Framing environmental risk in the broadcast media in Uganda · 2019-12-02 · A synopsis of the documentaries and sampling This analysis seeks to make evident the discourses and the

Journalism and Discourse Studies

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Framing environmental risk in the broadcast media in Uganda

MARGARET JJUUKO School of Journalism and Communication, University of Rwanda [email protected]; [email protected] Keywords: Environmental risk; wetland degradation; framing; discursive practices and radio documentary. Author Biography: Dr. Margaret Jjuuko is affiliated to the University of Rwanda, School of Journalism and communication in Kigali, where she teaches and coordinates research activities. Her current research interests are in media textual production and reception analyses, environmental journalism and communication, and PR and corporate communications.

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www.JDSJournal.net ISSN 2056-3191

Abstract This article examines how the broadcast media in Uganda frames the environmental risk associated with wetland degradation. Two radio documentaries are carefully scrutinized to identify the discourses embedded therein and the discursive work undertaken. The analysis reveals that in framing the environmental risk, media fail to address the most pressing issues and the root causes of wetland degradation in Uganda. Instead, they focus on trivial aspects of such events. Media also reproduce the order of the hegemonic discourse, whereby, the wealthy elite are highly regarded while the poor ordinary people are marginalized. Although their voices are present, the situation is framed as a consequence of their activities, consequently ‘blaming the victim’, a strategy that usually serves to ‘justify a perverse form of social action designed to change not society, but rather society’s victim’ (Melkote and Steeves 2001: 331). Introduction

Wetlands contain numerous goods and services that are economically valuable to most local populations in Africa. They are a source of water and nutrients for biological productivity among other values. In Uganda, the focus of this study, the Nakivubo wetland in Kampala, contributes significantly to economic activity and people’s livelihoods. In addition to treating and purifying domestic and industrial wastes and effluents, and thereby maintaining the quality of water supplies, Nakivubo wetlands support a range of small-scale income-generation (Muyodi et al. 2005). Despite their importance, wetlands in many parts of Africa are being severely degraded through over-exploitation, modification and/or reclamation (Emerton et al. 1998). These actions are often driven by economic or financial motives. In Uganda, wetland degradation is mainly attributed to economic activities carried out by both local and foreign investors, and, to some extent, to the ordinary folk who, in pursue for their livelihoods, encroach on them (Muyodi et al. 2005). Residential expansion and industrial constructions, agriculture and poor waste management are some of the activities contributing to wetland degradation in Uganda (Muyodi et al. 2005). Resultant effects include significant losses of wetland biodiversity, water pollution health-related hazards and losses of aquatic and human lives. The centrality of the mass media, particularly radio in Africa, has been acknowledged in addressing such societal concerns and for their surveillance, monitorial and watchdog roles (Christians et al. 2009). Yet in an increasingly globalised economy, the presumed roles of the media are undermined. Neo-liberal policies, for example, have enabled the expansion of global commercial media market-based broadcasting (McChesney 2000), consequently posing a threat for public-interest-oriented broadcasters (Jjuuko 2003). Corollary, commercial broadcasters operate for profits and heavily depend on product advertising revenue. In addition to supporting business consumerism and free consumerism, media content is also geared at political populism (Curran 2000; McQuail 2000). As such, the informational needs of the citizens are usually disregarded or are framed in a manner that privileges the owners of the means of production (Jjuuko 2003). In any case, those responsible for wetland degradation in Uganda are also among the owners and key advertisers in most media institutions (Jjuuko 2013).

