Media Perceptions and Portrayals of Pastoralists in Kenya, India, and China

This 28-page report, published by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), discusses the relationship between the global environment, pastoralist tendencies, and global climate change. It explores how the media portrays pastoralism, focusing on the content of newspaper articles about pastoralists in Kenya, China, and India, as well as the results of an online and telephonic survey with journalists. According to the report, in all three countries, important topics such as climate change, the economic importance of pastoralism, and the links between mobility and resilience were under-reported. The majority of articles about pastoralists fail to include their voices, and stories that focus on women and children were uncommon. This report discusses these patterns and suggests ways to ensure more accurate media coverage of pastoralism and its potential to contribute to sustainable development in a changing climate.

The study's intention was to understand: how journalists portray pastoralists and pastoralism, who speaks for and about pastoralists in the media, and in what contexts the media reports on pastoralism. It used the LexisNexis database and the websites of individual newspapers to find articles that mentioned any of the following terms: pastoralist, pastoralists, pastoralism, herding, herder, herders.

In Kenya, it was found that pastoralists tend to star only in bad-news stories; 93% of those analysed referred to conflict or drought. Otherwise, the media tends to ignore pastoralists. While 51% of stories that mention conflict presented pastoralists as a cause of problems, only 5.7% suggested that pastoralists might be the victims of the actions of others. While 28% of articles reported efforts to evict or move pastoralists, in only one-fifth of them did the journalist describe where the pastoralists might go and in every case it was back to where they had come from, back to the problems they left behind. Twenty-two percent of all articles referred to pastoralists as invaders or as having invaded land. According to the article, pastoralists clearly have an image problem in the Kenyan media.

In China, on the other hand, pastoralists seem to feature in good news. The media narrative is made up largely of stories about herders who have settled in towns and are largely happy with the change. These stories highlight government investments in housing and infrastructure to improve the well-being of economically poor communities.

In India, the media narrative tends to present the pastoralist communities as victims (60% of articles) who have lost access to grazing land because of the growth of industrial agriculture, the dominance of more powerful social groups, and limits to grazing in forested land, among other issues. A relatively common theme in the Indian coverage, featuring in 35% of articles, was threats to local breeds of livestock and efforts to conserve genetic diversity. Indian articles were more likely (compared to Kenya and China) to describe how pastoralism can be a source of resilience to environmental change, and said more than those from the other countries about the value of pastoralism.

Key findings are outlined as follows:

• Missing voices: The voices of pastoralists feature in less than half of the articles about them (41% of articles in Kenya, 36% in China, and 25% in India). If pastoralists as a whole are missing, the perspectives of pastoralist women and children are even more absent. Government representatives dominate the articles in China (quoted in 82% of articles) and Kenya (71%), but in India only 15% of the articles included a quotation from an official. There, civil society organisations had the biggest say (quoted in half of the stories, compared to 21% in Kenya and just 2% in China). Scientists had a quote in few Kenyan stories (7%) compared to China (26%) and India (30%). While there is no ideal mix of voices in a story, there are marked differences between each country and this will influence the overall narrative that emerges from media coverage.
• Missing money: In both Kenya and India, the reports made rare mention of what government investment in pastoralist communities could mean. By contrast, one-third of the Chinese articles mentioned investment and in 94% of these, there was a hard currency value attached. Very few articles in any of the three countries referred to the economic importance of pastoralism (4% in Kenya, 12% in China, and 15% in India).
• Missing mobility: Stories that presented mobility in a positive light were rare. Just 6% of Kenyan stories included a statement that explicitly supported mobility as a way pastoralists can access resources that vary in space in time. None of the articles in either China or India did. This is despite mobility itself being a common theme in the articles. In Kenya, nearly half of all the stories linked mobility to problems. This contributes to a false narrative, one that is blind to the true nature of the lands the pastoralists move across, and to the knowledge they draw upon to take advantage of resources that are distributed there in an unpredictable way.
• Missing climate change: The media also fail to cover climate change in the context of pastoralism and the extreme climatic conditions that pastoralists face and which their mobility can help overcome. In Kenya, although 51% of stories mentioned drought, only 3% referred to climate change. The topic got slightly more coverage in China (8%) and India (15%).
• Missing meat and milk: Very few articles mentioned how pastoralism contributes to food security outside of pastoralist communities (Kenya: 1%; China 4%; India: 10%).

A survey was done with journalists whereby in Kenya, 42 out of 250 invited journalists responded, in India, 61 out of 207 invited journalists responded and lastly in China, 16 out of 130 invited journalists responded. Journalists were given an opportunity to say anything they would like to about media coverage of pastoralism. In India, 33 (67%) of the 49 journalists who answered this question chose to say that the media has 'neglected', 'ignored', 'forgotten' or otherwise under-reported the issues that affect pastoralist communities. They explained that this was because urban media consumers (and editors) are not interested in rural affairs. Journalists in Kenya confirmed the way their media outlets connect pastoralism with conflict and woe.

When asked more specific questions, the journalists in all three countries revealed knowledge and opinions that seem to contradict the dominant narrative presented in the national media. Most (91%) Kenyan journalists acknowledged, for instance, the importance of pastoralism to the national economy, with more than half of them stating that this is major. This is surprising, given that this theme was invisible in the stories analysed. Only 4% of the Kenyan articles mentioned it. In China, most journalists (71.5%) felt that herding did not cause damage to the environment, and more than two-thirds (67.8%) even felt that herding had a positive effect on the environment. Among these journalists, 71.4% disagreed that herders need to settle instead of herding livestock, and 42.8% felt that the government had neglected herders.

The analysis of media articles presented here suggests that a modified media narrative would have a role to play, while the comments from surveyed journalists suggest that great potential for change exists. The report recommends the following:

• In Kenya, an alternative narrative could show how the new constitution could work best for the drylands and their communities.
• In India, an alternative narrative could show how herding is part of the wider dryland agriculture system that can increase food security in the context of climate change.
• In China, an alternative narrative can relate how support for pastoralism can increase food security and better manage rangelands for economic benefits.

The report further suggests that improved media coverage of pastoralism is part of the institutional capacity that is needed to ensure resilient food systems can be made real. Improved eco-literacy among journalists and editors can help strengthen the resilience of vulnerable communities and national food systems alike, and will become more important as climate change takes hold.