THE IMPACT OF MEDIA AND ETHNIC HEGEMONY ON ETHNIC CONFLICTS IN AFRICA

Abstract

Africa has been facing incessant conflicts in recent decades. Most of these conflicts are intra-state rather than inter-state. Many scholars have worked on the causes of conflicts in Africa, but few have identified the role played by the media and ethnic hegemony in engendering ethnic conflicts in Africa. Conflicts in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sudan, and South Sudan, to mention a few, are not unconnected with the misuse of media that led to some ethnic groups being profiled and eventually becoming targets of attacks. And the role of ethnic hegemony on the other hand, which makes some ethnic groups abhorred by other ethnic groups due to their disposition toward other ethnic groups within the state on commonwealth. This paper attempts to investigate the role of these two variables, media and ethnic hegemony, in engendering ethnic conflicts in Africa with the intention of providing possible solutions to the menace. The paper makes use of secondary data as a source of information and uses content analysis for data analysis. It also makes use of conflict theory, which was propounded by Karl Marx, who argued that there exist two major social classes or groups in any society: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The paper argues that Africa will be conflict-free if media are monitored to avoid inciting one ethnic group against another and proper structuring is also done to avoid actual or perceived behavior of one ethnic group behaving like a hegemon.