The power of images and video: the narratives we construct
A session exploring what images learners have of “Africa” and “Malawi” in their heads and where these images came from. Are they accurate? Are they fair? Are they helpful? The session supports empathy, encouraging learners to think about different perceptions of people in Scotland and how these make us feel. It explores the challenge for the media, charities and activists of wanting to accurately reflect the human implications and social injustice of extreme poverty in Malawi, while not reinforcing negative stereotypes or continuing a narrative of pity which undermines Malawi’s long-term economic development. The session works to dispel harmful stereotypes, showing Malawi in a positive and progressive light, highlighting the many successful Malawi-led development initiatives, encouraging empathy and critical reflection of the language and images which learners use and consume regarding Africa.
| SMP Learning Outcome | Learning intention |
|---|---|
| Negative stereotypes about Africa identified and challenged, with critical reflection about the media ‘consumed’. | I can see that some of what I previously thought I knew about Africa is wrong and harmful. |
| An empathetic understanding of the harm negative stereotypes have. | I can imagine what it would feel like if someone were to say or think these things about me. |
| Critical reflections around the different narratives, images and video used by charities; specifically, the dangers of a ‘pity narrative’, and the alternatives to it. | I can see how negative charity campaigns can do real damage, even if they raise lots of money, and there are better ways of telling stories. |
| Understanding of what learners can themselves do to question the narratives they consume, look for different sources, and avoid themselves sharing negative stereotypes on social media. | I can see what I can do to avoid negative stereotypes and harmful narratives. |
Teacher notes: Introduction to this session
This webpage gives you all need to know deliver a lesson encouraging critical thinking around the images and narratives young people consume about the developing world. The learning resource is made up of three sections, each of which has three learning outcomes. You don’t have to deliver all three, feel free to pick and choose, or just focus on one of these sections.
This is a complex, important and potentially sensitive area. We have written this resource for discussion at a mid to upper secondary level but it can be amended and simplified to make it accessible for lower ages and stages.
We talk about ‘Africa’ through this lesson but be careful to emphasise that Africa is a continent not a country.
Depending on the age of the learners, you may need to first define terms such as “stereotypes”, “narratives”, “empathy” “parody”.
There is an accompanying PowerPoint which you can use to deliver this session, editing however you wish, it has notes from this webpage embedded in it.
We’re here to help, so if you want any support, advice or even someone to come and deliver this lesson for you, please just email youth@scotland-malawipartnership.org.
Do No Harm:
In keeping with our Partnership Principle, ‘do no harm’ we encourage teachers in delivering this lesson to be careful they do not unintentionally:
- Reinforce negative stereotypes about the global south.
- Ignore the existence of poverty and inequality in Scotland.
- Leave learners with a sense of helplessness, that there is nothing they can do to fight poverty.
- Ignore poverty and inequality within the UK.
- Leave learners thinking Africa is a single homogenous country.
- Unhelpfully simplify complex subjects.
- Unfairly demonise one celebrity or one charity when the issue is wider and societal.
- Discourage learners from donating to charity appeals or getting involved in international links.
- Encourage ‘white saviour’ ways of thinking: that richer countries can and should set out to ‘save’ poorer countries (see our separate lesson on this topic).
Q – What is your first thought when you think of ‘Africa’?
Ask learners to draw their first image that comes into their head when they think of Africa.
Q – What aspects of this image are positive and what are negative?
Without changing the content of their pictures, invite learners to annotate on to their drawing labels highlighting what they see as negative/undesirable aspects of their picture (e.g. ‘poor’, ‘dirty’, ‘sick’), and then label any aspects they see as positive (e.g. ‘beautiful landscape’; ‘wildlife’ etc). Try not to influence learners, instead encouraging them to honestly reflect on what they first drew.
Q – Do you think all of Africa is like your picture?
Ask learners this question and facilitate a discussion around this. Try to bring out the below points:
- Africa is a continent made up of 54 countries, each of which are different. Just one of these countries, Algeria, is 80 x bigger than Scotland by landmass (2.38 miles2, compared to 20,081 miles2).
- There are over 1.4 billion people in Africa, and over 2,000 languages.
- Yes, many parts of Africa are extremely poor compared to Scotland but, just like Scotland, countries in Africa have rich people and poor people; there is diversity and inequality.
Q – Where did you ‘get’ your image of Africa from?
Ask everyone who has not been to Africa to put up their hand. Invite these people to share where they learnt about Africa / where they got this image from (e.g. a charity appeal, the news, a wildlife documentary, etc)
Q – Are images ‘neutral’?:
Facilitate a discussion with learners around this question, trying to bring out the following point:
- Even photos and ‘real’ video aren’t neutral: someone has chosen what to photograph, from what angle, to tell the story they want to tell (the image might be a true likeness of something but the story, or ‘narrative’, might be made up).
