Bias ? An Overview of the Coverage of the Crisis in Madagascar in the Media

[Update: I wrote the following post before the stand off between armed forces and protesters today. Armed forces used tear gas and fired in the air to disperse crowd that wanted to take over ministry buildings.
The account by the media of today's events will obviously be quite telling of the coverage of the crisis]


The coverage of the current political conflict in Madagascar is intriguing in many ways because the perception of the conflict is quite different depending on the viewers' locations or affinities.
First, let me state that I am currently not in Madagascar. I try to follow as closely as I can the conflict by reading the reactions made available online.

Accusations of bias has been expressed many times by either camp and since they both owned their own media outlets for a while, I think bias is certainly expected.

It has reached the point where many people in Madagascar are tuning out news outlet because they recognize them as an instrument of propaganda.

The battle has of course reached the press and the interwebs. Financial backing by political parties of a few newspapers provoked suspicions of non-neutrality.

Citizen media filled a partial void there by documenting the events themselves with their own point of view ( biased or not).

So there is a definite fatigue among Malagasy people from the constant barrage of political messages masquerading as news, a strong desire to stay away from political events.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are many people outside of Madagascar (esp. in the US) who are still not aware that there is unrest over there . It is understandable because TV coverage has been quasi-nonexistent here so far. The international online press has done a better job lately than in the early part of the conflict.

In France, the narrative is a bit more complex because of the special ties between France and Madagascar dating from the colonial period.

Tension between the Ravalomanana administration and France are not a secret. There is currently no permanent French ambassador assigned to Madagascar after clashes between former Ambassador and Marc Ravalomanana.

Supporters of Ravalomanana also organized a protest on Saturday (in parallel to the meeting for peace ones) to protest an alleged bias in the coverage of the crisis from French media ( a bit more on this later)

So let's try to have a clearer picture on how the Madagascar crisis is being covered and what we can learn from it:

I am evidently not a media expert, I only have a strong interest in the coverage of Malagasy content. Fell free to correct me or suggest a better way to analyze the media coverage.
For this purpose, I will be using two tools: wordle.net for word cloud analysis and google news to analyze the news online content.

I will mostly skip the non-text materials because it is 1) again mostly non-existent here and 2) I am not sure how to do that properly.

If one wants to determine whether a website is biased, one need to determine how to detect bias.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) there is no shortage of website who clearly support one or the other protagonist. A definite platform to express a 3rd opinion or a call for unity is yet to materialize.

Let's start with how to spot a biased website aka known as positive controls in biological terms:

1) What words would a pro-Ravalomanana website mostly use ?
let's see:


( all images generated by wordle.net)

A few words jumps at the reader instantly: Tiko, Eveques, President, TGV, Merci/Thanks

1) Tiko is the president' own business venture, so no surprise there.
2) Eveques translates to archbishops; the church is currently mediating negotiation between the two sides and religion is displayed front and center in both Ravalomanana and Rajoelina's agendas
3) President, TGV and Merci/Thanks: the emphasis of legitimacy is expected here. Ravalomanana is the elected president. TGV is interesting because calling the opponent by a nickname that suggests haste would lessen his credentials. I.e, they protray him as an immature young man. Merci/Thanks suggest that Ravalomanana would like other to believe that he is still getting a lot of support from the people and outside. He may or may not but he sure is grateful. (Thanks is one of the only word present in English).

2) A Pro-Rajoelina website:



Words that jump out: Place, Foule, Rajoelina, Daewoo, Patrie, Sang

Clearly, the emphasis here is on the fact that a popular movement has taken the street to showcase their patriotism. Place is the meeting place where la Foule (crowd) would demand what would be best for Madagascar. The fact Sang ( blood) is also repeated often denotes that Rajoelina blames the massacre of Red Saturday on Ravalomanana. A notable missing word there is Ravalomanana. This website won't acknowledge the man blamed for most of Madagascar's woes.

3) How about an alleged neutral website ?



Words: President, Rajoelina, Dialogue, Calme, Pro-TGV.

It sure seems more balanced that the previous two. Yet, the presence of Pro-TGV instead of pro-Rajoelina may suggest that this website would emphasize the importance of a back to normal life and might place most of the blame on the former mayor.

