Media Stereotypes and Subnational Identities: The Survival of British Colonial Representations of the Basoga in the Ugandan Press, 2008-2015

British colonial rule in Africa brought with it the construction of ’tribal’ territorial entities and peoples, ushering in an era of ethnic manipulation, which had extremely damaging effect on the continent, with some post-colonial nations experiencing enormous trauma. The older, oral histories of African peoples were subsumed into grand narratives of colonial empire and eventually national entities. For their own selfish advantages, the colonial administrators created very unfamiliar territories and peoples, by using the labels available in English, notably ’tribe’ and ’clan’, in the mid-1800s, just beginning to be developed as theoretical concepts in the emerging North Atlantic academic institutions. It is against this background that Uganda was created through the integration of disparate ethnic groups into a coherent national structure. This process of divide and rule brought with it the creation of several ’tribes’ or ethnic groups that never existed before - as a way of creating manageable territories. One of these newly defined ethnic groups was the Basoga people - their territory known as Busoga -a process that had underlying tones of marginalization and stigmatization. This research, which was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Global Communications with the American University of Paris, examines how the present-day Ugandan press reinforces subtle stereotypes developed against the Basoga people by the British colonial masters. It examines two of Uganda’s leading dailies: The New Vision and Daily Monitor on their coverage, reporting and framing of Busoga kingship (Kyabazingaship), following the process between 2008 when the king died to 2014 when a new one was installed, plus the 2015 aftermath. My analysis argues that the Ugandan press today sustains the narrative created about the Basoga by the British colonial masters.