"(1) How do Chinese journalists perceive their roles and practices in conflict zones outside China? (2) How do they cover armed conflicts overseas? (3) Who are the actors, and how do they influence Chinese war correspondence? (4) Do the Chinese news media practice peace or war journalism? To answer
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these questions, a new cascading media and confl ict framework has been proposed and applied to study contemporary war correspondents. Within this new framework, the following six levels have been addressed from a Chinese perspective: 1. Chinese correspondents’ perception of roles, 2. Chinese-style pragmatic objectivity, 3. Foreign policy and media relations in China, 4. News audience, 5. News practices in war reporting, 6. News framing and peace/war journalism." (Conclusion)
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"This volume brings together scholars from different disciplines and nations to examine and assess the effectiveness of China's soft power initiatives in Africa. It throws light not only on China's engagement with Africa but also on how China's increasing influence is received in the African media."
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(Publisher description)
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"In 2006, Chinese officials revealed an extensive plan to increase the nation’s soft power in Africa through a number of initiatives to increase the presence and relevance of Chinese media in Africa. However, the question remains: Has China been successful in enhancing its soft power via its news
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media expansion in the African region? Although it is easy to find sweeping proclamations regarding the popularity of Chinese media throughout Africa, there have been limited efforts to systematically measure the effect of these media on African public opinion toward China. This study seeks to fill this void. Using Pew Global Attitudes Project data, I explore correlations between attitudes toward China and the extent of the Chinese media presence across six African nations in 2013. In addition, to better test for a causal effect of the post-2006 expansion, I employ a second analysis in which I compare these relationships in 2007 with these same relationships in 2013. By comparing changes in these relationships over time, this analysis provides tentative empirical support that the sweeping efforts undertaken to expand the reach and relevance of Chinese media in Africa have moved African public opinion in the desired direction." (Abstract)
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"All in all, Chinese media development in Africa can be considered as a ‘charm offensive‘ in terrns of its scale and scope, which is characterised by the following: 1) all the projects are mainly government sponsored, strategically engineered and efficiently irnplemented; 2) projects centre arou
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nd infrastructure building and technical support, under the aegis of voluminous investment; 3) all projects and their outcomes have drawn attention around the globe, evoking particularly harsh criticism and even derogatory abuse from Western media and liberal intellectuals who fear that China will colonise Africa, thereby replacing the foundational belief in Western-imported press freedom with the Chinese model of ‘market-driven liberalisation under authoritarian control.‘" (Page 138)
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"Es lässt sich ein ausgesprochen breites Themenspektrum und eine hohe Kontinuität innerhalb der Berichterstattung feststellen. Dabei ist die journalistische Haltung keinesfalls einseitig negativ — vielmehr wird häufig ein ausgewogenes Chinabild vermittelt, das besonders dort kritisch ist, wo si
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ch Missstände nicht nur aus deutscher Sicht kommentieren lassen. Setzt man diese Berichterstattung in Beziehung zu dem hohen Stellenwert, der den Zeitungen in Bezug auf Glaubwürdigkeit und Seriosität in allen Bevölkerungsschichten zugewiesen wird haben, selbst in der jungen Generation, so ist der Einfluss solcher Berichterstattungsformen hoch einzuschätzen. Deutlich weniger als die negative Berichterstattung fällt jedoch die quantitativ dominierende neutral-sachliche Bewertung auf — gerade diese jedoch hat sich den letzen Jahren verstärkt." (Fazit, Seite 202-3)
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"China’s quest to improve its international image has increased exponentially in the last decade through cultural diplomacy and the media. However, the expansion of China’s state-led media has received mixed reactions and even stereotypes in Africa. By examining scholarly responses towards China
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’s media in Africa, this paper observes that the arguments seem fall from one side to the other and new perspective is needed for better understanding of China’s media in Africa. Therefore, based on the analyses of Challenges and stereotypes against the so-called ‘positive reporting’ of China's media in Africa, the paper proposes to revisit the journalism of China's media from the concept of constructive journalism to figure out what exactly makes the engagement of China’s media different from Western media in Africa. The paper concludes that it is indeed too simple labeling China’s media with positive reporting and constructive journalism helps to offer a new perspective to understand China’s media." (Abstract)
