘sayable’) in a
particular discursive formation, i.e. adopting what Foucault (1972) called an
archaeological approach, since analysts can only analyse the traces (in language and
other practices) of these conditions of possibility. Third, media discourse analysis is
not primarily interested in what people do, but in the practices which indicate the
socio-historically specific conditions of possibility. In today’s media institutions in

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Germany, for instance, the recruitment practices (of e.g. editors, authors, layouters)
which I observed value a kind of knowledge and expertise which means that media
makers are quite likely to be individuals who are marked by, or rather unmarked by,
fairly privileged social positions in their current geopolitical locations in (Western)
Germany (i.e. living largely White, middle class, able-bodied, heterosexual, West
German, etc. lives). It is not individual practitioners who are responsible for the media
texts but the hegemonic formation in which they write (Foucault 1984).

2.3 Post-foundational theory

‘Hegemonic formation’ need not, however, refer to a coherent episteme for a given
period. From Laclau and Mouffe, I take the observation that different ‘hegemonic projects’
(i.e. not yet hegemonic) are vying to become hegemonic in any socio-historic configuration
(Laclau and Mouffe 1985; see Torfing 2002). As I suggested above, the significant
purchase of a post-foundational (or post-structuralist) critical discourse analysis is, for me,
that this theoretical perspective actively encourages the analyst to see fissures and
dissonances in the discourse rather than (only or primarily) coherences and domination
(see also Billig et al. 1988). Although Fairclough himself has regularly advocated analysing
instabilities and paradoxes (e.g. 1995: 33; 2001: 245), the vast majority of critical discourse
analysis has focused on identifying stabilities in dominant discourse. Brookes (1995), for
instance, in her analysis of news coverage of Africa, finds a racist discourse which is
‘both highly uniform and completely naturalized’ (1995: 488). She concludes that this
‘entrenched stability holds little possibility for challenge or transformation’ (ibid.).
I suspect one reason Fairclough’s call to also explore the instabilities of discourse
has not been taken up is the underlying critical realist ontology. Since this assumes
a dualism between the natural and social worlds, it assumes that material objects
exist as singularites outwith the practices which enact them (see e.g. Laclau and
Bhaskar 2007). For discourse analysis, this has been specified in the understanding of a
dialectic relationship between ‘discourse’ as ‘the semiotic moment’ and ‘other moments
in social practices’ (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999: 126). Individuals’ relationships to
discourse are mediated through their position in social structures such as gender, race
and class.4 A post-foundational ontology, on the other hand, questions this a priori
division between the natural and the social (see especially Butler 1990; Latour 1993;
Haraway 1997). As with any other ‘foundations’ such as God, rationality or objectivity,
nature is made into a foundation in a particular (hegemonic) configuration. This argument
is not, it should be noted, an anti-foundational idealism in which all foundations have
been removed (see Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999: 120), but a post-foundationalism
which argues that any foundation, any grounding, is contingent, partial and political
(Laclau 1990: 34f; Marchart 2007; Macgilchrist 2011). Practices enact/perform materiality.
There must be a grounding or we would live in a psychotic universe, but this grounding
must be accomplished.

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As a result of this, post-foundational writers see antagonism – or disagreement,

dissent, negativity, disharmony, non-coherence or conflict – as constitutive of the
social (see e.g. Laclau and Mouffe 1985; Rancière 1999; Butler et al. 2000; Nancy
2010). In turn, (critical) discourse analysts in this vein aim to tease out the discursive
traces of the constitutive antagonism. The empirical question is: where are the cracks
in current configurations of power, exclusion or injustice? In this way, discourse analysis
identifies current/potential social change. The political/practical question is: how can
analysis or action help make these cracks wider? Thus, White (2001), for instance,
unlike Brookes (1995) cited above, foregrounds the instability of racist discourse in
order to highlight challenges and transformations always already underway

3 Africa and media discourse

‘Merkel Flies on Economic Safari’ (Welt Kompakt 2011). ‘Africa is a Country
(@AfricasaCountry) New twitter account for the media blog that’s not about famine,
Bono, or Barack Obama’ (Africa is a Country 2013). These recent media texts indicate
the still prevalent articulation of ‘Africa’ with wildlife and poverty. Although the
German chancellor was visiting economic leaders in large cities, her trip is described
as a safari. The twitter account distances itself from what it describes as the dominant
discourse about Africa. A quite different impression of contemporary politics,
economics or media is given by sites such as Pambazouka News (http://www.
pambazuka.org/en/), Global Voices (http://globalvoicesonline.org/) or blogAfrica (http://
blogafrica.allafrica.com/).
That ‘Africa’ is an entity constituted through political, academic and other discourse
is now widely accepted (Mudimbe 1988). Mbembe suggests that ‘discourse on Africa
is almost always deployed in the framework (or on the fringes) of a meta-text about the
animal’ (2001: 1, original emphasis). Previous critical discourse analysis has highlighted
the racism of news reports on Africa (e.g. Brookes 1995). Textbooks have been criticized
for their representation of Africa (e.g. Poenicke 2003; Kerber 2005; Marmer et al. 2010).
Three salient issues arise from this critique:

