Afro-Chinese and Sino-African Media Flows in the Digital Space: A Story of Asymmetrical Proportions
Friday, April 29, 202211:00 am – 12:15 pm— Pacific Time (PT)Location: Online via ZoomFree & open to the public. To register, fill out the RSVP form below.
Abstract
Starting in the mid-2000s, Chinese State- and privately-owned media companies operating globally, but particularly in the Global South, began engaging more actively in a wide range of activities, including infrastructure development, vocational training, news production and content distribution, online and offline. One of the geographic areas where these efforts have been most felt is Africa. Against this backdrop, this talk will make a case to describe the nature of mediated information flows between Africa and China, and between China and Africa as perennially asymmetric. After providing an overview of the historical roots of said asymmetries, the talk will zoom in on the digital space, where imbalances in the circulation of information are becoming more pronounced, with relative limited contestation. Using a diverse range of examples, including news coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the circulation of Chinese kung-fu movies on satellite TV in Africa, and social media conversations during the early days of COVID-19, this talk will highlight the need to rethink media audiences’ agency in global flows of information.
Bio
Dani Madrid-Morales is a Lecturer at the Department of Journalism Studies, The University of Sheffield. Prior to this, he was an Assistant Professor at the Valenti School of Communication, University of Houston, and a Hong Kong PhD Fellow, at City University of Hong Kong. Dr. Madrid-Morales studies global political communication, with a focus on the impact of new digital technologies in the production of State-sponsored news, global public opinion, and misinformation in the Global South. He has published extensively on Africa-China mediated relations, particularly on the reception of Chinese media content in Kenya and South Africa. His latest book, co-edited with Herman Wasserman, is Disinformation in the Global South (Wiley).