By Sara Kaso
This article addresses the question on how Chinese owned media, based in Africa, are producing misinformation to challenge neutral narratives on ” the Coronavirus”. The argument is that through a new paradigm of journalism and the systematic use of agenda setting and framing China is shaping the narrative of Coronavirus shedding it into a positive light. As a young member of The Youth Café I wish to inform my peers- emerging young leaders and champions- to get a critical vision on the Information produced by Chinese media in Africa.
“In the last 20 years, China has massively increased its presence in African States on the economic- political field by investing in infrastructure and the logistic system with the purpose of building huge commercial and military poles. Notwithstanding, China has cautiously invested also in state- owned media agencies, TV Channels( CCTV Africa) , Radio ( China Radio International) broadcasting and journals (China daily) in Africa ( Greenslade, 2015). ”
Neo- Marxist thinkers sustain that the exercise of soft power through media control and misinformation production is a subtle but efficient way of deploying political power to the masses as it shapes their consciousness and approach towards either domestic or international issues. Media misinformation produces apathy in readers who start to lose faith in them as neutral and credible points of reference.
Although African journalists sustain that they have not been subject to censorship by Chinese media yet, Chinese presence has subtly shifted the philosophy of journalism and of Information Industry wherever it has dominated. Traditionally, the role played by journalism in a democratic state with a check and balances system is that of the “watchdog”: tell the truth and spread information and facts rather than opinions or ideological narratives. The journalist CP Scott, emblematically recognised as one of the most famous independent journalists of” The Guardian”, argued that “ one of the virtues, perhaps almost the chief virtue, of a newspaper is its independence. Whatever its position or character, at least it should have a soul of its own”( Scott, 1921) .
Meanwhile at the Communication University of China, Zhang Yanqiu, director of the Africa Communication Research Centre, said that Chinese- led journalism had the ambitious purpose of proposing solutions rather than just reporting the truth. This new ethos is called “constructive journalism” and it is adopted by CCTV Africa ( Greenslade, 2017). This nuanced, but indeed unsettling position, is problematic. Constructive Journalism promotes political parallelism between government and media industry with the risk of churning out uncritical stories either prohibiting to cover controversial issues or framing controversial news in a positive light.
Here I propose some examples of Chinese’ framing narratives around Coronavirus.
Since the start of the outbreak, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has dealt with optimism in the coverage of the global pandemic if we compare it with US narrative. Stanford Internet Observatory (2020) compared Facebook posts made by Chinese state media( note that social media platforms are technically banned in China) and the US mainstream media.
Interestingly, around the term “patient”, US media associate it with “sick” or “affected”; whereas Chinese media deflect alarmism and spread posts mentioning terms such as “treating”, “recovered”, “discharged” and “cured” patient. Another insightful example was the diverging lights used by Chinese and US media to present the disturbing case of the doctor Li Wenliang, one of the first to publicly report the existence of the virus in December, 2019. In January authorities forced him to deny his announcement. After a period of intensive care due to breathing difficulty in hospital, Li died of Coronavirus on February.
By comparing Chinese and US posts related to Li Wenliang, Stanford Observatory has evidenced that media have filtered his story differently by selecting dissimilar nuances in the terminology used to cover news. The most frequent words used in Chinese articles were “ ophthalmologist” and words that expressed condolences. From the other side of the Pacific, the selection of the words has been used to orient the attention towards the authoritarian- fascist political nature of CCP: the most common words were “ silenced”, “authorities”, notably absent in Chinese media.
This is a clear example of media framing, or rather the selection of the way in which the news is brought and presented. Now, the news of the death of the first doctor to spread the voice of Coronavirus presence was too big and loud to be muted. China is philo- fascist, however it has to clean itself in front of global audience. That is where the power of framing becomes useful to delicately balance the covering of a story without casting CCP in a bad light.
As far as the news produced in Africa are concerned, through my research activity I have suspiciously found more material oriented towards the humanitarian, diplomatic role played by China in African states rather than accuses on their late alarming on the virus. Not so much about uses and abuses of power in Independent information- production. I looked for articles related to Coronavirus in the major African media channels owned by Chinese management.
The majority of the articles depict China as “ the best friend of African states” supporting this narrative by listing all the medical supplies ( € 1.33bn of worth) delivered to the dark continent (Caslin, 2020) . On the other hand, Chinese Media based in Africa are using the “Coronavirus” narrative to exacerbate their existing open conflict with USA. For instance, the 22nd of June, China Daily Africa has posted in Twitter a post where it evidenced the Trump’s testing slowdown as being controversial and blameful. There is plenty of material that shows how China is twisting their narrative in order to put their policy on a good light at the expense of the US narrative, and vice versa.
Sara is a member of The Youth Cafe
Bibliography
Caslin, O., 2020. Coronavirus: How China Plans To Restore Its Image In Africa. [online] The Africa Report.com. Available at: <https://www.theafricareport.com/26426/coronavirus-how-china-plans-to-restore-its-image-in-africa/> [Accessed 24 June 2020].
Greenslade, R., 2015. Chinese Media In Africa Illustrate Difference From Western Media. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2015/aug/20/chinese-media-in-africa-illustrate-difference-from-western-media> [Accessed 24 June 2020].
Molter, V., 2020. Virality Project (China): Pandemics & Propaganda. [online] Cyber.fsi.stanford.edu. Available at: https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/chinese-state-media-shapes-coronavirus-convo
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Scott, C., 2017. Sustainability Report: CP Scott's Centenary Essay. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainability/cp-scott-centenary-essay [Accessed 24 June 2020].
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