In previous GNV articles, we have pointed out the strong regional imbalance in Japan’s international news coverage. As already reported, coverage of Africa in Japan’s international news in 2015 accounted for 3.4% of the total. Even in this region with little coverage, there were events that drew relatively more attention in recent years—the so-called “Arab Spring.” The Arab Spring refers to democratization movements centered on large-scale anti-government demonstrations that took place in Middle Eastern and Arab countries from 2010 to 2012. It is said to have begun with Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution in December 2010, and spread to many countries as information circulated on the internet. Dictatorial regimes were overthrown in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, but at the same time this brought social instability. In particular, in Syria, Yemen, and Libya the situation escalated into armed conflict; taking advantage of the turmoil, groups such as the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda rose, and regional powers including the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Iran intervened. These armed conflicts are still ongoing today, causing many casualties and refugees.

After the Arab Spring, a man checks an electoral list poster (Tunisia). Photo: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) /Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]]

This time we focus on North Africa, where the Arab Spring began, and look at Japanese reporting on the seven countries that make up the region (Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Western Sahara (※１), and Mauritania). We use data from the Tokyo morning edition of the national daily Asahi Shimbun, counting, by country, the character count of articles whose headlines include the name of a North African country. The counted articles are those that convey the situation in that country, including incidents and accidents. (※２)

First, let’s look at the amount of coverage by country on North Africa from 2010 to 2016. The graph below shows the total coverage by country from 2010 to 2016. The amount of coverage is the total character count of the articles aggregated using the method described above.

Looking at the graph, Egypt stands out, receiving roughly twice as much coverage as Libya, the second-most reported country. Meanwhile, the bottom three—Morocco (7,760.5 characters), Western Sahara (1,378 characters), and Mauritania (206 characters)—each received under 10,000 characters of coverage over the seven years. Morocco was not reported on even once between 2014 and 2016. Western Sahara had two articles in 2011 and one in 2013, and Mauritania had only one article in the entire period (in 2012). These three countries may seem to have little connection to Japan, but they have deep ties when it comes to food. In particular, they are important trade partners for seafood, with Mauritania and Morocco accounting for 72% of Japan’s octopus imports (2009). It is said that about 55% of Morocco’s fisheries catch comes, in violation of international law, from the coast of occupied Western Sahara, so Western Sahara is not unrelated either. For more on Western Sahara and Morocco, please read this article.

Next, let’s look at the annual amount of coverage for the top four countries—Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria. The following graph shows the trend in coverage from 2010 to 2016. These four countries (as well as Morocco) experienced the Arab Spring from 2011. We want to focus on the reporting during and after the Arab Spring.

As the graph shows, when the Arab Spring occurred in 2011, Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia saw far more coverage than in the previous year.

Egypt

Compared with other North African countries, Egypt receives a certain amount of coverage every year. The Arab Spring that began in Tunisia spread to Egypt, and less than a month after demonstrations broke out in January 2011, the long-standing regime that had continued since 1981 fell in February, and President Mubarak resigned. Notably, after the fall of the dictatorship in 2011, subsequent political instability—including the 2013 coup—and developments related to the interim cabinet continued to be reported extensively. Why is Egypt the only North African country to be covered continuously? One reason is that Egypt is a regional power in terms of both population and economy. Asahi Shimbun, like other Japanese media outlets, has correspondents in only two locations in Africa, one of which is Cairo, the capital of Egypt. In addition, Egypt is familiar to many in Japan because of the pyramids and its status as a destination of historical interest and tourism.

Libya

Coverage of Libya was striking in 2011—about 178 times that of 2010. This is because demonstrations in Libya developed into an armed conflict and dragged on. Inspired by the uprisings around Tunisia and Egypt, demonstrations broke out in Benghazi in February 2011, and clashes intensified between security forces led by Libya’s supreme leader, Colonel Gaddafi, and anti-government forces. Fierce fighting, including NATO airstrikes on Libya in support of the rebels, continued for about eight months until October of the same year, when Colonel Gaddafi was captured and the anti-regime National Transitional Council (NTC) declared the liberation of all Libya. During this period, Asahi Shimbun reported on Libya’s Arab Spring almost daily, often with multiple articles.