J o u r n a l i s m a n d D i s c o u r s e S t u d i e s P a g e | 3


Positioned as a critical media studies investigation, this article draws on the notions of ‘discourse’ (Fairclough 1995) and ‘ideology’ (Thompson 1990) to undertake a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of a selected sample of two radio documentaries that aired on Uganda’s Central Broadcasting Service radio in 2005. The purpose is to identify the discursive work undertaken and how the media engage with the broader issues of environmental risk associated with the impacts of wetland degradation. The notion of discourse, in the first place, relates to the ‘expository’ nature of a radio documentary (Nichols 2001) as a discourse practice CBS draws on to produce the programmes. Ideology, in the second place, relates to how the media, in this case CBS radio, can deploy symbolic forms to sustain unequal relations of power, in a way that privileges particular individuals or groups over others (Thompson 1990). The media are viewed here as cultural institutions where representations and meaning constructions occur in a culture which pre-exists their production and their materially realised form. Specific concerns of this work are with what issues and who (the people) are included and excluded; how are they are framed or constructed; what factors influence such decisions; what production practices and the nature of power relations imbedded in these texts. This work is also driven by views that challenge mere ‘dissemination of information to increase public awareness on environmental issues without paying attention to the actual content of the communication as well as the context and processes’ (Nassanga 2010: 328) of their production. The article commences with an abbreviated context within which the programmes were produced, followed by a brief explanation of the analytical framework and the tools drawn on. I will provide a synopsis of those documentaries, in the series which specifically dealt with wetland degradation, before engaging the in-depth critical analysis of the two radio documentaries. Background to the radio documentaries The documentaries entitled: Kampala and the story of floods and Cocoyam part 1 are selected from a corpus of 12 episodes that formed the Victoria Voice radio series, broadcast on Central Broadcasting Service radio (CBS) between January and June, 2005. The series were sponsored by the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida), and sought to create awareness about the environmental crises in the Lake Victoria Basin, with particular reference to the environment crises on Lake Victoria. These crises have been associated with environmental mismanagement, degradation and overexploitation of the environmental resources, phenomena that are also argued to be exacerbated by the current trends of globalisation in East Africa (Muyodi et al. 2005). While the programmes broadly targeted all Ugandans, specific audiences were the lakeside communities on the Ugandan side of Lake Victoria. These are the populations most threatened by the risks arising from the rampant environmental degradation. CBS is one of the many private radio stations that emerged after the liberalisation of the broadcasting sector in Uganda inaugurated in 1993. These trends have revolutionised radio broadcasting in Uganda during the past two decades, whereby, issues of space are defined in terms of revenue and profit, hence media content consist primarily of product and service advertising, corporate image making, and the marketing of various new social and economic advances (Okigbo 1995; Curran 2000; Jjuuko 2003), with



insignificant coverage of environmental and other issues of the public interest that are not related to disaster. The radio documentaries were thus produced in these contexts, whereby, Sida funded both its production and airtime. CBS radio’s coverage extends to many parts of Uganda but with higher audience ratings in Central, Southern and parts of Western Uganda, putting its total audience coverage at approximately ten million people (CBS 2005). That the station largely broadcasts in Luganda, a language widely spoken and comprehended by the majority of Ugandans, makes it prominent. Analytical framework This article draws on Fairclough’s approaches to CDA and Thompsons modes of operation of ideology. Fairclough (1995), on the one hand, proposes a three-level approach to textual analysis, including the text; discursive practices related to the production, distribution and consumption of the text; and the social and cultural practices which frame discourse practices and texts. In this investigation, the analysis of the radio documentaries (the first level) relates their formal features to uncover how they treat environmental risk events and how they construct particular versions of reality, social identities and social relations (Fairclough 1995) embedded in theses documentaries. I also examine the discourse and discursive practices related to the production (second level) of the documentaries including their social contexts and the relations (third level) between CBS radio and other key players involved in the programmes, such as informants and those implicated in wetland degradation, among others. This approach views media production as produced in relation to a larger discursive field in which discursive practices not only reproduce an already existing discursive structure, but can also challenge it (Fairclough 1995). Thompson’s (1990: 58) modes of operation of ideology that he refers to as the ‘ways in which “meaning” may serve to establish and sustain relations of domination’, are concerned with how symbolic forms (the media) can sustain unequal power relations, in a way that privileges particular individuals or groups over others. He proposes five modes of ideology namely: legitimation, dissimulation, unification, fragmentation and reification (see details in Thompson (1990: 50 – 72) and Janks (1997: 198 – 201)). While not framed as an ideological but a discursive analysis, these modes of ideology are identified in the radio documentaries and are thus useful to the analysis to tease out the framing of power relations in reference to those featuring in the documentaries such as official sources and ordinary people. Tools of analysis The approach to textual analysis here is eclectic and draws on a broader range of analytic strategies normally associated with CDA including insights from Media Studies. The strategies used to structure documentary particularly ‘exposition’ in documentary production (see Nichols 2001) are important here. Fairclough (1995) refers to such a media genre as an ‘order of discourse’ owing to its specific recognizable configuration of discourse elements that realize a particular communicative purpose or sets of purposes. The focus on how the issues and informants are framed requires identifying the recurrent themes and the different arguments made by different interest groups. Since



the concern is with discourses in relation to environmental risk, theories pertaining to argumentation and the modes of persuasion namely logos, ethos and pathos (Richardson 2007) are valuable. Logos relate to the logic and structuring of arguments that seek to persuade the audience through reasoning; ethos is argumentation based on moral competence, expertise and knowledge; and pathos is the emotional and the imaginative impact of the message on an audience and the power with which the arguer moves the audience to decision or action (Richardson 2007). The propositions made in the texts are also examined with reference to the predications (assigning qualities to things or people) (Reisigl and Wodak 2001: 54), lexical and transitivity strategies (associated with the modes of ideology) (see Thompson 1990).