Who financially backs the websites obviously will drive the content of their coverage.


Why Twitter in the Malagasy context:

This is where citizen media reporting especially with micro-blogging (twitter) has a clear advantage over the large websites. No need for costly maintenance of websites.

The one advantage of twitter in the western world and India is the possibility to send message via text messages. That possibility has been negated when Twitter removed the option to carry SMS messaging in the rest of the world as explained by White African.

This is why initiatives like Ushahidi are critical for crisis reporting in ssAfrica and that we are testing it in Madagascar.

However there are other major advantages besides text messages to twitter that Malagasy twitterers have used efficiently:

1) All tweets initially get equal exposure, unlike comments on websites. Emphasizing good information with retweet or disavowing bad ones can be done instantly. Information and filter is crowd sourced to a certain degree ( limited to those online unfortunately)

2) The fact that one is limited to 140 characters favors the reporting of facts over opinions. It is evidently not always the case but it is an additional filter.

3) "Searchable" topics with hashtags. The "#Madagascar" hasthag was quickly picked up by all as the tag to use with tweets related to the crisis.

4) Possibility to reach a large audience instantly.

5) Limited bandwith. Although no one is immune to fail whale, the fact that tweets can be posted quickly helps a lot in a bandwidth limited regions.


Of main stream media outside Madagascar

As mentioned earlier, there is limited TV broadcast except for shorts clips on French TV news. Still, persistent rumors of media bias led to protest in front of the Maison de La Radio building in Paris. International Francophone TV channel TV5 even issued an apology for not providing as much footage from the Ravalomanana camp as the Rajoelina camp because they were not given same access. Why Ravalomanana would not provide sufficient access to TV5 is a bit puzzling but might be a product of his apprehension for french-speaking media.

Now is there real bias in the international coverage ?

The coverage as aggregated by google.com (news):
12,155 news items on Madagascar
8,256 news items on Rajoelina
7,990 news items on Ravalomanana
367 news items on Madagascar 2.

and it is roughly the same number of items on news aggregated by google.fr.

we established earlier the type of words that one camp would use. Now we can search for the same words ans see in what news channel they would appear more often:

A pro-Rajoelina Rethoric would use 3 words frequently: " Rajoelina + daewoo + blood"

Google.com news items for: "Rajoelina + daewoo + blood" = 1
Google.fr news items for: "Rajoelina + daewoo + blood" = 12

let's revisit favorites words used by pro-Ravalomanana: "president + tiko + calme"

google.com (news) : "president + tiko + calme"= 27 news items
google.fr (news): "president + tiko + calme" =25 news items

Statistical study on news about Madagascar were also slightly skewed by the release of Madagascar 2 on DVD the day before Red Saturday so here is a word cloud of google news articles that contains "Ravalomanana + Rajoelina":




words that stand out: Protesters, Forces, Saturday, Killing, Cyclone.

In Google.fr for the same words:



Words that stand out: President, Maire, face-a-face, manifestations, Forces.




How do word clouds of the French online press articles on the causes of the Madagascar crisis look like ?

No RSS feed available from any of the main MS media so here is the world cloud from an article entitled: "testimonies: neither for Ravalomanana nor Rajoelina"


The words that stand out: President, Sang, Capitale (blood, president, Capital City).

In L'express, an analysis/editorial goes over the cause of the crisis:



Words: TGV, rouge, Bulldozer, Ratsiraka, ressemblent, Daewoo: (TGV, red as in red saturday, Ratsiraka)

Let's compare that with a similar causal analysis from from IRIN news (english):




Words: Antananarivo, people, economic, president, crisis.

If there is unbalanced reporting in the foreign press, it is certainly hard to pinpoint with absolute certainty. But one would suggest that the emphasis on the economy is stronger in anglophone press whereas the francophone press is more political.

In summary

There is a small difference in the phraseology of the Madagascar crisis between English speaking and French-speaking news online. However, it is unclear whether that is due to the french-speaking crowd being more familiar with the issues or just an unbalanced coverage of the crisis.
Given that most Malagasy articles are written in French, more polarized content will be found in French as well.
I don't think the blame for unbalanced coverage were warranted but given the history of the two nations, it is a trend worth keeping an eye on.

