ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the China Central Television (CCTV) Africa in a global broadcasting context and investigates its news reports through content analysis, backed up by interviews with journalists and managers. It investigates how CCTV Africa covers news that is primarily about China in Africa, and – firstly – news that is primarily about African countries themselves. The chapter analyzes that the CCTV Africa throws out mixed signals, alternating between tiangao and tianxia. What is the purpose of CCTV's English-language news operation in Africa? The Chinese state broadcaster's Kenyan network centre, the heart of its African programming, occupies two buildings in a quiet corner of western Nairobi some 9,200 kilometres from Beijing. Some China-based academics have put forward the concept of constructive journalism as a fitting way for Chinese media to report on Africa. These findings position CCTV Africa alongside the China Daily in the use of constructive or positive reporting techniques to combat relentlessly negative framing of the Ebola crisis.