After the fall of the Gaddafi regime that had lasted since 1969, coverage of the Libyan situation declined sharply from 2012 onward, but as of 2017 the conflict in Libya has not yet subsided. The Constitutional Assembly, to which authority had been transferred from the National Transitional Council in 2012, was supposed to transfer authority back from the Constitutional Assembly to the National Transitional Council after the June 2014 elections for the House of Representatives, but since the transfer did not occur, a situation arose in which governments of both assemblies coexisted. The United Nations began mediation to establish a unity government, and although the Libyan Political Agreement was reached in 2015, the political agreement plan and cabinet list submitted in 2016 by the Presidential Council—composed of senior ministers of the Government of National Accord—were rejected. As a result, a formal Government of National Accord was not established, the governments of both assemblies continue to exist, and three political forces stand side by side domestically, resulting in anarchy and ongoing localized armed conflict.

Furthermore, although it was suppressed last December, IS had intervened in Libya since October 2014, and there were airstrikes by other countries against IS. Taking advantage of the anarchy, smuggling boats and slave markets along the migration route from Africa to Europe via the waters off Libya have become a serious problem. Both domestic politics and security remain highly unstable. Despite the myriad issues that have arisen since the Arab Spring, developments in Libya after 2011 have scarcely been reported. Daily coverage is essential to understand such a complex situation.

Sirte (Libya) two months after the regime’s fall. Photo: European Commission DG ECHO/flickr [CC BY-ND 2.0]

Tunisia

Coverage of the Arab Spring in Tunisia was relatively limited. Reasons include the slow realization that the extraordinary events unfolding in Tunisia were leading to broader regional developments, and, to begin with, that the Japanese media were not paying attention to Tunisia. The first article in 2011 was on January 14: “(Earth 24 Hours) Tunisian president replaces interior minister amid escalating protests,” and on the 15th, “Thousands protest in Tunisia, 12 dead; President Ben Ali says he will step down in 2014,” with the fall of the dictatorship being reported over several days. In 2015, 65% of Tunisia-related coverage concerned a single event—the museum attack—while the rest pertained to the Nobel Peace Prize. The museum attack involved Japanese casualties, so it was likely reported prominently because it concerned Japanese nationals.

Algeria

Finally, let’s look at the coverage of Algeria. Algeria and Morocco were affected by the Arab Spring, but their governments pledged to address public grievances and amended their constitutions, so the regimes were not overthrown. The graph shows that 2013 stands out. Almost all coverage concerned the Algerian hostage crisis, accounting for 96.9% of the total for the entire period. In that incident, Islamist militants attacked a natural gas facility in Algeria and more than 800 people, including Japanese nationals, were taken hostage. Japanese media reported daily on the status of Japanese victims and the background. There was little coverage of the 2014 presidential election, and there was no coverage of Algeria at all in 2015 and 2016.

The analysis of the bottom three countries by coverage shows that even countries related to Japan are not necessarily reported on. Even for countries that are rarely covered, when Japanese nationals are victims—as in the Tunis museum attack or the Algerian hostage crisis—the story is covered extensively. In a region that is already underreported, focusing only on incidents in which Japanese people are harmed locally not only fails to deepen understanding of the region, but may also create misleading images.

Through this analysis of reporting on North African countries, the imbalance in coverage stands out. Egypt may be an exception, but overall coverage was very limited and fragmentary. Even when there are a few events that are heavily reported for a short period, coverage does not continue. There may be various factors such as space constraints, reporting costs, and audience demand, but we should keep in mind that reporting and media have a major influence on how we understand and form images of the world, including this region, which is by no means someone else’s problem.

Sunset at Jemaa el-Fna Square (Morocco). Photo: Michael Camiller/flickr [CC BY 2.0]

Writer: Miho Takenaka
Graphics: Miho Takenaka

Footnotes

※１：Western Sahara has two-thirds of its territory occupied by Morocco and is not a UN member state, but it is a member of the African Union.

※２：Regarding the counting method: for example, the January 27, 2016 article “(Earth 24 Hours) Secularists reject cabinet list; Libya seeks unity government” (197 characters). When multiple countries or institutions are included in the headline, the character count was divided by that number. For example, the August 2, 2016 article “U.S. launches airstrikes in Libya against IS” (287 characters) involves two countries—the United States and Libya—so it was counted as 143.5 characters.