Tomavana wrote an extensive piece on this issue (fr).

Teach someone you love to micro-blog

Global Voices is having a Valentine's day blog drive (is that the correct the terminology ?) where bloggers teach loved ones how to blog, or micro-blog


After getting rejected several times at work on my offer to teach how to micro-blog (No, I swear it was not a pick=up line), I turned to family for comfort and as a last resort. I was going to teach my 4-legged roommates but they already have a blog.

My mum is a busy person. When on the phone, if it takes more than 2 minutes, she will often tell you to speed up because she is in between commitments.
However, unlike the other members of my family, she is a true believer in the power of communicating tools and network.

So twitter's less than 140 characters policy is a perfect match for her. Additionally, bandwidth is still at a premium in Addis Ababa and she is often on the go so micro-blogging is definitely the way to go.

We went with twitter. We considered the other options but since she is far from a geek and she will use twitter to collect quick information and find people in her line of work, we figure the most utilized one would work best.

Setting up her account over the phone was easy, the challenge was to find a password strong enough yet easy to remember(she often calls me to retrieve her login passwords). One line bio: check. Photo: check. SMS updates: nope, not from here.
background: still deciding between Mesquel Square or Rova.




Okay, now the fun part.
Who to follow and how to find them ?

Well she wanted fresh news from Madagascar, especially now so I had to direct her towards the limited although growing group of twitterers based in Madagascar.
Joan collected all Foko bloggers on twitter here so that's probably a good place to start.
@ariniana, @as2coeur,@dadandry, @layshiyuu01 , @r1lita (& more to come).

Then you want to add all the micro-bloggers on site who provided instant news during the crisis (in alphabetical order):
@barijaona, @DotMG, @DanielAustin, @harinjaka, @foko @pmalgachie, @saveoursmile, @tandriamirado, @thierry_ratsiz ( Not the full list of twitterers in Madagascar)

Now, we just need to remember the password, choose a practical twitter manager, synchronize with facebook and and we are good to go. Oh I forgot, one also need to tweet more than once a year !

I should have skipped the latest sarcasm because my mum decided not to follow such an ingrate, mocking son.

Happy Valentine's day everyone. And remember, don't mock your mum's computer skills

PS: shameless plug: 4 legged-roommates also now on twitter.
They are not following me either.

Of opinion and online conversation

2009 has already been quite a crazy year just a little more than a month into it. The consequences of such dramatic events and the increased connectivity of the world is that more information but also more opinions and rumors are readily available to our inquiring minds.

Evidently that is not true everywhere. From my restricted point of view, I was pleasantly surprised to see so many people weighing in and participating in information sharing and conversations about the sad events in Madagascar.

Despite mainstream media ( radio and tv) being restricted for various reasons, access to events were still possible thanks to on-site netizens doing live reporting.

There were also more than reporting going on on the web. People died, the economy is heading for a plunge and the political scene is still a bit confusing.
So people want to understand and possibly point fingers at who is to blame for all this.
Many also drew parallel to the Gaza situation. In my opinion, it was an inappropriate comparison to make but it reflected the fact that innocent people in both regions were scared and angered, victims of decisions they didn't not agree with.

I was glad to see the massive online participation but it became clearer than it would become difficult to sort information from rumors, willingness to debate from insults and shouting matches.

That is true regarding crisis in Madagascar and I don't need to tell you this but it is also probably true regarding the Gaza crisis.

I was discussing the state of the global blogosphere with ketablaogy, who is among those who are very skeptical of the benefits of increased participation online (many governments are also leaning towards restricting access now).

I told her that 20 years ago, all of us felt helpless about events around us. We had 1 TV station and we all knew too well that it was a propaganda machine. Now, if you do not agree, you can articulate your argument and let people decide if you it's a load of crap or not. Obvious argumentation on my part; hey that is what I truly believe otherwise I should instead close this blog and have fun Michael Phelps-style. (I still might do that).

