Africa's Deadliest Conflict is an impressive book that attempts to document the amount of US media coverage of wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), from May 1997 to late 2008, using the concepts of agenda setting (media's alerting function) and framing (media's evaluative function). If agenda setting can alert citizens and their leaders about faraway international events, framing makes them think about these events in a certain way. The authors use quantitative data to document the media's alerting function and qualitative data to address the evaluative function of both television and print news. Their first finding is ‘a failing grade’ (p. 52) in television coverage of the events that occurred in the DRC. More specifically, an average of less than eight stories per year appeared on three US television networks over a period of twelve years. Because descriptions of the conflict focused on negative outcomes or cast the conflict as ‘intractable’ (p. 58), its framing discouraged attempts by the international community to find solutions to the Congo tragedy. Unlike television coverage, the authors' data indicate that some 819 items on the Congo wars were covered by the New York Times from 1997 to 2008 in contrast to 89 television stories (p. 123). Despite this massive print coverage, the authors' comparison between the Darfur crisis and the DRC show that the latter failed to elicit the same attention as afforded the former presumably because of the relative length and complexity of the Congo's crisis.

The authors have done an excellent job in their assessment of media's role in setting the agenda and framing the Congo wars. However, a number of questions remain unanswered in this book that must be highlighted. First, the authors' overview of the 1960–1963 United Nations peacekeeping mission in the DRC in Chapter 2 should have served as a baseline to contrast media coverage of this earlier Congo crisis and its impact on the Kennedy administration with media coverage of the recent crisis and its impact on both President Clinton and President Bush. Second, the authors contend that US presidents have the power to be consistent newsmakers and news shapers should they choose to use it, but neither the Clinton Administration nor the Bush administration ever appeared as sources in news stories dealing with the Congo (p. 57). This is an important issue; however, the authors fail to develop it. Perhaps US leaders actually succeeded as agenda setters by keeping the Congo crisis from the front pages and television news in a way that thwarted any possible CNN effect. Third, authors' reliance on the New York Times alone does not do justice to foreign newspapers. Usually the New York Times tends to overreport US news and underreport African news. On the other hand, European journals such as Le Monde tend to overreport news from French speaking countries, such as the DRC, and underreport news from non-French speaking countries. On a balance, a view from Europe could have enhanced the authors' data, narrative, and argument.

None of these comments should detract from the significant contribution that the book makes for both academics and professionals. The authors offer a thoughtful and insightful analysis of Congo's recent wars, making the book an excellent resource for students of mass media. Moreover, this book is a rich analysis and a worthwhile read for anyone interested in gaining a deeper understand of not only Congo but the mass media's role in the political process.