1 Colonial residue: Colonial vocabulary is employed, reproducing power

hierarchies and suggesting Africa is a primitive place.

2 Eurocentrism: A Eurocentred perspective is adopted in which European issues

are placed in the forefront and Black people are presented as passive
recipients of White actions. White voices are heard; Black people rarely speak
in the texts.

3 Mono-epistemicism: Texts assume that only one way of being and knowing is
valuable (i.e. modernity, development, progress): Africa is compared to this
European/Western/North-Atlantic norm and found wanting.

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Each of these issues others Africa in some way. They thus potentially reproduce racist
views of global hierarchies, and could (i) lead to discriminatory practices in the everyday
life of young people, and (ii) disempower young people of African descent, by making
it impossible for them to find role models or positive associations with Africa or African
history in media discourse (see Marmer et al. 2010). They also make it difficult for
young people to deconstruct colonial thinking, and to construct nuanced understandings
of Africa or of epistemic diversity.
As I was observing textbook production, one particular section in a textbook for
secondary level Years 9 and 10 History (age 15–16) struck me as a ‘rich point’ in the
ethnographic fieldwork, i.e. a surprising or exciting observation which did not fit
with general expectations (Agar 1996). In the chapter on imperialism and colonialism,
the production team was explicitly and vocally attempting to avoid this othering
discourse. Their task was to update (rewrite) an older textbook for the current
market. The authors expressed dismay at the way Africa was described in previous
textbooks. They agreed that they wanted to show that Africa was not a tabula
rasa before colonialism, but that highly developed towns had been founded, centres
of science and learning were flourishing, and complex global economic relations
were well in place. It was important to ‘revalue Africa’ (‘eine Aufwertung Afrikas’),
i.e. to improve the image of Africa, and they described a need to show students
that Africa is ‘not so different’ (‘nicht so fremd’) (audio-recorded participant
observation: GB_20090809_03_1:18:00). The following analysis illustrates how this
was enacted.
The analysis is structured along the three critical issues noted above: (3.1) colonial/
decolonized text, (3.2) Eurocentred/decentred perspective, (3.3) development/tradition.
The previous book in the series (History 9/10 as a pseudonym) was published in 2006.
The new book which is to be sold in place of the previous book (thus also History 9/10)
was published in 2010.

3.1 Decolonizing the text?

One clear shift in the discourse on Africa in this textbook is the distancing from colonial
lexicalizations, as Table 16.1 shows (in translation, emphasis added; for the original
German text, see Appendix).5
The first pair of extracts illustrates how scare quotes (see Fowler 1991) flag a
distance from the colonial vocabulary of ‘explorers’. In 2006 the words ‘adventurers’,
‘explorers’ and ‘conquistadors’ are used as simple descriptive terms, whereas in the
new book in 2010, quotations marks indicate that this word is ‘someone else’s’
language: This is what ‘the Europeans’ said, not what we (the books’ authors) say.
In the second pair, the definite article in 2006 implies that ‘the white spaces’ are a
known entity: there are blank spaces on the world map, i.e. there was nothing in
Africa, or Africa was not known, before the European states appeared there. The book

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Table 16.1 Distancing from colonial discourse

History 9/10 (2006) History 9/10 (2010)

The European states’ politics of conquering Christian missionaries and – as the

foreign territory goes back as far as the Europeans said – ‘explorers’ came [to
sixteenth century, when Spanish and Africa].
Portuguese sailors and adventurers founded
colonial empires, especially in South America.
These explorers and conquistadors . . .

The race for the last white spaces on the world
map was, however, also motivated by
domestic politics.
Africa, which contrary to the European
view of the time most certainly also
included highly developed civilizations,
only became an object of the European
powers’ colonial desires at a late stage.