All quotations (including indented) in this article, unless flagged differently, relate to the primary data, i.e. the transcripts of the radio documentaries (translated from the Luganda vernacular in which the programmes were produced, to English). A synopsis of the documentaries and sampling This analysis seeks to make evident the discourses and the discursive practices of two radio documentaries entitled: Kampala and the story of floods and Cocoyam part 1, in relation to the environmental risk associated with wetland degradation in Uganda. The concern is on how such risks are framed. The two episodes have been purposively sampled basing on a larger sample of twelve episodes which broadly focus on the environmental crises on Lake Victoria. Of the twelve episodes, five directly focused on wetland degradation and its consequences to society. The titles of the five episodes included: Kampala and the story of floods, Cocoyam Part 1, Cocoyam part 2, Relevance of Wetlands and Nabajjuzi wetlands. To justify the sample selection, I will briefly explain the focus of each of the five episodes. Kampala and the story of floods episode focused on the issue of floods in Kampala city and its suburbs. The story introduces an issue of significance, i.e. flooding of the city particularly during the rainy season. Cocoyam Part 1 episode, addresses the cultivation of cocoyam in the wetlands near the Nakivubo channel, a practice the narrator argues, to have become a ‘common practice’, within in the Lake Victoria basin. Cocoyam part 2 is a continuation of the concern with wetland encroachment and highlights the plight of about 112,000 poor people living in the slums of Namuwongo, a suburb of Kampala city, who are faced with eviction from their homes. Cocoyam is widely cultivated in Uganda but thrives best in wetlands and while it is regarded as a snack for some people, it is food and vegetable for many others. Relevance of Wetland, the fourth episode, is structured to argue the importance and relevance of wetlands in the lives of people and the aquatic life that inhabit them and the urgent need for their protection from on-going rampant degradation. Nabajjuzi wetland episode is positioned as an investigative report to expose a leather tanning Industry in the Southern part of Uganda for polluting the Nabajjuzi wetland. The selection of Kampala and the story of floods episode, has been influenced by the events featuring in it, namely the tragic loss of a life, here of a 14-year-old girl who drowned during the heavy floods and other problems related to the encroachment on the wetlands. Cocoyam part 1 documentary is also considered fruitful for this analysis as



it signifies an environmental health risk associated with the consumption of the cocoyam grown in the Nakivubo wetlands. It also includes a range of competing groups and interests, thereby presenting dominant discourses alongside contesting ones. Nonetheless, while all the five episodes would provide interesting material for analysis in relation environmental risk, qualitative textual analysis requires constant reference to textual data to illustrate the discursive working of the texts and therefore demands more space. Recognising this as a constraint, in terms of the length of a journal article, it was necessary to identify episodes which incorporate the various approaches identified earlier and where the events featured, signify greater environmental risks. Overall, the two documentaries largely inscribe a range of discourses, but the construction of environmental risk associated with wetland degradation, is articulated from two competing discursive positions namely the discourse of basic economic survival (mainly articulated by ordinary citizens including city dwellers, eyewitnesses, cocoyam farmers, traders and consumers), the discourse of sustainable development or, more precisely, the sustainability of wetlands (articulated largely by scientists and experts in environmental issues as well as a politician). For their part, CBS radio producers/reporters assist in sustaining or suppressing the various positions in the debates. Before analysing each documentary, the representation of the broadcaster (CBS radio) and the ordering of discourse are briefly considered, especially as manifested in the opening and signing-off narration of each episode. On both accounts, the narrator draws on the direct address, i.e. the documentary’s expository nature of narrating the events to the audiences by acknowledging their presence and importance:

Opening: Good day and a warm welcome to this programme brought to you by CBS radio, the radio of the wise, through the [. . .]. Closing: You have been tuned to the CBS [. . .] Stay tuned to CBS, the people’s radio.

By proposing that CBS is ‘the radio of the wise’, the station constructs both its producers and listeners as intelligent and capable of making informed choices. Direct address sets out to impose order on the flow of experiences and serve as an argument for a particular way of seeing what is being represented by appealing to the audiences’ emotions rather than their rationality (Nichols 2001). Strategies of unification and legitimation (Thompson 1990) are deployed here, first in reference to CBS as ‘the people’s radio’ and as a reliable and trusted medium through which issues of public concern can be addressed for as long listeners ‘stay tuned’ to the station. The listener’s position as the subject of the address is explicitly acknowledged in the second person ‘you’ as is evident in the direct greetings ‘Good day to “you” and a warm welcome to this programme featuring [. . .]’. As the following analyses reveal, there is an attempt by both their form and content to privilege certain positions in relation to the issue being tackled in the two documentaries. Analysis of Kampala and the story of floods radio documentary Kampala and the story of floods documentary draws attention to environmental degradation of the Nakivubo wetlands, and in doing so it argues for sustainable development. It specifically focuses on the issue of the rampant floods in Kampala city and their implications. The floods, as the analysis shows, had become dramatic and



