China’s news media as public diplomacy in Africa: an assessment of CCTV/CGTN among Kenyan audience

ABSTRACT

This study aims to explore Kenyan audience reception and expectations of CCTV/CGTN Africa. Based on a mixed methods approach (a cross-sectional survey [N = 210] and interview schedule [N = 13]) which were concurrently conducted among the study population in Nairobi, this study revealed that the audience consumption of CCTV/CGTN is limited; with news stories, music and sports being the most commonly expected media products from the Chinese media outlet. The findings further suggest a raft of strategies, ranging from the provision of more contents about Africa, reporting in local perspectives to in-depth and critical reporting among others, as means of gratifying audience expectations of the Chinese news media in the continent. This study recommends that there is need for the state and non-state actors directly or indirectly involved in China's public diplomacy initiatives to review their strategies and devise better mechanisms of attaining favourable outcomes among the African audience.

KEYWORDS:

• Audience expectations
• CCTV/CGTN Africa
• Kenya
• public diplomacy
• strategies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Though CCTV had rebranded to China Global Television Network (CGTN) in 2016, and subsequently CCTV Africa also changed to CGTN Africa, CCTV Africa was retained for the purpose of this study due to its familiarity with the audience. Consequently, the two names were used interchangeably in this study.

2 The institutions sampled for this study were the Multimedia University of Kenya and Kenya Institute of Mass Communication. The latter offers diploma level training in mass communication courses, while the former offers both the diploma and degree programmes among other programmes in media studies.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Abdirizak Garo Guyo

Abdirizak Garo Guyo ([email protected]) is a lecturer at the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication, Nairobi and holds a PhD in Communication Studies from the School of Journalism and Information Communication, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China. His areas of research interests are in Media studies, Health communication and International communication, among others.

Hong Yu

Hong Yu ([email protected]) is a Professor at the School of Journalism and Information Communication, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China. She holds PhD in Art and Literature in Journalism from Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Her areas of research interests are in Media effect and Public opinion.