Task: What reasons are given for the imperial Task: Compare the rationalizations for
politics [in the source texts]? imperial politics, as they are presented [in
the source texts].

does not inform readers about any people, places or other history in Africa before
colonialism. In 2010, explicit distance is again taken to ‘the European view of the time’,
and the text explicitly mentions ‘highly developed civilizations’ in the region before the
colonial powers arrived.
The third extract from 2006, by asking for ‘reasons’ (‘begründet’) for the imperial
politics, presupposes that there are reasons for colonial politics. In 2010, the use of
‘rationalizations’ (‘Rechtfertigungen’; also ‘excuses’/‘justifications’) foregrounds the
active work necessary to make imperial politics (seem) legitimate, and could be read
as presupposing that this politics was not legitimate.
In 2006 the text creates an antagonism between Europe and Africa. In Europe
there are adventurers, explorers and reasons for imperial politics. In Africa there
are white spaces. In 2010, this antagonistic relation is dissolved, and a new political
frontier is realized which locates Africa and today’s Europe (of the authors and
the readers) on one side and the Europe of the colonizers on the other side of
the frontier. This is done by drawing two antagonistic chains of equivalence, i.e.
chains which link various elements into a relation of equivalence (see Laclau and
Mouffe 1985: 127ff.). One chain links the signifiers ‘Africa’, ‘highly developed civilizations’
and ‘came’ (relevant since someone ‘goes’ there, or ‘comes’ here, implying Africa
is proximal for the readers). A second chain links ‘the Europeans’ with the past
tense ‘said’ (i.e. those Europeans then), ‘the European view of the time’ and
‘rationalizations’. The latter (negatively loaded) chain is presented as distanced from
today’s readers.

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Overall, each of these 2010 extracts fulfils in some way the authors’ stated intentions
of changing contemporary discourse about Africa, of presenting students with an
Africa which does not seem as very dissimilar to their own lives in contemporary
Germany as previous educational media have implied. They enact a different African
history from that previously made available in educational media for schools. At the
same time, words such as ‘chief’ (‘Häuptling’) do still appear. In reproducing advertising
images from the colonial period, showing e.g. Black men carrying White men, colonial
relations are visually reproduced, even if the aim is to critically assess these relations.
These non-coherent words show how the ‘new’ discourse from the most recent
revision is layered on top of – and visible alongside – the ‘old’ discourse from the
previous books which are being revised and updated. Section 3 will return to explore
some further tensions within the authors’ stated intentions.

3.2 Decentring Europe?

Who acts during this period of history in Africa, and who is the passive recipient of
others’ actions? One criticism of textbooks is that they tell the story entirely from a
European perspective. Selecting imperialism as the focus is already clearly Eurocentred.
However, the author team criticized that the gaze always goes from Germany to the
rest of the world; it also needs to go in the other direction (GB_20090809_01:18:00).
And indeed, a shift is visible between 2006 and 2010 in whose perspective is prioritized
in History 9/10.
A classic discourse analytical tool, transitivity, demonstrates this shift. I draw on
transitivity analysis here as a way of capturing the impression of experience as ‘a flow
of events, or “goings-on” ’, i.e. as ‘a process unfolding through time’ and ‘participants
being directly involved in this process in some way’ (Halliday and Matthiessen 2004:
170). In this analysis, the primary question is which participants are positioned as
central in the process of colonialism: the colonizers or the colonized?
A clear shift in focus is visible for the section of German South-West Africa from
2006 to 2010. In 2006, 33 clauses had colonized or colonizer participants: 11 of the 33
are filled by Black participants (e.g. ‘the Herero’, ‘the survivors’, ‘the tribes’, ‘government
and parliament’), 22 are filled by White/European participants (e.g. ‘German Reich’,
‘Bismarck’, ‘settlers’, ‘European colonial masters’). In 2010, 35 clauses had colonized or
colonizer participants: 22 of the 35 are filled by Black signifiers (e.g. ‘Nama and Herero’,
‘Witbooi’, ‘Maharero’, ‘numerous peoples’), and 13 by White signifiers (e.g. ‘German
Reich’, ‘German troops’, ‘settlers’, ‘the Germans’). The balance has entirely reversed.
Where only one third of the text was centred on Black actors in 2006, two thirds is in
2010. This shift is not, however, as clear for other sections on colonialism/imperialism.
A second analytical concept, voice, also highlighted shifts in which perspective is
centred. Whose voice is heard, and what do they speak about? Table 16.2 indicates
changes between 2006 and 2010.

