Reporting Africa: Soft Power, Media and Civic Engagement
The turn of the century saw new trends in China’s foreign affair policies springing up. Rebuilding its humanitarian cause, promoting economic diplomacy, cultivating cultural and citizen diplomacy, China seemed to run its soft power programme in Africa on the fullest and most comprehensive scale, yet it still takes the engagement of Chinese society to eventually exercise the “soft power”. In the process of engaging public, media play a central role, which is what this paper examines. It begins by summarizing various aspects of China's involvement in Africa in relation to value sharing and co-identity building, followed by a textual analysis of how Chinese media ignite the imagination of Africa for their audience. The paper concludes that media seem to be the pivotal connection between the Chinese public and Africa. More than obvious governmental directives are behind the media’s initial interest in African issues, while the media narratives are driven by different forces and meant to meet various needs and demands.