indeed catastrophic, hence attracting attention in the news. To establish these arguments, the documentary is structured in three stages linked by the authoritative narrator’s voice, known in documentary exposition, as the ‘Voice-of-God’ (Nichols 2001: 183) and deployed by means of the sound-track. The first stage sets up disequilibrium by introducing the tragic drowning of Zaina, a 14-year-old girl. The voices of eyewitnesses (actualities) and sounds of running water (ambience) are deployed to set this scene and illustrate the narrative, forming the second and third sound representation of a radio text (Montgomery 2007). In stage two, CBS producer(s) ‘investigate’ the events surrounding this tragedy to identify those responsible, and they subsequently attribute blame to the rich on one hand and the poor on the other. To demonstrate the effects of the floods on a rainy day, the producer(s) takes the listeners to the Queens Tower, a junction between Entebbe road and Kampala city entrance, where the situation is described as chaotic. In stage three, a link between the floods and the encroachment on the Nakivubo wetlands is established in order to identify the root causes of the rampant floods in the city. They establish the impacts of encroachment on the animal life in these swamps. A suggestion to evict people from the wetlands is introduced lightly but immediately dismissed by a wetland management official. Here, the self-assigned roles the producers undertake are numerous and a transitivity analysis identifies how they construct their actions such as ‘investigate’, ‘research’ ‘probe’ and ‘compile’ to propose the intellectual work they undertake (Thetela 2001). The following analysis is conducted in the stages in which the documentary was structured. Setting up the disequilibrium – the tragic drowning of a 14-year old The severity and significance of the issue of floods in Kampala city and its suburbs is established by the tragic death of the girl who drowned in the floods, thus fulfilling the journalistic requirement of ‘newsworthiness’ (Manning 2001). News production practices, what Fairclough (1995) includes when referring to discourse practices, impact on the form and content in crucial ways. Here, the documentary deploys the news imperative of negativity in the form of the death of Zaina to highlight the danger of floods. It can be argued that this environmental issue gained priority on the media agenda because the events were highly dramatic – a natural disaster. Thus, the opening section introduces a pathotic argument in order to attract the listeners’ attention and evoke a sense of tragedy and loss in order to identify with the issues at hand. Pathos has been argued to work through narratives or stories to turn the abstractions of logic into something palpable and present (Montgomery 2007). Then the narrator presents the environment as benign during the dry season by using predications such as ‘peaceful’ and ‘awesome’, and later describing Kampala as a ‘blessed’ city, ‘gifted’ with ‘sunshine’. This tranquillity is immediately shattered and the rainy season is predicated as ‘ugly’, ‘ruthless’ and ‘savage’. The rains are attributed with the material processes of ‘displacing’ and ‘disrupting’ people’s lives. The voice of an eyewitness is used to describe the tragedy on that ‘fateful’ Sunday:

When the girl fell in the drain we had hoped that she will get up, but we just saw her body being carried by the floods for many miles [. . .].



The construction of the day as ‘fateful’ and the choice of the quote above, are intended to appeal to the listeners’ sympathies and evoke emotional responses that will predispose and influence them to act accordingly. The subsequent framing of the events surrounding Zaina’s death, as shown in the following two quotes (of Aisha Nakawungu, the deceased’s sister and of CBS narrator) suggest that she (the deceased) and her family are responsible in part for the tragedy. Consider these two statements:

1. Aisha Nakawungu: Zaina was a young girl but working at Owino market because we didn’t have money to send her to school. The previous night, I had asked her if she would go to work first before washing her clothes. She said she preferred washing first. She got up very early the next morning when I was still asleep and went to the stream to wash her clothes [. . .]. I woke up when the rain had started to go to the stream and get her, but she declined saying she will find shelter at the nearby school. So I left her to do as she had wished. 2. CBS narrator: [. . .] Our reporter further investigated the matter and established that Zaina had indeed insisted on staying at the well that fateful day [. . .].

The first quote speaks to a harsh existence, constructing the deceased and her family as poor, in fact ‘too poor’ to attend school. Both quotes represent her as a child who made her own decisions, in this way attributing the responsibility for her death to herself, for she ‘declined’ help and ‘insisted’ on ‘doing as she wished’. In attributing the cause of Zaina’s death to her decision-making and consequent actions, the producers ignore the social stresses, such as poverty, that ordinary and marginalised people are confronted with. Rather, they deploy dissimulation (see Janks 1998: 199) to conceal and obscure relations of domination. Here, the structural conditions within which the incident occurred are obscured by excluding them thereby mitigating the responsibility of the authorities concerned, in this case, Kampala City Council (KCC). Similarly, particular actions by authorities that impact negatively on the poor and on the environment, such as the issuance of permits to construct houses and industries in wetlands, are ignored. Discourses that constitute the victim as blameable tend to foreground the victim’s social origins, thereby establishing the shortcoming as located in the victim (Melkote and Steeves 2001). The scene is concluded in a manner that evokes negative emotions and pathos in response to the ‘end of Zaina’s life’. Through a combination of pathotic and epideictic argumentation (Richardson, 2007), the narrator informs the listeners that Zaina’s relatives were ‘indeed saddened’ by her death, arguing further that ‘so many lives and property have been lost in similar circumstances’. He provides an epideictic argument that censures those deemed responsible by claiming that such ‘sad tragedies’ could have been avoided if ‘the wetlands had not been encroached on’. This, then, implicates the KCC whose responsibility, like that of the Ministry of Works, Housing and Construction, entails the planning, management and maintenance of the city and all water drainage systems, including the Nakivubo channel, a major water drainage system linking Kampala city with the nearby wetlands and water bodies. These bodies are also charged with overseeing all the aspects related to the planning of the city, including the authorisation of construction activities in addition to managing waste in Kampala city. In line with the discourse of a radio documentary genre, these observations are