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Table 16.2 The voices of colonial history

History 9/10 (2006) History 9/10 (2010)

On Algeria: ‘The French historian G. On Algeria: ‘In a parliamentary debate on 14

Hanotaux, Foreign Minister from 1894 to May 1840, the French marshal Thomas
1898, gives the following reasons for the Bugeaud remarked that:’
imperial policies:’

On Algeria: ‘[. . .] The text originated after the On Algeria: ‘The Algerian Ferhat Abbas
defeat of the Kabyle rebellion in 1871:’ wrote:’

On German South-West Africa: ‘General On German South-West Africa: ‘The Herero

Lothar von Trotha, the Commander-in-chief of chief Daniel Kariko said about his
the protection force in German South-West experiences with German colonizers around
Africa, on 2. October 1904:’ 1900:’

On German South-West Africa: ‘Otto von On German South-West Africa: ‘On 23

Bismarck explained in the Reichstag on 16 February 1904, Theodor Leutwein, governor
June 1884 upon acquiring German South- of the colony, wrote to the colonial
West Africa:’ administration:’

On German South-West Africa: ‘A surviving

Herero:’

Table 16.2 lists the descriptions introducing the source texts in the 2006 and 2010
textbooks. Both books have sections on colonial history in Algeria and German South-
West Africa (now Namibia). In 2006, three Europeans – a French historian, German
general and German politician – are named. Two local source texts are included, but
one backgrounds the source (‘the text originated’), and the other remains unnamed, ‘a
surviving Herero’. In 2010, all four source texts are introduced by named individuals:
Bugeaud, Abbas, Kariko, Leutwein.
The table also hints at the issues each person speaks about. Where in 2006, people
of colour only speak after they have been defeated (in the Kabyle rebellion and after the
massacre of the Herero), 2010 includes more complex statements. Abbas speaks
about how to potentially improve the future relationship between France and Algeria.
Kariko speaks about the injustices the Herero suffered at the hands of German
merchants supported by German police.
Overall, the source texts in 2006 position the European colonizers as the central
actors in history. The Black population is articulated with defeat and positioned as the
unnamed objects of European actions. In 2010, a higher priority is given to Black
perspectives on colonization. One (named) Algerian – although we are given no
information about his status or profession – gives a strong opinion on current political
issues.6 This shifts the balance of power away from a simplistic perpetrator-victim
scheme, towards a more complex picture which foregrounds not only the strong

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power imbalances and injustices, but also important and vocal Black leaders and
political commentators. At the same time, the overall decision on whose voice will be
heard is made in the (western) European publishing house, with a predominantly White
staff.

3.3 Picturing modernity?

The primary author of the chapter on imperialism was, as noted above, very explicit in
expressing a desire to change the representations of Africa. The most surprising
element in this section on German South-West Africa is, he says, ‘the modernity of the
Nama and Herero. That is a really new insight’ (GB_20091106_02_1:52:20). He draws
on recent historical research to argue that their textbook is part of a dramatic shift in
perceptions of the Nama and Herero. The research ‘is really in transition about this’
(‘unheimich in Fluss an der Stelle’), he says. And: ‘It can’t be removed, the modernity
of these peoples’. An early manuscript included the following (emphasis added).

Hendrik Witbooi, baptized as a Christian and the literate leader of the Nama, criticized
African land sales to white settlers and made the initiative, under the weight of the
German advance, to end the old enmity between Herero and Nama.
(Der christlich getaufte, des Lesens und Schreibens kundige Führer der Nama,
Hendrik Witbooi, kritisierte afrikanische Landverkäufe an weiße Siedler und ergriff
unter dem Eindruck des deutschen Vordringens die Initiative zur Beendigung der
alten Feindschaft zwischen Herero und Nama.)
The Herero developed into a relatively modern and powerful cattle raising society
and slowly won control, also in military matters, over the northern part of Namibia.
(Die Herero entwickelten sich dadurch zu einer für damalige Verhältnisse modernen
und machtvollen Viehhaltergesellschaft und gewannen allmählich, auch militärisch,
die Oberhand im nördlichen Teil Namibias.)

Unfortunately for the author, the manuscript is far too long to fit in the book. The text
he has written would fill three pages in the textbook, but only two pages are available.
Also, the manuscript is what editors and authors refer to as a ‘desert of lead’
(‘Bleiwüßte’). It leaves no space for images, diagrams, historical source texts or tasks
for the students, without which a contemporary (multimodal) textbook is unthinkable.
After much discussion and debate on how to maintain an emphasis on the modernity
of the local population of the time, the team decides to resemiotize the written word
as an annotated map (see Figure 16.1).
The annotated map of Africa creates a multimodal chain of equivalence among
specific places on the continent and various elements signifying modernity,
development or similarity to Europe. The top right illustration of Mombasa, in particular,
is very similar in style to similar illustrations of European cities in the Middle Ages.

