"This book explores how television in the global South is 'future-proofing' its continued relevance, addressing its commercial, social and political viability in a constantly changing information ecosystem. The chapter contributions in the book are drawn from countries in East, South and West Africa
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, the Middle East and Latin America, specially selected for their illustrative potential of the key issues addressed in the book. Scholarly attention on television in the global South has largely been limited to studying evolving television formats with broader structural issues covered almost entirely by industry reports. Major gaps remain in terms of understanding how television in the global South is changing within the context of the significant technological developments and what this means for television's future(s). The chapters reflect on these futures, not in the sense of predicting what these might be, but rather anticipating important areas of intellection. The contributors contend that much of the scholarship on the global South, by scholars from the South, is often stilted by a reluctance to anticipate. This failure leads to a largely reactionary scholarship, constantly oppositional, and unable to recentre conversations on the South. This volume finds intellectual incentive in this urgent need to anticipate, hence its particular focus on television futures." (Publisher description)
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"This study explores how news channels from the Global South challenge western narratives by co-producing TV programmes. It focuses on Telesur (Venezuela) and its collaborations with RT (Russia), Al-Mayadeen (Lebanon) and CCTV/CGTN (China). By combining quantitative and qualitative methods, this pap
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er examines the structure of these collaborations, the discursive construction of alternative narratives and their contribution to countering hegemonic discourses. The findings show that the efforts to construct counterhegemonic narratives are most evident in the co-productions with RT and Al-Mayadeen. Although the co-production with CGTN focusses on culture, it is nonetheless possible to identify the broadcasters’ distinct ideological agendas." (Abstract)
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"This volume explores the implications of digital media technologies for journalists’ professional practice, news users’ consumption and engagement with news, as well as the shifting institutional, organizational and financial structures of news media. Drawing on case studies and quantitative an
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d qualitative approaches, contributors address questions concerning: whether China is witnessing ‘disruptive’ or ‘sustainable’ journalism; if, and in what ways, digital technologies may disrupt journalism; and whether Chinese digital journalism converges with or diverges from Western experiences of digital journalism." (Publisher description)
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"This article focuses on international news channels in the Global South and the perceptions by audiences in Latin America. Designed with the intention of re-shaping global narratives, international broadcasting is considered instrumental to public diplomacy and improving the image of particular cou
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ntries. While many studies focus on global media policies of specific countries or the messages broadcast by international media outlets, less attention has been paid to the impact on audiences. Based on a series of focus groups conducted in Mexico and Argentina, this article discusses how Latin American audiences perceive public diplomacy efforts as channelled by international news media and their effect on country image perception, by focusing on China’s CCTV-E, Russia’s RT and Iran’s HispanTV. The findings show that preconceived images contribute to undermine the acceptance of international broadcasters. In addition, participants were optimistic about RT’s prospects of success in Latin America, hesitant about HispanTV and pessimistic about China Central Television." (Abstract)
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"China’s efforts to use state media as a means to increase its soft power around the world have raised concerns in many quarters. With much fanfare in late 2016, China relaunched its global television network, formerly known as China Central Television, as a new global media brand, the China Globa
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l Television Network (CGTN). Despite extensive investment and active support from the highest levels of government, including President Xi Jinping, CGTN has had limited success in improving China’s international soft power standing. For many Western observers, it is CGTN’s association with the Chinese party-state which limits its ability to shape and influence the global discourse. However, it is CGTN’s internal organisational structure and culture which really inhibits its effectiveness as a soft power tool." (Abstract)
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"How do journalists working for different state-funded international news organizations legitimize their relationship to the governments which support them? In what circumstances might such journalists resist the diplomatic strategies of their funding states? We address these questions through a com
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parative study of journalists working for international news organizations funded by the Chinese, US, UK and Qatari governments. Using 52 interviews with journalists covering humanitarian issues, we explain how they minimized tensions between their diplomatic role and dominant norms of journalistic autonomy by drawing on three – broadly shared – legitimizing narratives, involving different kinds of boundary-work. In the first ‘exclusionary’ narrative, journalists differentiated their ‘truthful’ news reporting from the ‘false’ state ‘propaganda’ of a common Other, the Russian-funded network, RT. In the second ‘fuzzifying’ narrative, journalists deployed the ambiguous notion of ‘soft power’ as an ambivalent ‘boundary concept’, to defuse conflicts between journalistic and diplomatic agendas. In the final ‘inversion’ narrative, journalists argued that, paradoxically, their dependence on funding states gave them greater ‘operational autonomy’. Even when journalists did resist their funding states, this was hidden or partial, and prompted less by journalists’ concerns about the political effects of their work, than by serious threats to their personal cultural capital." (Abstract)