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"China’s concessionary loans and support to development projects have tended to shift balances of power by favouring certain actors over others and have challenged existing development paradigms, revitalizing ideas of the developmental state. Building on fieldwork conducted in Ghana, Ethiopia, and
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Kenya this article explains to which extent China’s entrance in the media and telecommunication sector actually challenges the dominant, Western-driven approaches to media development, promoting a state centred vision of the information society." (Abstract)
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"China is changing Africa’s media sphere. The country supports African broadcasters with loans, training, and exchange programmes and has set up its own media operations on the continent, creating an African arm of the state-run broadcaster CCTV and expanding existing initiatives, such as the stat
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e news agency Xinhua. In the telecommunications market China is helping national governments, both democratic and authoritarian, to expand access to the Internet and mobile telephony, and it offers export credits to Chinese companies willing to invest in African markets. For China, media expansion in Africa is a part of its “Going Out” and “soft power” strategies to extend the country’s influence in new sectors and locations. Yet for some this process represents a move in an “information war” in terms of which Chinese-built telecommunications infrastructure is a cybersecurity concern and the tendency of Chinese media to promote “positive reporting” is a threat to independent watchdog journalism." (Summary)
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"The communist government’s diaspora engagement policy in the Xi era represents a departure from tradition. Not only is it a very non-ideological policy, but it is also based on Xi’s vision of public diplomacy— indigenizing public diplomacy approaches and instruments to accommodate the needs a
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nd interests of foreign audiences. These new diaspora engagement policies reflect the new communist leaders’ well-informed and realistic appraisal of the international environment and their new foreign strategy—prudent projection of Chinese hard power along with active wielding of Chinese soft power. In addition, through these new engagement policies, the Chinese diaspora can play more versatile and important roles in China’s rising public diplomacy." (Conclusions, page 18)
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"In a pilot field study, conducted in February 2014 in Kenya and Uganda, news journalists reflected on the use of and interest in the Chinese international media offered in East Africa at the moment. An earlier survey, done in 2009, showed that Kenyan journalists emphasized several factors that play
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a role for their independence, such as their collective professional status and media owners’ financial and political interests. What foregrounds in this context, is the media organizations’ manipulation of news in favour or disfavour of various interests. The field study found that a pluralist media in itself does not guarantee a coherent debate based on factual information (Helander, 2010). Building on this analysis of the media in East Africa, my current research seeks to investigate the role of China’s international media in the local media system. China Central Television and China Radio International have their regional base in Nairobi, and work in close cooperation with the government led Kenya Broadcasting Corporation. The study has found that politically sensitive issues, which can have negative economic repercussions for China and the host country, are barely covered by Xinhua News. The correspondents at CCTV, CRI and China Daily Africa apply a cautious approach to the reporting of some important stories (Interview in Nairobi 14-02-10). Because China’s initiative in media is state-led and thereby less independent, these communication channels have yet to gain credibility among the media practitioners. However, the field study conducted in Nairobi and Kampala in February 2014, points to anther other question regarding the current efficacy, or popularity, of the Chinese news sources. The interviews gave cause to doubt the importance of perceived credibility of the content, to rather stress the question of whether Chinese international media is interesting. Both the framing, and the choice of news stories, were deemed by interviewees using the words boring, uninteresting or lacking political news value. After further interviews with media practitioners were conducted in Johannesburg and Nairobi in December 2014, a more varied view of Chinese news sources transpired. The opinions within the population of journalists in South Africa and Kenya ranged from trust and interest to very poor trust and complete disinterest, in reports from Chinese news sources." (Pages 1-3)
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"China’s media offensive in Africa is an expression of the need to create advantageous conditions for its own trade relations and for strategic alliances, for example in international organizations. At the same time, China’s global charm offensive or »charm defensive« is also a reaction to wha
