Bloomsbury China in African Media: Between Influence Operations and Decolonization

This book provides unique, on-the-ground insights into the expansion of Chinese media engagement and influence-building across the length and breadth of Africa. Does the PRC’s multimodal engagement with African media promote decolonization or its media propaganda? Drawing on copious interviews with journalists from across the continent, and complementing these with detailed analyses of stories reported in ways that serve the narratives and interests of the Chinese Communist Party, Emeka Umejei explores this question through China's ever-growing expansion of training, content-sharing, and formal media coordination initiatives across Africa. He maps these initiatives in the context of changing media economics in Africa, showing how they make strategic use of material constraints on the African side to expand China’s footprint in the African media market. What Umejei finds is that the CCP is increasingly complementing state-led media campaigns such as the Belt and Road News Network and Belt and Road News Alliance with more local strategies, building alliances with local media organisations and co-opting critical actors in the African media ecosystem. This is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the past, present, and future of Chinese influence operations within African media. This is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the past, present, and future of Chinese influence operations within African media.