Ketabloagy thinks otherwise. She thinks that less is more. Let the experts explain what they were trained to do. To illustrate this, she quotes the philosopher Serge Carfatan on " The Realm of Opinions":

It is regarded as sound advice to tell someone progressing on the path of life : « you must form your own opinions » [...] This enables us to discuss of this, that and the other, give our point of view, make a comment[...] On the other hand however it is not enough to stick to opinions. What is the value of our opinions on technical matters on which we have no competence? Are we to have opinions ready for idle talk? Would it not be better to keep quiet? An opinion is a vague idea about something, it is not yet a founded conviction.

I am thinking: you really don't have to get mean and personal here.

He goes on:

"To understand is not to condemn and it is not about taking side. Yet we frequently tend to sort everything into neat categories via rapid judgments. Life cannot be represented in dual simplistic schemes, it cannot be reduced to alternatives such as “brill/rotten”, “it’s good/ it’s bad”, “I had to do it/ I couldn’t do it”. Because our judgment is freely decided, because it belongs to us, it is possible for us to avoid precipitation and prejudice through suspending our judgment. This is called epoke. Thus it is our responsibility to avoid the mistake that consists in assenting too quickly to ideas that after all are rather muddled. To give one’s opinion is therefore to make an intelligent and rational use of one’s freedom of choice, one’s free will."

I think I get it. The corollary to the ability to publish your thoughts publicly is that you at least think twice before you do so. A Malagasy colleague said so perfectly as the crisis was at its peak.

Yet I am ten times happier to have the chance to sort through the numerous opinions out there that to have the sad sight of censored opinions. And even if I am not the most qualified to fully comprehend the crisis in Gaza or in Madagascar, I certainly think I am not only entitled but compelled to express outrage at the reports and images of innocent people suffering.

Images and reports that would not have been available to us in real-time if not for blogs and bloggers.

And that when used properly, it might even be another tool for global diplomacy.

Impact économique de la crise à Madagascar...

e ne vais pas essayer de comprendre le pourquoi de la situation actuelle a Madagascar.

Pour suivre les évennements en temps réel, c'est ici.

Un retour sur ce qui s'est passé en Malgache, Francais et Anglais.

Mais en lisant cette depeche hier sur le credit rating Malgache qui plonge, il n' y a aucun doute que cette semaine passé aura été devastatrice non seulement dans l'immédiat mais sur les prochaines années a venir.
Expliquation de Randiana, aka ketablaogy, et confirmé indépendemment par TNR, sur l'impact de l'annonce que le credit rating de Madagascar est passé de stable a négatif:

Le credit rating permet aux investisseurs étrangers de calibrer leur approche sur un pays dont ils ne maîtrisent pas les incertitudes (risque politique, risque commercial, risque juridique). Si une agence de credit rating (S&P, Fitch) font ce travail en amont, ils peuvent proposer de financer des investissements en demandant un taux d'intérêt ou de rentabilité en rapport avec le risque annoncé. Le taux d'intérêt/rentabilité est fonction du risque perçu ou déclaré. Plus le risque est élevé, plus le taux d'intérêt/rentabilité exigé augmente, moins un pays pauvre peut accéder aux financements en question.

Or le financement de projets, dans une économie de plus en plus urbaine, c'est la clé de la création d'emplois, source de richesse n°1 pour un travailleur des agglomérations urbaines. On a vu que la nouvelle forme de pauvreté, c'était la misère urbaine dans lequel l'individu devient totalement vulnérable aux changements de conditions économiques.

Dans le cas malgache, la source de richesse dans les campagnes est également problématique puisque les terres deviennent chères (note: pour certains pays) (cas Daewoo), et les coûts de production (engrais, machines, main d'œuvre raréfiée) s'envolent, sauf pour peut être pour l'essence qui a valsé avec les extrêmes.

Sans stabilité des revenus, offerte par la création d'emplois et l'investissement, les populations en situation précaire peuvent plonger du jour au lendemain vers une pauvreté absolue. Le lien entre GDP et IDH n'est pas mécanique, mais le premier est une condition nécessaire, bien qu'insuffisante au deuxième.

Ceci ne touchant meme pas à l'impact deja important sur le stress quotidien des Malgaches ( cost of living, safety etc...).

Un shot de vodka s'impose...