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FIGURE 16.1 Mapping the modernity of pre-colonial Africa.

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 398 FELICITAS MACGILCHRIST

The style also recalls the towns in the popular game Carcassonne. Alongside the
illustrations, the textboxes include the following:

After the eleventh century about 40 highly developed [highly civilized] coastal
towns arose including city states such as Kilwa which became wealthy through
trade relations which reached China and India but also into the inner regions of
Africa. [. . .]
Important cities such as Dahomey, Ashanti, Calabar and Benin developed on the
West African coast. The kingdom of Benin reached the peak of its power in
the fifteenth century. [. . .]
In the middle ages, vast empires such as Ghana and Mali arose. Their wealth and
power was based on having sufficient rain and fertile soil, owning gold mines, and
controlling trade routes. Towns such as Djenné and Timbuktu were renowned
centres of scholarship.

Each of these extracts describes highly developed aspects of life in Africa before
colonization. They describe developed/civilized towns, powerful cities and empires,
and specific activities which imply development such as owning gold mines, trading
globally, controlling trade routes, and developing centres of scholarship. Specific cities
or powers are named, Kilwa, Benin, Mali, Timbuktu, etc. ,some of which may be familiar
to student readers from today’s world news or maps.
In addition, one of the tasks refers to the map (Figure 16.1 above; referred to as 54.1
in the textbook):

Working with a partner, give your impressions of Africa before 1500 (54.1, Review).
Compare them with your knowledge about Europe in the Middle Ages.
(Bennent in Partnerarbeit Eindrücke von Afrika vor 1500 (54.1, Rückblick). Vergleicht
sie mit eurem Wissen über Europa im Mittelalter.)

This task explicitly inverts the usual traditional/modern, developed/undeveloped

dichotomy which is created in many media texts about Europe (as modern, highly
developed and civilized) and Africa (as backward, under-developed and primitive). Here,
it is Ghana, Djenné, Ashanti, etc. which students are invited to see as far more
developed or civilized than the Europe of the Middle Ages which they have learnt about
in previous classes and educational media (feudalism, peasantry, poverty, famine,
plague, etc.). The ‘other’, on the other side of the antagonistic divide which this text
creates, is the Europe of the Middle Ages.
In summary, these images, descriptions and task invite readers to see pre-colonial
Africa as a highly developed, civilized (‘hochentwickelt’) place. In the attempt to revalue
Africa, similarities with Europe are depicted and an explicit (antagonistic) comparison
with Europe is set up in which Africa is positioned as more developed/modern/pleasant.
Section 4 now turns to these notions of development and modernity in more detail.

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4 Modernity, coloniality and media discourse

The materials I have analysed here can be interpreted in various, conflicting ways. By
focusing on the selection of colonialism as one of the few topics in which Africa is
mentioned at all, they could easily support an argument that educational media
accounts of Africa reproduce an entrenched dominant racist discourse reproducing
‘Africans’ as the colonial objects of European subjects. By focusing on the dramatic
changes which have taken place since the overtly racist textbook accounts of Africa
and colonialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (see Macgilchrist and
Müller 2012), a positive discourse analysis of progressive social change could be
presented.
I (now) find that both of these approaches overlook the complexity and messiness
of (media) discourse, and thus the complexity and the messiness of the social (see
Law 2004; Marcus 1998). It is tempting to present neat and orderly findings. And it is
a challenge to present ‘messy’ or unresolved issues in a readable text. In this section
I draw on postcolonial and decolonial thinking to reflect on the analysis above, focusing
on a postcolonial horizon of intelligibility (3.1), the challenges of representing colonialism
(3.2), and the possibility of embracing decoloniality (3.3).

4.1 Postcolonial horizon of intelligibility

The analysis above has described three shifts between the 2006 book and the
revised 2010 book: (i) the lexis was largely decolonized, (ii) the perspective changed,
with local perspectives and Black individuals playing a much more prominent role,
and (iii) pre-colonial Africa was revalued as a place with a rich history. Each of
these shifts recalls debates in postcolonial studies (see e.g. Spivak 1988; Bhabha
1994). It seems clear that these aspects of a postcolonial perspective have become
part of the horizon of intelligibility in this example of contemporary media-making
practices. That this is still a relatively novel horizon is shown by the way one
author strongly argues for the need to change the way Africa has been presented
in previous educational media. It is not simply self-evident that these changes
must be made. However, no one else in the team argues with him (and they
certainly argue about other representational issues); they all seem to agree that change
is necessary. At the same time, the shift is accompanied – or fissured – by several
challenges.

