Media and Child Rights in Africa

Abstract

This chapter describes Kenyan media narratives and portrayals of children and their rights. The chapter examines how Kenyan media frame child rights stories. Through qualitative content analysis of child stories in selected Kenyan media platforms, the authors interrogated what these narratives tell us about how children and their rights are viewed and the implications of the media frames used. Findings showed that child rights stories are yet to receive the comprehensive coverage needed. The findings further indicated that Kenyan media framed the child in stereotypical and patriarchal ways with the voice of the child most times left out. In addition, many of the stories analysed were found to lack depth, context, and link to child rights. Some of the challenges that hamper effective media coverage include inadequate training on child rights reporting, lack of media desks tackling children stories, and insufficient knowledge on child rights.