reinforced by the actuality (quote) of the LC1 Chairman of Nabulagala zone, Mr. Berunga Amooti:

The KCC who should be responsible of the drainage systems have neglected their duties. [. . .]. People dump waste anyhow and nobody cares. If the drains are clogged with rubbish, rainwater doesn’t move very well due to the blockage. If a person falls in such a place, it is easy to be swallowed up, especially if it is a child. [. . .]. The very people, who should be saving life, don’t care.

Considering the accusations of the LC1 Chairman above, it is reasonable to expect an interview with representatives of these institutions given that the issues at hand lie within their jurisdiction. However, CBS reporters leave the issue unprobed. Such omission and failure of journalists to make the powerful accountable, can be seen as complicit. Conflating the experiences of the rich and the poor At this stage, the documentary uses a range of synchronised sounds including moving cars and voices of people on a busy street to return the listeners to the Queens Tower junction. The ideological mode of reification (Thompson 1990: 190) is realised here through forensic argumentation (value, blame and choice) in order to identify the source of the floods and to attribute blame. The junction is recognised as linking many people to the city and to government offices. It is nominalised as a ‘busy’ place, but where, when it rains, conditions become ‘dramatic and chaotic’ owing to a combination of heavy traffic and floods, i.e. car drivers, motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians competing with the speed of water, making the place a ‘nightmare’. The death of Zaina is recalled to remind listeners that ‘many other people’, ‘young and old’, have ‘perished’ here. The argument is that everybody is affected regardless of status or class. The narrator’s forensic argumentation refers to how people have been impacted on during the rainy season:

Children are not able to go to school on such days. For the poor, like Zaina, the floods have swallowed them. But also the rich who think that their four-wheel drive cars will manoeuvre the floods, get very disappointed when the water cover their cars, it is only the breakdowns [vehicles] that have rescued them.



Forensic argumentation here proposes that both the rich and the poor have suffered, thereby, rendering their suffering as of the same order, as though dealing with breakdowns of ‘four-wheel drive cars’ is comparable to what pedestrians must face without the protection of being in a vehicle. Moreover, they can be assisted by ‘breakdown’ trucks and secure help using their ‘mobile phones’. One past incident used in this forensic argumentation makes this point explicit. When Gordon Wavamuno, a corporate industrialist with several of his industries and enterprises operating from a the Nakivubo wetland and described as a ‘city tycoon’, was trapped in ‘a nightmare’ of heavy floods at the Queens tower in his ‘Mercedes Benz’, as the waters ‘kept covering it’, his mobile phone ‘saved the day’. The situation here is narrativised through the story of the tycoon to naturalise socially interested constructions of the world and to disguise unequal relations (Janks 1998: 199) by describing them as equal or the same. While forensic argumentation functions here to explain the issues related to the flooding of Kampala city, it does not provide suggestions to avoid similar challenges in the future. Rather, the strategy relies on giving information to inform how the listeners can make sense of the situation and who they should censure or admire. It is interesting to see how the producer (through the script) validates those who are elite, for example by employing such phrases as a ‘city tycoon’ with his status-bearing possessions, the Mercedes Benz in particular. Naming of groups of people or individuals in news discourse is argued to have ‘a significant impact in the way in which they are viewed’ (Richardson 2007: 49). Here, Thompson’s three discursive strategies of rationalisation (chain of reasoning and arguing to justify something), universalisation (sets of instructional arrangements to privilege certain groups), and narrativisation (use of stories to naturalise issues) (see Janks 1998: 199) are at work – as an ideological approach to legitimate what is being suggested. Representing the industrialist’s dilemmas alongside the death experienced by some poor people, conflates their experiences as though of the same order. Attribution of the responsibility to the poor and the rich The final stage of Kampala and the story of floods radio documentary, makes a connection between the floods and the wetlands in order to identify the ‘culprits’. The scene is located near a wetland, signalled by the sound of frogs. It pronounces the responsibility for these phenomena and attributes it inclusively to ‘the poor, the rich and the Uganda government’, whose actions, therefore (material processes), include ‘constructing’ houses in wetland areas and ‘dumping’ waste in drainage systems. A wetland management specialist, Norah Namakabo, is drawn on as an expert to argue as follows:

Although the rich curse these floods [. . .] the developments they have established in wetlands are the leading cause of the floods. Poor people also lament when the floods carry away their property, but they too contribute to these floods through poor waste disposal habits, a result of high consumption levels. Everybody is to blame [. . .] the industries situated in these wetlands are licensed by the KCC [ . . . ].There are places where land is cheap and therefore the poor reside there, hence overcrowding them and spoiling the drainage systems [. . .].