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"As part of China’s ‘going out’ strategy, China is using its media to promote its views and vision to the wider world and to counter negative images in the US-dominated international media. China’s Media Go Global, the first edited collection on this subject, evaluates how the unprecedented
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expansion of Chinese media and communications is changing the global media landscape and the role of China within it. Each chapter examines a different dimension of Chinese media’s globalization, from newspapers, radio, film and television, to social media and journalism cultures and practices. Topics include the rise of Chinese news networks, China Daily as an instrument of China’s public diplomacy and the discussion around the growth of China’s state media in Africa. Other chapters discuss entertainment television, financial media and the advertising market in China." (Publisher description)
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"In general, the internationalisation of China's television in the past several decades can be divided into four intertwined paths. The first is importing media and cultural products from other countries, which initiated the exchange of China's television with the outside world, and so far is still
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popularly employed by all levels of Chinese television units. The second is coproducing television products with foreign media. The third is exporting television dramas to other countries; and the fourth, which demonstrates the new trend of internationalsiationof China's television, is an aggressive strategy of expanding China's media outlets and their informational and cultural products abroad." (Page 427)
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"Sustained media interest in African countries, funded from deep pockets in Beijing, may well attract admirers if the coverage is positive or uncritical. The forward-looking narrative promoted by 'constructive' or 'positive' reporting may help developing nations by not crushing them under too much e
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arly scrutiny. However, lacunae in CCTV [China Central Television]. Africa's critical focus harm its overall journalistic credibility, no matter how widely its features and some of its news reporting are praised. African journalism - rooted in Western traditions — is acquiring the tools to hold its own leaders to account. CCTV Africa may disseminate Chinese soft power, but its state media position militates against the notion that it can be a source of soft power itself." (Page 117)
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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 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 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, in seeking greater engagement with African audiences, has dramatically boosted its potential to shape narratives in ways that can favour its image or interests abroad. Focusing on CCTV Africa, China’s flagship efforts to win hearts and minds on the continent, the article explains how this
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strategy has been pursued not by directly offering an alternative image of China, but by advancing new ways of looking at Africa. The article offers insights into the innovations and contradictions associated with China’s increased presence in African media. It examines how the concept of ‘positive reporting’ is making inroads in Africa, tapping into the narrative of a ‘rising Africa’ and challenging the Western conception of the media as watchdogs. The article also highlights how CCTV is adapting to liberal journalistic standards, embracing a more aggressive style of reporting to compete for loyalty in a market which is becoming increasingly crowded." (Abstract)
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"Media in China have a tremendous influence on public opinion and Chinese politics. Several hundred broadcasters, more than 2,000 newspapers and magazines and countless web-media compete fiercely for attention and over a lucrative advertising market. Simultaneously, the state is constantly reassessi
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ng the media policies and the control, on the media in general, as well as on individual media practitioners. New technology has led to an enormous increase in access to information. Are Chinese media already acting as an independent ‘fourth estate’? What does investigative journalism mean to Chinese journalists? What do the Chinese government and leaders of Chinese media institutions think about the media? How do modern Chinese media define their role? Along these lines IMS and the Danish National Commission for UNESCO organized a Conference in Copenhagen on November 28, 2008. The event brought together more than 100 international journalists and representatives from universities, media organizations, governmental organizations and non governmental organizations." (Introduction, page 5)
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"This book is about the processes of globalization, demonstrated through a comparative study of three television case histories in Asia. Also illustrated are different approaches to providing television services in the world: public service (NHK in Japan), state (CCTV in China) and commercial (STAR
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TV, based in Hong Kong)." (Publisher description)
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