Since the year of independence in 1960, many countries on the African continent have experienced decades of development and progress in many aspects. Since the beginning of the 21st century, with the revival of the African countries’ economy, regional integration of African countries, and international affairs in developing countries where the position and action of ability obtained a very huge enhancement. It has become a consensus of many African countries that the era of independent African agenda-setting is approaching, and it is no longer in the history of the “edge” or “the hopeless continent”. As the overall African political and economic situation stabilizes, the continent is gradually changing. The progress made in the socio-economic, political, cultural and security situations in Africa has become an indisputable fact. However, rapid economic development has not brought a commensurate external image to Africa. Negative news about political turmoil, ethnic conflicts and frequent wars in Africa is still frequently reported, and it is not uncommon for the public to associate Africa with poverty, wars and diseases. Some media reports still retain the original reporting framework.This is closely related to the dominant position of Western mainstream media and the relatively weak African media. With the continuous development of African media, local media have gradually mastered the right to report and present African voices on different media platforms.
Based on concerns of the development of African countries, this study aims to provide the perspective of African media on how they construct the poverty reduction through the analysis of aid and assistance column reported by AllAfricawebsite by using framework analysis and content analysis to uncover representations of development issues in African media and the development theories that underpin these reports. There are 7833 reports from 2015 to 2019 in aid and assistance column. By analysing the frequency, sources, topics and development theories of the reports, this study shows that the reported frequency is relatively average, but it goes up with big events. Generally speaking, the topics of reports are centred on aid. However, apart from health issues like Ebola and AIDS, the disasters like flood, drought and hunger are also main topics of the reports. Most of the sources of the reports are from African countries, while some others are from Reuters and Guardians. There is a new discourse system called “beyond money and aid” in Africa. The countries which developed well in recent decades want to pursue equal trade instead of aid. Behind these reports, the development theories are changing. In addition to Modernization Theory and the Attachment Theory, these African countries are creating their own theories based on what they are trying to do now.