These arguments articulate a discourse of sustainable development, for they fault the developments validated within a modernisation paradigm that supports corporate investment. Those who stand responsible (the villains of the narrative) are identified as the rich and the poor people and receive equal blame. The rich have ‘established’ developments, while the poor ‘live’ in the already heavily polluted areas and ‘dump waste anyhow’. Constructing the situation in a way that puts a great deal of the blame on the poor (for being poor), presents them as ‘culprits’ and, to an extent, shapes public opinion thereby diverting attention from the real causes of floods in the city such as the on-going housing and industrial construction in the wetlands by the affluent and elite segment with financial means and influence. Whilst the KCC is accused here (again) of allocating wetlands to particular industries, the producer does not follow up on this important piece of information despite their earlier positioning of their role as ‘investigators’. The voice of another expert is employed to further sustain the discourse of sustainability and argues for the eviction of people from wetlands as the possible single solution. ‘Eviction may be the only solution but a lot has to be put into consideration’. In response to this suggestion, Norah Namakabo (informant used earlier), argues in defence of the poor, thus articulating concern with their basic economic survival:

To evict people is not easy because this is where they live and earn a living [. . .] and have lived here for years [. . .]. One wonders where the KCC and the National Environmental Management Authority were when these wetlands were being encroached on!

For the third time, this informant attempts to identify the KCC as the source of the problem, but the producer does not take the matter further. This shows that while the media focus on environmental issues as a topic, they fail to explore them in depth. Such failure enables the dissimulation process in which the relations of domination are concealed or disguised through euphemism by describing them positively (Thompson 1990). The documentary is concluded by returning to the tragic death of Zaina and others who ‘perished’ in ‘similar circumstances’. The narrator presents a deductive argument that foregrounds cause and effect. ‘These incidents are the “talk of the city” every rainy season in Kampala’. The cause is recognised as ‘wetland degradation’. Using a unification strategy (Thompson 1990) and deliberative argumentation (Richardson 2007) that seeks to persuade the audience of its relevance, Engineer Boni Nsambwa, a source identified as heading the project which is constructing the Nakivuubo channel drainage system, makes an appeal to listeners, who are collectively (unification) constructed as ‘the public’, to act in a certain way:

When ‘we’ construct this drainage system, the purpose is to manage the rainwater, but if rubbish is damped in them (drains) they will be blocked and the water will flood into the city. So we are pleading with the ‘public’ to stop these practices.

Unification establishes a collective identity and a notion of belonging partly forged by the construction of an ‘us’ on the one hand, as opposed to ‘them’, on the other hand (Janks 1998).



The final appeal made here is indeed a persuasive strategy, as it is extended and shaped by the overall moral character and history of the speaker, a ‘knowledgeable engineer’ who is also working on aspects that are related to the issue at hand. No distinction is made at all between the corporate large-scale investments and constructions and those activities that relate to basic survival. The effluent produced by rich and poor is of a different order, but once again represented here as though equivalent. In this way, the documentary might have introduced concerns about sustainable development and basic survival, but by not challenging the elite, either the KCC bureaucrats or the corporate investors, it implicitly validates a modernisation discourse. Analysis of Cocoyam Part 1 radio documentary Analysis of Cocoyam Part 1 radio documentary establishes three competing discourses: basic economic survival, environmental risk and wetland sustainability. These are articulated in relation to the health risks associated with the consumption of the cocoyams grown in the Nakivubo wetlands. Its structuring draws on three strategies of sound representation namely narration links, voices of information sources including experts and ordinary people and a variety of other ambient or natural/environmental sounds, including people’s voices and activities such as a busy market scene, etc, employed to visualize the narrative. On one side of the debate are arguments (by wetland experts and a politician) that all the cocoyam grown in Nakivubo wetlands are poisonous. On the other side, ordinary people including cocoyam farmers, consumers and traders, perceive the crop as healthy and nutritious and fundamental to their existence. The documentary is structured in three stages. The first stage sets up the debate around two main arguments: the Nakivubo wetlands are severely polluted and the cocoyam grown there is polluted and poisonous. Scientific data from a chemistry laboratory at Makerere University is deployed to validate these concerns. These arguments are, however, neutralized in the second stage in which ordinary people argue that the yams have not caused any harm to their health despite the many years of eating them. Here the nutritional and economic relevance of the yams is established and arguments that wetlands are conducive for cocoyam growth are reinforced. The last stage draws on a scientific discourse to reinforce the argument that the yams are polluted and to reaffirm the discourse of sustainable development. As in the earlier analysis, this documentary is also conducted in the stages constituting it. Setting up the scientific discourse: the cocoyam is polluted and poisonous The opening narration attributes information to scientists to describe the cocoyam grown in the Nakivubo wetlands as ‘grown in sewage’ and therefore ‘not suitable’ for human consumption. The responsibility for the contamination of these wetlands is attributed to the industries, on the one hand, and to ordinary people on the other. The two categories are constructed as sharing equal blame, for they ‘contaminate’ the wetlands by means of industrial and municipal waste and other pollutants that they ‘increasingly dump’ in the wetlands. The narrator further points out that the wetlands that perform as ‘buffer zones’ have ‘unfortunately’ been turned into cocoyam farms. The account of how the yams are polluted by means of ‘sewage’ and ‘rubbish’ of ‘every sort’ is accompanied by ambient sounds of running water. To confirm the claims that the