Q – Why do some media sources want to give us certain narratives of Africa?:
Facilitate a discussion, encouraging learners to think about each of the below, asking them why this media would tell a certain story/narrative of Africa. Encourage learners to think about the context for each:
- Who is ‘producing’ the narrative and who is ‘consuming’ it?
- What intentions do the producers have – what do they want people to do when they watch?
- What is the historical context?
- What assumptions might there be?
- What is the impact of their narrative?
- News report – Will always want to focus on the newsworthy story – the war zone, the area in drought or famine, the corrupt politician. It isn’t a proportionate representation of life in Africa but rather what’s going wrong in Africa. Most media outlets have a commercial incentive: they need to sell more papers, or get more advertisers. This can have a negative consequence: with people consuming this news thinking this is what all of Africa is like.
- Charity appeal – Often charities give us a negative image of Africa (starving children, etc) to encourage people to donate. Sometimes they can be guilty of a ‘white saviour’ mindset (benevolent white people have the skills, capabilities and duty to ‘save’ Africa) which comes from generations of colonial rule. There can be an assumption that the more shocking the image, the more money will be donated. This can have negative consequences as the audience becomes used to associating ‘Africa’ with ‘pity’ and ‘unending poverty’.
- Films (especially older films) – Often showed Africa as ‘dark’, ‘dangerous’, ‘wild’ and ‘exotic’, while white involvement was often seen as ‘romantic’, ‘heroic’, ‘elegant’, ‘brave’, ‘beautiful’ and ‘doing good’. Such stereotypes were often directly racist and historically served to justify colonial rule. They have had hugely damaging consequences. [Slide: The African Queen (1951) Out of Africa (1985) Blood Diamond (2006) ]
- News report – Will always want to focus on the newsworthy story – the war zone, the area in drought or famine, the corrupt politician. It isn’t a proportionate representation of life in Africa but rather what’s going wrong in Africa. Most media outlets have a commercial incentive: they need to sell more papers, or get more advertisers. This can have a negative consequence: with people consuming this news thinking this is what all of Africa is like.
Sometimes negative images and narratives in the media are created intentionally with a purposeful negative agenda and are easy to spot, and sometimes they are not intentional and are harder to spot. Either way, they often come out of ignorance (made by people that haven’t been to Africa), laziness (it’s easier to perpetuate stereotypes than challenge them), assumptions and racism.
- Images and narratives are almost never neutral, they are produced to tell a certain story, and usually make one group of people look good and others look bad.
- Many portrayals of Africa in the media, even the news, include harmful negative stereotypes.
- It is important to be alert to what sort of narratives you are consuming, from where, what agendas and stereotypes there might be and what the historical context is.
Watch the BBC clip of Rab C. Nesbitt.
Q - How were Scots portrayed in this programme?
Ask learners to describe in one word how Scots are made to look in this clip, first asking for negative points (drunk, violent, all white, poor, rude, uncultured) and then positive points (not many!).
Q – Is this a fair image of Scotland and Scots?
Facilitate a discussion, drawing out points around the diversity within Scotland.
Q – What other stereotypes about the Scottish can you think of?
Facilitate a discussion, perhaps drawing out points like: bagpipes, red hair, kilts, miserly/ungenerous, tartan, whisky, deep-fried mars bar, bad weather, bad food, Loch Ness Monster, angry and unwelcoming, Haggis.
Ask if these are all true and where learners feel these images of Scotland came from.
Q - How do these Scottish stereotypes make you feel?
Encourage learners to think about feelings empathy, to build their understanding of how others feel when stereotypes are perpetuated in the media about them.
Stopping to think ‘how would I feel if this were the other way round’ is one of the most important ways you can judge whether you’re doing the right thing. This is called ‘empathy’ and its hugely important.
Q- What does Scotland need other countries to do, for Scotland to get richer, and do these stereotypes help?
Scotland needs other countries to: buy Scottish goods, trade with Scotland, invest in Scotland and visit Scotland.
Negative stereotypes make it less likely that others will see you as an equal: they are less likely to do business with you or go on holiday to your country if they do not feel confident and safe.
The same is true of negative stereotypes about Africa: they make it less likely that others will trade with Africa, invest in Africa, buy African goods and visit Africa on holiday.
- There are negative stereotypes about Scotland just as there are about Africa.
- It isn’t nice to have negative stereotypes and narratives about you in the media – it leads others who haven’t met you to make negative assumptions about you.
