ABSTRACT
This chapter considers consumers of the media of any kind, including newspapers, as the media public. It reviews the literature on the image construction of China by the African media and vice versa. The chapter analyses the chosen newspapers to answer the following questions: what are the dominant image(s) constructed by the Chinese media, how does Africa feature in news reports in the examined media outlets, and which themes/images emerge most strongly. The chapter utilizes the quantitative content analysis as the main method to find out the dominant image(s) of Africa or individual African countries constructed by People's Daily and Southern Weekend respectively. It shares the belief that the media influence the public's opinion of a country. The chapter therefore examines the highly influential Chinese mainstream newspapers from 2003 to 2014 for the construction of the image of Africa for Chinese readers to gauge the Chinese public's impression of Africa.