yams are indeed polluted, the audience is taken to a chemistry laboratory at Makerere University where, Dr. Kiremire, a scientist, presents his arguments backed by scientific data:

Results from the tests carried out on the yams and the water from the Nakivubo channel and other water drains, indicate high levels of hazardous chemicals, believed to have polluted the wetlands where the yams are grown. All sewage and other wastewater from Kampala city and the various industries end up in the cocoyam and vegetable gardens. These food products are sold in Kampala markets.

While the cocoyam is construed here as food and economic product–in reference to ‘Kampala markets’, the narrative also frames it as ‘dirty’, ‘hazardous’, ‘polluted’ and ‘poisonous’ food, whose consumption is unhealthy. The attribution of information to scientific reports introduces an ethotic mode of argumentation a ‘persuasion strategy that assumes the authority of the arguer’ (Richardson 2007: 157), here, the scientist. It is deliberative, in that it seeks to convince the listeners of the acceptability of a point of a view and to provide them with an immediate or future course of action. The scientific discourse is further endorsed by a politician, referred to in terms of his various powerful positions: ‘Honourable’, ‘MP’, ‘Nominee’, ‘Head of the council that ‘advise’ and ‘inform’ government on the issues related to industrial pollution of the environment. He argues:

All the pollution [. . .] ends up in these wetlands and this is why the yams thrive well, fertile, big and nice- looking. But these are not the right yams to eat because they feed on very dangerous chemicals dumped in the wetlands [. . .]. It is a time bomb.

In the above quote, the politician employs dissimulation when he sarcastically refers to the cocoyam in a way that assigns it value as ‘fertile’, ‘big and nice-looking, but which can also be lethal – dangerous that will lead to ‘cancer’ and ‘death’, and eventually to a tragedy for the country in relation to the ‘time bomb’ predication. His chain of reasoning and arguing to justify his position is located within the ideological mode of legitimation (Thompson 1990) through the discursive strategies of rationalisation, universalisation and narrativisation (see Janks 1998: 199). As a government advisor, however, the politician does not make any suggestion about what to eat instead of cocoyam, given that this is food for many people. While these arguments cannot be rendered inaccurate, it should also be noted that, in the Ugandan context, there are other critical health issues and causes of premature death that are usually ignored. Neutralizing arguments: ‘We have eaten these yams all our lives, we have never been sick’ The second stage of Cocoyam Part 1 documentary, foregrounds arguments that reject the scientific position that the yams are polluted and poisonous. The narrator establishes the economic value of the crop by recognising the ‘large cocoyam market’ in various places in Kampala. The significance of the crop for small-scale farmers is also illustrated by visiting Kibuye market in a Kampala suburb, where, the prices of the yams



range between ‘Shs 500 and 5,000’ (25 cents and $2) per piece, depending on size. The positive value of farming and eating the yams is articulated by a number of voices including cocoyam farmers, traders and consumers:

Voice 1: For me, all that dirt and sewage is ‘manure’ for the yams. Any plant grown in this ‘sewage’ [. . .] grows and develops favourably [. . .]. Voice 2: All my customers are satisfied with my services, none of them has ever complained about the cocoyams [. . .]. Voice 3: I was born here, I have grown up eating these yams. I’m now 35 years old and I don’t have any disease from eating these yams [. . .] Voice 4: [. . . ] Since my childhood, I have never been sick or taken to hospital because of feeding on these yams [. . .]. Voice 5: My mother was born here and I was born and grown here […], so I cannot shift from here because I don’t have any other place to go.