4.2 Challenges of remembering colonialism

One challenge is that the new book does not completely remove all residues of
past colonial relations. Advertising visuals depict e.g. Black slaves carrying White

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 400 FELICITAS MACGILCHRIST

masters. The occasional use of lexis such as ‘chief’ primitivizes the Black political
leaders of the time. For some observers, the central problem is that African
countries or histories are only included within chapters on imperialism and
colonialism and thus must inevitably be presented as the colonial object. Africa
should be included in entirely different contexts, e.g. examples of technological
innovation originating in Africa such as the mobile payment system m-pesa in Kenya
and Tanzania; extracts about ALIF, a feminist hip hop band in Senegal; or biographies
of Europeans of African descent such as poet and activist May Ayim (see Opitz
et al. 1991).7
At the same time, a second challenge is whether more, not less, attention should
be paid to the responsibility of the colonizers for the atrocities committed in Africa
during colonialism. The author team agonizes over how to present the cruelty of the
time (GB_20091106_02_1:06:00).
These two challenges are on the level of representation: how should colonialism
as a specific historical project be remembered? A third challenge shifts level and
refers to the contemporary hegemonic formation which enables representation in
the first place. It asks how media discourse engages with what is now being called
coloniality. And: is this media discourse opening up or closing down decolonial
horizons?
Coloniality is here understood as a hegemonic epistemic frame, enacted today, that
produces and legitimizes differences and hierarchies between subjects, knowledges
and societies.8 While its roots lie in the historical project of colonialism since the
fifteenth century, I refer here to coloniality as the logic which (precariously) orders
global hierarchies today; not only between the global South and the global North but
also for the South in the North and the North in the South. For decolonial thinkers the
discourse of modernity is intricately tied up with the logic of coloniality (Mignolo 2007):
‘there is no modernity without coloniality, with the latter being constitutive of the
former’ (Escobar 2007: 185). Thinking about the coloniality of power means thinking
about the ways in which modernity/coloniality, as the living legacy of colonization, is
infused throughout modern societies across the globe as forms of knowledge, social
ordering and discriminatory practices (Quijano 2010).9
Coloniality is diffused throughout – and thus reproduced by – contemporary media
discourse which operates from sites of epistemic privilege, and plays a role in defining
the world in terms of modernity, modernization and development. The analysis
above suggests, for instance, how a universal modernity is posited to which all self-
evidently aspire. This modernity is flagged by words such as developed and civilization,
by activities such as controlling trade routes and creating centres of scholarship,
and by visuals such as the city state of Kilwa. The successful revaluing of Africa
seems to rest on the presupposition that since around the globe, we all aspire to be
highly developed, and pre-colonial Africa was clearly highly developed, Africa is not so
very different from Europe. Similarly, the task asking students to compare Africa and
Europe in the Middle Ages invites them to see Africa more positively, because it is

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 MEDIA DISCOURSE AND DE/COLONIALITY 401

more developed than Europe. The text interrupts the usual hierarchy of development in
which Europe is more developed and Africa less, but it still evaluates in terms of
development.
In this sense, by avoiding the widely critiqued practice of ‘othering’, the text
engages in ‘saming’ (see Schor 1995). The ‘same’ standards of modernity (science,
global trade, powerful civilized cities) which evaluate Europe positively are used to
judge pre-colonial Africa a success. The text thus (subtly, non-intentionally) enacts a
hegemonic formation in which one local history (European modernity) becomes the
universal standard to evaluate ways of knowing and being. This closes down the
possibility of engaging with other epistemic frames and of ‘thinking with distinct
knowledges, beings, logics, cosmovisions, and forms of living’ (Walsh 2010: 3; see
Walsh 2009).
Related to thinking about decoloniality is the challenge of academic writing about
these issues. In writing this chapter, I have struggled with various ways of describing
the people involved. I use the terms ‘Black’, ‘people of colour’, ‘colonized’, ‘local’,
‘White’, ‘Western’ and ‘European’. Each comes with its own positioned political
baggage (see Arndt and Ofuatey-Alazard 2011). Perhaps we should not be analysing
and writing in ways which demand such broadstroke categorization of individuals,
places, groups or histories. Since such categorization itself reproduces ‘Africa’ as
bounded and clearly defined, is it not part of coloniality itself? Or is it simply a practical
shorthand? Or perhaps part of the messy and irresolvable ambivalence of contemporary
social science?