- Negative narratives can have real, harmful negative consequences for whole countries and continents – this can mean poor countries get poorer.
View the slides showing images of charity appeals with negative stereotypes.
Q – What is the narrative in these appeals?
Listen to learners and encourage them to think about:
- Who produced them? [A charity raising money]
- Who ‘consumes’ them? [People in the UK who probably haven’t been to Africa]
- What do they want the ‘consumers’ to do? [Donate money]
- What narrative do they tell of people in poorer countries? [Poverty, pity, hopelessness, needing saving]
- What narrative do they tell of people in richer countries? [Kind, generous, have a duty to ‘save’]
- What impact does it have overall? [Continues stereotypes, makes sustainable economic development in these communities harder].
Q – Does raising money for a charity justify using negative narratives?
This is a complex area. Perhaps break the class in two and debate the question, to ensure both sides of the issue are aired.
- On one side:
- If there is a crisis humanitarian situation is it not right to show what this really looks like.
- Are these appeals trying to represent specific crisis situations, not all of Africa?
- Would anyone that had their lives significantly improved really question a narrative of pity used in a video 5,000 miles away, if this is what generated the necessary funds?
- Is our concern with these images really about just not wanting to others’ suffering?
- BUT on the other side:
- think about the dignity of those portrayed.
- think about the longer term, wider impact of negative narratives on trade, business, investment and tourism.
- Even if these appeals only aim to raise awareness of one crisis situation, if this is all audiences see of Africa, then this is the image people are left with of Africa.
- what harm does it do to have audiences become used to, and desensitised to, negative images like this: do they see certain parts of the world as ‘hopeless’ and ‘permanently poor’?
- what harm does it do the communities themselves, to have photographers and videographers turn up and want to show suffering, so others can ‘save’ them?
- Are there better ways to raise funds, which don’t require the same negative images?
Watch Radi-Aid by the Norwegian Students' & Academics' International Assistance Fund (SAIH).
Q – What reflections do you have from this video?
Encourage learners to think about what the video is about and for.
It is a parody video, making fun of and questioning celebrity-led music videos which raise money for Africa which can be underpinned by assumptions and negative stereotypes. It turns this on its head by imagining Africa raising funds for Norway to buy radiators.
Explain that this video was made by the Norwegian Students' & Academics' International Assistance Fund (SAIH). This is an organisation which is committed to challenging negative stereotypes in international development.
Explain that, inspired by this video, they used to have an annual competition to highlight charity videos which they thought have harmful narratives and negative stereotypes to encourage a critical understanding of this issue. The Comic Relief video shown received their ‘Rusty Radiator’ award.
They also had a ‘Golden Radiator’ award for charity videos which had more positive narratives and which challenged stereotypes. Here is one of the winners:
Q – What reflections do you have from this video?
- Who is the ‘hero’ of this story?
- What stereotypes is this video challenging?
- How does it make you feel?
- What does it make you want to do?
People watching this video see the ‘hero’ is the dad: they can imagine what it must feel like to go through a war, perhaps because some can remember the time they thought their dad was invincible.
It is moving but it doesn’t reply simply on pity, poverty and vulnerability: it offers empathy and insight. It challenges negative stereotypes about refugees and asylum seekers.
Recent research has shown that, if done well, like this video, charities can use more positive, honest narratives of Africa and still raise the same amount of money, or even more.
Q – What can YOU do to ensure you’re not consuming or sharing negative stereotypes?
Facilitate a discussion, trying to draw out the below points:
- Think about the media and narratives you are consuming: who is making them, who is consuming them, what are the assumptions and stereotypes, and what harm might this be having.
- Look for different media and different sources of information on this subject. If you want to learn about Malawi, try to find a Malawian source (if someone wanted to learn about Scotland, you would want them to ask someone from Scotland).
- Think about your own word and actions. We have focused mostly on film, tv and the news but social media is possibly a more important source of negative narratives because it isn’t regulated and you can’t see what messages different people are receiving. Every time you ‘like’ or ‘share’ something, you are responsible for passing it on: before you do, ask if you’re sure it is true, fair and constructive, ask yourself how you would feel being portrayed this way.
- Charities using negative stereotypes in the narratives they create can have a lasting negative impact, even if they use these narratives to raise funds and do good.
- Things are changing, and more and more charities are choosing to use more positive, honest, diverse and dignified narratives, while still raising the same amount of funds, or more.
- It’s important to think about the media and narratives you are consuming; try to listen to different voices (most importantly people from the countries you are learning about); and take responsibility for what you consume and share on social media.