Theirs are discourses of basic economic survival and one that seeks to legitimate the position of the local folk. As if supportive of these views, the CBS producer introduces other characters in the scene who are having breakfast of yams and beans and ‘enjoy[ing]’ the ‘nutritious’ yams. By constructing the cocoyams as ‘big’, ‘healthy’ and ‘nutritious’ because they are grown in ‘fertile’ wetlands, these informants propose that all is well and there is nothing to be concerned about. Statement such as, ‘all my customers are satisfied’ serves as a form of rationalisation that the product is fit for consumption. As they defend their interests, which relate to basic economic survival, ordinary people also dismiss the claims of the scientists with a counter argument and set of evidence: they refer to a lifetime or ‘thirty-five years’ of eating yams. They justify their continuous encroachment on wetlands by reference to a long history of their birth, growth and livelihoods, a proof that the yams are not lethal. This concern with survival is not convincing to the wetlands management officer, Henry Busuulwa. He frames the argument in a manner that proposes that choices have to be made between two most important aspects: the health and the livelihoods of people, thus introducing the conflict between the discourse of sustainable development and that of basic economic survival.

What livelihood [. . .]? Is it consuming poisonous yams? I don’t understand [. . .] Information that the yams are poisonous has been given to these people for eight years now and we have repeatedly warned them about the danger of growing cocoyam in the wetlands. [. . .] This is an environmental problem we have created for eternity, even for our children. [. . .] people should understand that if their source of income is growing cocoyam, they should do it elsewhere but not in wetlands.

The wetlands management officer’s views endorse a scientific discourse. His ‘knowledgeable stance’ about the health risks of consuming the yams grown in the Nakivubo wetlands represents these views as ‘legitimate’ i.e. ‘just and worthy of support’ (Thompson 1990: 61). The fact that the people have been warned about this danger for the past ‘eight years’ is, in a sense, an official pronouncement based on scientific knowledge. The framing of the problem as permanent: ‘eternity, even for our



children’, is a powerful strategy to legitimate the eviction of farmers. His calling for protecting the wetland is an articulation of the discourse of environmental protection, although one that neglects the human factor. His rationalisation that the cocoyams can be grown ‘elsewhere’ begs the question of where and how. The sustainability of the wetlands The final stage of Cocoyam part 1 radio documentary reinforces a discourse that privileges biodiversity and sustainable development of wetlands. The scene is located at a wetland where, in relation to documentary exposition, it is set by the sound of frogs, which the narrator describes as ‘enjoy[ing] their natural habitats’. He argues that the wetlands are ‘home’ to the frogs and other animals and ‘should not be a place for growing cocoyam or any other crop for human consumption’. The narrator repeats the opinions of healthy workers and scientists to warn listeners that while the yams grown in the Nakivubo and Namuwongo wetlands may be ‘tasty’ they are not suitable for human consumption and can even lead to ‘death’, thus attempting to also evoke fear and concern. Other actors such as the official information sources, and apparently magnanimous leaders, are assigned particular roles and responsibilities (verbal and material processes) in as far as the issues at hand are concerned. These have the authority and wisdom to ‘sensitise’, ‘inform’, ‘advise’, ‘give views’, ‘warn’, ‘appeal’ and ‘plead’ with people (who grow cocoyam in the wetlands and who dumb waste anyhow) and subsequently ‘maintain’ particular government positions. They can also ‘act’ and ‘evict’ (material processes) people from the wetlands. There is no warning directed at industries. Such authority is usually informed by the various interests, resources, professional norms and ideological orientations of institutions, with their various perceptions that are encoded in the ideologically-based discursive patterns, i.e. lexical, metaphorical and intertextual choices (Thetela 2001). Conclusion This article has been confined to a sample of two radio documentaries entitled Kampala and the story of floods and Cocoyam part 1, to interrogate the discourses they articulate as well as discursive practices undertaken in constructing the environmental risk associated with wetland degradation in Uganda. The two documentaries were part of a series of environmental programmes aired on CBS radio in 2005 and sought to highlight the environmental crises in Uganda, particularly the pollution and overexploitation of Lake Victoria and the degradation of wetlands. The sample selection has been influenced by the events featuring in the two documentaries, which largely represent greater environmental risks in relation to wetland degradation. They also include a range of competing groups and interests, thereby presenting dominant discourses alongside contesting ones. The analysis has revealed that the documentaries, to a great extent, engage in discursive (production) practices that reproduce the order of the hegemonic discourse, whereby, powerless ordinary people are marginalised while the elite and powerful people are highly regarded. There is a tendency by the producers to ignore the social stresses, such as poverty, that ordinary and poor people are confronted with. The structural



conditions, within which incidents related to environmental risk occur, are also excluded thus mitigating the responsibility of the authorities concerned. Similarly, particular actions (by authorities) that impact negatively on the poor and on the environment, such as the issuance of permits to construct houses and industries in wetlands, are ignored. The construction of the elite as active and speaking subjects in these documentaries also suggests the strengthening of unequal power and social relations within the various debates focused on.

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Framing environmental risk in the broadcast media in Uganda · 2019-12-02 · A synopsis of the documentaries and sampling This analysis seeks to make evident the discourses and the