4.3 Embracing decoloniality

Decolonial thinking, emerging primarily from scholars in Latin America, aims to make a
‘decisive intervention into the very discursivity of the modern sciences in order to craft
another space for the production of knowledge – an other way of thinking, un paradigma
otro, the very possibility of talking about “worlds and knowledges otherwise” ’
(Escobar 2007: 179). It suggests ‘that an other thought, an other knowledge (and
another world, in the spirit of Porto Alegre’s World Social Forum), are indeed possible’
(ibid.). A decolonial perspective encourages (educational) media to engage with (i) how
the micropractices and relations of power produce mono-epistemic privilege, and
(ii) how epistemic diversity can be enacted, i.e. how to foreground and value diverse
forms of knowledge, diverse ways of being and living.
The question for media discourse analysis working from this perspective is to
explore how it is enacted in concrete instances. In the extracts analysed here a major
step has been taken to revalue Africa. It is possible that the materials achieve their goal
of enabling students to approach the continent with a knowledge of its rich history, and
without the logic of inferiorization which is often visible in educational materials – and
media discourse more generally – about Africa.

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 402 FELICITAS MACGILCHRIST

However, the materials are ambivalent – as indeed ambivalences can inevitably

be identified in media discourse, if it is analysed from a perspective foregrounding
contradictions and fissures. At the same time as engaging with novel ways of
representing Africa and colonialism, the text does not engage with the coloniality
of power or of knowledge. Nor does it embrace epistemic diversity. As I suggested
at the outset, it is unlikely that corporate media will be part of dislocating the
hegemonic formation within which it is produced. For this reason, discourse
analysis of corporate media is perfectly placed not only to identify discursive change
and social transformation, but also to point to (provisionally, precariously) hegemonic
formations.

5 Concluding thoughts
This chapter has analysed media discourse on Africa from a post-foundational
perspective. By adopting a chronological approach, it has observed a shift in these
contemporary educational media towards a postcolonial discourse about Africa.
At the same time, it has pointed to the ways in which the materials – despite authors’
explicit intentions – re-enact a hegemonic formation (coloniality) in which European
standards of modernity/development are imagined as universal norms. For decolonial
thinkers such as Mignolo, Walsh and Escobar, the crucial next step is to explore
epistemic diversity and facilitate the decolonization of power, knowledge and being.
Not only media discourse but also media discourse analysis should move beyond a
Eurocentred perspective, and not remain, as this analysis has, focused on texts
originating within Europe. For Law (1994: 6), one way to avoid the ‘monster’ of
modernity is to embrace non-coherence and heterogeneity; to avoid presenting stories
which are too orderly and organized. Perhaps a trace of this can be seen in the non-
coherence among the various extracts and thus the ambivalence of the pages on
colonialism in Africa. A good deal of work, however, is done during the production of
educational media to present an orderly and coherent story. The questions of whether
– and if so, how – non-coherence is picked up by users of these texts, and whether/
how users engage in decolonizing strategies, need, of course, to be postponed to a
future study.

Acknowledgements
I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the authors, editors and other media
makers who have welcomed me to their meetings, and taken the time to talk to me
about their work and about my reflections on their work. I also thank Lars Müller
for many conversations about Africa, histories and irresolvable categorization
practices.