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t China often feels is unfair reporting in western media about China and China in Africa. Consequently, the Chinese leadership is investing in internationalizing and expanding its state media in cooperation with African state media and in ambitious exchange and training programmes for African journalists. The aforementioned objectives of Chinese foreign media are accompanied and supported by strategic Chinese corporate investment in information technology and telecommunications infrastructure in African countries. In other words, China’s soft power approach is flanked by hard power. German foreign and development policy should carefully analyse the growing competition and criticism of western reporting about Africa and draw conclusions for media development cooperation." (Page 1)
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"The demands of public diplomacy have shifted with the development of social media technologies. Increasingly, governments are required to gauge and respond to public sentiment over and above the one-way communication of broadcast media. The social media and accompanying elevated public role have co
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mplicated the decision-making process in China to the extent of potentially influencing its outward engagements. On the receiving end of China’s diplomacy is Africa, which is undergoing its own important technological changes. South Africa’s domestic circumstances, however, demonstrate that larger factors can override online sentiment. In two such important regions in the world, it is important to consider whether these domestic changes are likely to strengthen or undermine future China–Africa future relations." (Abstract)
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"Since China implemented animation control policies in 2004, foreign animation programmes have almost disappeared from Chinese television. At the same time, the Chinese government has invested enormous amounts of money in developing the animation industry as a creative industry. A questionnaire surv
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ey was conducted to explore how the Chinese audience views domestic and foreign animation programmes. The results indicate that pirated Japanese animation is widely viewed via the Internet by adolescents; on the other hand, domestic animation is popular only among children. Preferences for domestic animation correlate positively with age and patriotism but negatively with Internet use, while preferences for Japanese animation correlate negatively with age and patriotism but positively with Internet use. These results show that nationalistic sentiments are associated with preferences for either domestic or foreign animation programmes. However, preferences for Japanese animation are not significantly associated with anti-government attitudes." (Abstract)
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"China Central Television has come a long way since its founding as a domestic party propaganda outlet in 1958. The domestic service has been supplemented by an international service, boasting three major global offices in Beijing, Washington, and Nairobi, and more than 70 additional international b
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ureaus.1 The quality of CCTV’s journalism depends on both the region in which it’s produced, and the subject matter’s sensitivity in Beijing. On one hand, CCTV produces sophisticated long-form reports on complex international issues such as climate change; at the same time, its reporting on the Chinese Communist Party echoes the party line. CCTV’s biggest impact may be in regions where China is directing its international investments. The Nairobi operations complement extensive investments in African infrastructure, many of them in communications; China is also pursuing critical investment in Latin America and Southeast Asia. CCTV’s Washington bureau illustrates its ability to hire world-class international journalists and to allow them to do their jobs, as long as their reporting does not cross party lines. CCTV effectively reports to the Chinese Communist Party (via the state broadcasting agency), and the party will determine both its initiatives and its no-go areas for the foreseeable future. In an era when Voice of America and BBC World Service budgets are battered by funding cutbacks and partisan politics, China is playing the long game. CCTV’s content is defined by the same ideological directives and limitations that govern the country’s university debates, feature films, and microblogs. The limitations have been exercised for decades; what’s new is their implication for global media markets." (Executive summary)
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"China is currently implementing a full-fledged ‘Going ¸Global’ strategy, particularly in Africa. Chinese engagement on the continent is all pervasive and spearheaded by summit conferences and flanked by a surge of Chinese state-own media houses and state-funded cultural institutions. This repo
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rt seeks to contextualize the Chinese media and culture policies and to examine their ideological constituents. An important component of ‘soft power’ as understood by Chinese policymakers is to utilize non-governmental forces, and build citizen diplomacy. Thus mobilizing and educating the Chinese about the strategic importance of Africa has been on the government’s agenda. The report discriminates between various narratives on China-Africa relations and issues emerging from the Chinese press from 2002 to 2011. The conclusion drawn from examining this half-orchestrated, half freestyle media chorus is that, China has been employing domestic media to engage public support to buttress its expansion in Africa." (Abstract)
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