Abstract:
With respect to the fire on Kilimanjaro in 2020, the following article indicates that German media reporting on this incident was not only greatly influenced and affected by colonial imaginaries, but also propagated stereotypical images of Africa to the extent that „[an]other Anthropocene“ (Yusoff et al. 2020) emerged, which however, did not find validation in the reports. The article is structured as follows: firstly, the position of Kilimanjaro in the German imagination will be described. Secondly, a critical, comparative textual analysis on selected online media reports from different German newspapers will be made. Finally, the analysis will show that the online media reporting resulted in the alienation of the local actors by conforming to existing frames of portraying and interpreting African issues. The results and perspectives will be summarised in the conclusion.