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 MEDIA DISCOURSE AND DE/COLONIALITY
Appendix
Table 16.3 Distancing from colonial discourse (German)
History 9/10 (2006)
Die Eroberungspolitik der europäischen Staaten
nach Übersee reicht bis in das 16. Jahrhundert
zurück, als spanische und portugiesische
Seeleute und Abenteurer Kolonialreiche vor
allem in Südamerika errichteten. Diesen
Entdeckern und Konquistadoren ging es
darum,. . .
Der Wettlauf um die letzten weißen Flecken auf
der Weltkarte war aber auch innenpolitisch
motiviert.
Arbeitsauftrag: Wie wird [in den Quellen] die
imperialistische Politik begründet?
Table 16.4 The voices of history (German)
History 9/10 (2006)
On Algeria: “Der französische Historiker G.
Hanotaux, Außenminister von 1894 bis 1898,
begründet die imperialistische Politik Frankreichs
folgendermaßen:”
On Algeria: “[. . .] Der Text entstand nach der
Niederschlagung des Aufstands der Kabylen 1871:”
On German South-West Africa: “General Lothar von
Trotha, der Oberkommandierende der Schutztruppe
in Deutsch-Südwestafrika, am 2. Oktober 1904:”
On German South-West Africa: “Otto von Bismarck
erklärte anlässlich der Erwerbung von Deutsch-
Südwestafrika am 16. Juni 1884 im Reichstag:”
On German South-West Africa: “Ein überlebender
Herero:”
28325.indb 403
403
History 9/10 (2010)
Christliche Missionare und – wie die
Europäer sagten –
“Entdeckungsreisende” kamen [nach
Afrika].
Afrika, das entgegen damaliger
europäischer Ansicht sehr wohl auch
Hochkulturen kannte, wurde erst spät
zum Objekt kolonialer Begierden der
europäischen Mächte.
Arbeitsauftrag: Vergleiche die
Rechtfertigungen imperialistischer Politik,
wie sie [in den Quellen] vorgetragen
werden.
History 9/10 (2010)
On Algeria: “In einer
Parlamentsdebatte äußerte der
französische Marschall Thomas
Bugeaud am 14. Mai 1840:”
On Algeria: “Der Algerier Ferhat
Abbas schrieb:”
On German South-West Africa: “Der
Herero-Häuptling Daniel Kariko sagte
übr seine Erfahrungen mit deutschen
Kolonisten um 1900:”
On German South-West Africa:
“Theodor Leutwein, Governeur der
Kolonie, schrieb am 23. Februar 1904
an das Kolonialamt:”
05/06/2014 13:12
 404 FELICITAS MACGILCHRIST

Notes
1 At the same time, Weiss and Wodak draw on Luhmann to argue that ‘symbolic
practices do not take place within social systems. Instead, they reproduce the latter
simply by taking place; the systems reproduced in this way then retroact on the
conditions of action. This means that engaging in an action equals system reproduction,
or in our concrete case, text production equals system reproduction.’ (2003: 10; original
emphasis). This I agree with, as with their assertion that ‘from an ontological
perspective microcontext equals macrocontext’ (ibid.). However, Weiss and Wodak then
argue that the only way to make sense of this reasoning is by adopting Giddens’
structuration approach. I would suggest that post-foundational thinking offers a different
way of making sense of this ontological perspective which enables, as I note above, a
novel and fruitful empirical perspective on the contingency and partiality of discourse.
2 Observations about media production tell us nothing yet about the use of these media.
A follow-up project is currently underway which follows the textbook analysed here
into the classroom, again adopting an ethnographic approach.
3 Ethnography fits well with the premises outlined in Section 1.3, but is not necessary
for a post-foundational approach to discourse analysis.
4 Post-foundational discourse theory does not ignore categories such as gender, race or
class. Although in principle discourse is fluid, some discourse (gender, race, class, etc.)
has become sedimented; i.e. these categories have come to seem permanent and
objective. Thus the subject positions created by the discourses indeed act as
constraints on individual action in the here and now (cf. Butler 1990; Laclau 1990: 34f;
Phillips and Jørgensen 2002: 55ff).
5 Due to my promise to the publishing house to anonymize the materials as far as
possible in publications, I do not cite the published text. Should any readers be
interested in seeing the materials in full, I am happy to send further details or page
scans upon request.
6 Abbas could have been described as a political activist, political leader, or the future
president of the provisional Algerian nationalist government-in-exile before
independence.
7 I thank Joshua Kwesi Aikins for information about the m-pesa. Projects on Black
Europe are ongoing at the Pedagogical Centre in Aachen (PÄZ) and the Center of
Study and Investigation for Global Dialogues (Diàleg Global). Resources on African
British histories are available for instance at http://lookhowfar.eventbrite.com or
http://narm2013.eventbrite.com.
8 I am using ‘hegemony’ in a slightly different sense to the way decolonial thinkers such
as Mignolo or Escobar use it. Drawing on Laclau and Mouffe, hegemony is for me a
more precarious, provisional formation, which must constantly be iteratively
reproduced, and can thus be fissured and dislocated.
9 While theories of ‘multiple modernities’ critique the notion of one homogeneous
modernity, arguing that societies are not all on the path to one singular (western)
modernity, they still distinguish between traditional and modern societies, retain the
core assumptions of development and progress, and reify the notion of distinct
‘cultures’ (e.g. Eisenstadt 2000; Delanty 2009). More interesting is Dath and Kirchner’s
(2012) argument in favour of an explicitly social progress (i.e. towards more social
justice).

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 MEDIA DISCOURSE AND DE/COLONIALITY 405

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