China in Africa

What does it mean for the media?

A round-table conference

This one-day conference addressed those aspects of China’s intervention in Africa that are related to media and other cultural exchanges.

Journalists, academics and politicians from Africa, China and elsewhere shared experiences that were relevant to understand the contemporary role of China in relation to the media and culture in Africa.

Among the discussed topics:

• What is the extent and potential effect of China’s increasing media intervention in Africa?
• How does China explain its friendship for Africa to the world and to Chinese citizens?
• How is Africa represented by the Chinese media?
• How is China’s involvement perceived in Africa?
• How do the Western media represent these exchanges?

Conference Programme (pdf version, for text version see below)

Poster

Presentations available for download

• Allen Cooper, China Radio International: a new presence in the African Media market
• Mai Guihua, Chinese perspectives on Africa from within China and without: A working experience
• Firoze Manji, China in Africa: facts and mythologies – Xin Xin, Xinhua News Agency’s presence in Africa

Conference Programme

09.30-10.00  Registration – Tea/Coffee

10:00-10:30 Opening Address
Firoze Manji
(Director of Fahamu, Founder & Co-editor of Pambazuka News, Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College, University of Oxford, UK)

10.30-11.30
Panel 1: Media interventions by China in Africa

Professor Fackson Banda

(SAB LTD-UNESCO Chair of Media and Democracy, Rhodes University School of Journalism & Media Studies, South Africa)

Overview of Chinese media interventions in Africa

Xin Xin

Research Fellow, CAMRI, University of Westminster

Xinhua in Africa/International News

11.30-11.45 Tea/Coffee

11.45-12.30
Panel 2: The media image of Africa portrayed in China

Wang Xi

(Dalian College of Image Art in association with the University of Bolton)

Photographing Africa: A Chinese Professional’s Perspective

Ma Guiha

(Xin Hua News Agency)

12.30-13.30 Lunch

13.30–14.00
Presentation: Serge Michel

(West Africa correspondent, Le Monde; co-author, with Michel Beuret and Paolo Woods, of La Chinafrique: Pékin à la conquête du continent noir (ChinAfrica: On the Trail of Beijing’s Expansion on the Dark Continent)

14.00-15.00
Panel 3: The media image of China portrayed in Africa

Winston Mano

(Course Leader and Senior Lecturer, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Westminster)

China in Africa/Zimbabwe: Cartoons

Allen Cooper 

(Managing Director, InterMedia)

Baffour Ankomah

(Editor, New African)

The case of Zimbabwe

15.00-15.15 Tea break

15.15-16.30
Panel 4: Western media coverage of China Africa engagement

Dr Emma Mawdsley

(University Lecturer and Fellow of Newnham College, Department of Geography University of Cambridge)

Fu Manchu versus Dr Livingstone in the Dark Continent? UK media constructions of Africa, China and the West.

Richard Dowden (Director, Royal African Society)

16.45 End