China's Global Media Influence in 2022

 Freedom House published in September 2022 "Beijing's Global Media Influence" report.  It provided detailed reports on 30 countries including 7 in Africa: Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia.  

The study concluded that the Communist Party of China and its proxies are using more sophisticated and coercive tactics to shape media narratives and suppress critical reporting.  Of all 30 countries, Nigeria was deemed most vulnerable to Beijing's media influence campaigns.  

Challenge of Ethiopia's Media in World of COVID-19

Ethiopia Insight posted on 18 June 2020 a commentary titled "Reviving Ethiopia's Press Post-Pandemic" by Marew Abebe Salemot, Debark University. 

The author describes the challenges facing Ethiopia's private sector print media and television in the age of coronavirus and suggests that some will not survive. He offers some ideas for keeping the sector alive and well. 

China Makes Inroads in Africa's Media Markets

Foreign Policy posted on 13 August 2019 an article titled "In Africa, China Is the News" by Aubrey Hruby, Atlantic Council.

The article summarizes the dramatic expansion of Chinese companies in Africa's cell phone, television, and print media markets. It is also training African journalists.

Human Rights Watch Report on Violations of Media Freedoms in Ethiopia

Human Rights Watch published in January 2015 a lengthy, critical report titled "'Journalism Is Not a Crime': Violations of Media Freedoms in Ethiopia."  The report describes the dire state of Ethiopia's media and the resulting impact on freedom of expression and the media.

It concludes that "the ruling party has treated the private media as a threat to its hegemony, and is using various techniques to decimate private media, independent reporting, and critical analysis, with drastic results." 

China's Media Dynasty in Africa

The South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) published in June 2012 an analysis titled The Rise of China's State-Led Media Dynasty in Africa. Written by Yu-Shan Wu, assistant researcher on the China in Africa Project at SAIIA, it emphasizes that China's state-owned media are increasing their influence throughout the world as part of their soft power effort. The paper seeks to understand this new trend in Africa. It traces China's media engagement on the continent, explains how strategies have changed in the 2000s, and identifies some of the old challenges of transferring a global strategy to Africa.

Click here to read the study.

China Making Major Media Push in Africa

China has long emphasized its media activities in Africa but it has only been in the last decade or so that it had the resources to compete with western governments and private news sources such as Voice of America, BBC, Reuters, Bloomberg, Agence France Presse and Associated Press. China's official news service, Xinhua, now has at least 20 bureaus in Africa and regional centers in Cairo and Nairobi. China Radio International (CRI) transmits from Kenya in Swahili, Chinese and English. China Central Television (CCTV) is the newest addition with a headquarters in Nairobi. All of these media services are government controlled.

Tom Rhodes, a Committee to Protect Journalists consultant based in Nairobi, recently commented on China's growing media footprint in Kenya. He noted that CCTV has a local staff of 50 and 14 correspondents in South Africa, Nigeria, Somalia, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Senegal. CCTV plans to expand to 150 staff and become by 2015 an all news, 24-hour channel similar to CNN. This is occurring as western media sources are reducing their efforts in Africa.

Chinese media tend to emphasize "positive news stories" in Africa while western outlets report more negative developments. Rhodes adds, however, that Chinese media do not generally permit criticism of Chinese activities in Africa. Click here to read the authors brief commentary on this issue.

An Analysis of Somali Print, Online Media, Radio and TV

Mohamed Husein Gaas, Stig Jarle Hansen and David Berry have prepared an excellent analysis and survey of Somali print, online, radio and television media. Titled Mapping the Somali Media: An Overview, it is dated March 2012 and available on the NORAGRIC website. Click here for the full report.

NORAGRIC was established in 1986 as a center at the former Norwegian Agricultural University. In 2005, it became the Department of International Environment and Development Studies at the renamed Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

This is a fascinating study of a an important topic both in Somalia and the diaspora that has received little attention in recent years.