A fascinating report has come out of a group at Oxford University that is looking at Chinese policy in Africa. The basic divide between east and west is that China prefers to fund big projects directed at government media institutions and Ministries of Information. The west, however, prefers to fund private media and puts a lot of emphasis on training individual journalists.
The other divide has to do with how each see the role of media in society. The Chinese view is that journalism should strive for social harmony and advancing the development agenda. Western media practice sees journalists as watchdogs and critics of those in power. It’s not surprising that many African leaders are leaning more towards the Chinese view of things.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has just released an analysis of Africa’s increasingly harsh treatment of its journalists.
The Oxford report should be of interest to students of China’s Africa policy as well as media assistance in general. It has some great suggestions for further research in these areas.
Michael Keating
February 28, 2012 at 6:49 pm
The Oxford report says reporting from China’s media outlets are believed to lack of credibility. It’s common to hear that. The fundamental reason behind it is that the media industry in China is government controlled, and private media operation is not allowed. It is hard for the Chinese media reporting to have credibility since only the voice from government can be heard. Also, some African countries enjoy more press freedom than China. For example, Kenya live broadcasts its parliamentary sessions on a regular basis. On the contrary, China only live broadcasts its annual gathering of the National People’s Congress (top legislature). What’s worse, most of important things on the agenda to be discussed have been already decided before the meeting is held. The public in China have no idea about how important decisions have been made. I think media freedom is the only way to increase China’s media credibility.
February 25, 2012 at 8:05 pm
China Communist Party’s philosophy is that media serves politics, and then people come the next. Pro-governmental and positive reports will facilitate China’s business expansion into Sub-Saharan Africa.