Dani Madrid-Morales

In recent years, concerns about the perceived increase in the amount of “fake news” have become prevalent in discussions about media and politics, particularly in the United States and Europe. However, debates around “fake news”, even if some object to the use of the term due to it being loosely defined, appear to speak of processes that occur not only in the Global North but also elsewhere. In Africa, mis- and disinformation campaigns have been used to influence political agendas, and governments have responded with countermeasures. This article explores the phenomenon in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa using data from a two-wave online survey (N = 1847). We find that perceived exposure to disinformation is high, and that trust in social and national media is low. We also identify a significant relationship between higher levels of perceived exposure to disinformation and lower levels of media trust in South Africa. The limitations of this study, which focuses on a subset of the population that is highly educated, the implications of our findings, and recommendations for future research are discussed.

China's footprint in Africa's media sector over the last decade has reached dimensions that make it impossible to go unnoticed. In South Africa, one of the countries where this imprint is most diversified, Chinese media have been engaged in a varied range of activities, including content production and distribution, infrastructure development, direct investment in local media and training of journalists. Building on previous exploratory studies by the authors, this paper addresses an unresolved question in the study of China's media internationalization: the impact on journalism. Using data from 20 semi-structured in-depth interviews with editors, journalists and policy makers, we investigate how much influence Chinese media exercise on journalism in South Africa. We present responses along three dimensions: consumption of and attitudes towards Chinese media, impact on local journalism and views about South Africa–China relations. Our data offer evidence that, despite having substantially increased their presence, Chinese media are far from having a profound impact on media professionals. While some interviewees report the adoption of some Chinese media in their daily news consumption, scepticism towards China, and by extension its media, dominates. We discuss these findings in the context of Chinese state-owned media's attempts to increase their discursive power globally.

This study explores the role of political information seeking on social media and perceived exposure to misinformation in influencing online political engagement. A survey investigation of three Sub-Saharan African countries (Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa) suggests that both information seeking and perceived exposure to misinformation are positively associated with online political engagement. We find that younger citizens are more actively engaged in online political activities. However, we also find that perceived exposure to misinformation has varying effects on political engagement across age groups. More frequent perceived exposure to misinformation is found to be a mobilizer for online political engagement for the older population. We conclude with a discussion of how social media may facilitate greater engagement for the older population. Still, the mobilizing role of misinformation exposure raises concerns about the consequences of such political engagement. Theoretical implications for political engagement research, in general and in the countries under study, are discussed.

The size of China’s State-owned media’s operations in Africa has grown significantly since the early 2000s. Previous research on the impact of increased Sino-African mediated engagements has been inconclusive. Some researchers hold that public opinion toward China in African nations has been improving because of the increased media presence. Others argue that the impact is rather limited, particularly when it comes to affecting how African media cover China-related stories. This article contributes to this debate by exploring the extent to which news media in 30 African countries relied on Chinese news sources to cover China and the COVID-19 outbreak during the first-half of 2020. By computationally analyzing a corpus of 500,000 written news stories, this paper shows that, compared to other major global players (e.g. Reuters, AFP), content distributed by Chinese media (e.g. Xinhua, China Daily) is much less likely to be used by African news organizations, both in English and French speaking countries. The analysis also reveals a gap in the prevailing themes in Chinese and African media’s coverage of the pandemic. The implications of these findings for the sub-field of Sino-African media relations, and the study of global news flows are discussed.

(2021). Who is Responsible for Stopping the Spread of Misinformation? Examining Audience Perceptions of Responsibilities and Responses in Six Sub-Saharan African Countries. Digital Journalism. Ahead of Print.

Abstract The global circulation of Asian cultural products has been on a constant rise since the 1990s. However, the arrival to Spanish-speaking audiences is a more recent phenomenon, one that is linked to the consolidation of web-based tools for consumption, distribution and discussion of cultural artefacts. The different stages in which Hallyu, or the ‘Korean Wave’, reached different countries determined the intensity of scholarly interest in the phenomenon. If the research gap between Asia and Europe is wide, the later arrival to Spain and Latin America means that studies on the reception of Korean popular culture, including those dealing with fandom, are quasi-non-existent. This article is a first attempt at mapping the demographics of K-pop and K-drama fans in the Spanish-speaking world, through an analysis of an online survey. Drawing from the uses and gratifications approach in mass communication research, we discuss fans’ appropriation of K-pop, describe their shared iconography and analyse the peculiarities of male fans by studying their self-narratives. We conclude with a discussion on the need for studies of fandom to transcend national boundaries as exemplified by the advent of a ‘transatlantic connection’ linking fans in Spain and in Latin America via South Korea.

(2021). Is it still a man’s world? Social media news use and gender inequality in online political engagement. Information, Communication & Society: Vol. 24, Era or Error of Transformation? Assessing Afrocentric Attributes to Digitalization Guest Editors: Bruce Mutsvairo, Massimo Ragnedda and Kristin Skare Orgeret, pp. 381-399.

In a 2009 article, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported that the Chinese government was planning to spend RMB 45 billion “on the overseas expansion of its main media organizations,” such as Xinhua and China Central Television (CCTV) (Chen and Wu, 2009). At a time of generalized downscaling of overseas operations by news organizations, media outlets around the world were quick to pick up the story to highlight how China’s economic internationalization—the “Going Out Campaign”—was expanding beyond finance or infrastructure and into the media and telecommunications sectors (Barboza, 2009). The surge in overseas media activities by the People’s Republic of China (China or PRC) could mislead one to think that this is a new phenomenon. In fact, however, China has a long history of media engagement in foreign countries, which goes back to the founding years of the republic and ranges from international broadcasting (e.g., China Radio International) to publishing (e.g., Beijing Review) (Chang, 1989). In the last decade, Africa is arguably the continent where Chinese media and telecommunications companies have been involved the most. Amid a growing body of literature on Sino—African media relations, this chapter looks into a question to which no definite answer has been given: Why are Chinese media in Africa, a continent that has been forgotten by North American (Golan, 2008, pp. 41–57) and European media for so long?KeywordsNews AgencyNews ContentChinese Foreign PolicyMedium EngagementCultural ReproductionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

<span>To date, the study of news deserts, geographic spaces lacking local news and information, has largely focused on countries in the Global North, particularly the United States, and has predominantly been interested in the causes and consequences of the disappearance of local media outlets (e.g., newspapers and TV stations) to the social fabric of a community. In this article, we extend the concept of “news deserts” by drawing on literature on the geography of news in Africa, where information voids have long been documented but have not been studied within the conceptual framework of news deserts. Using computational tools, we analyse a sample of 519,004 news articles published in English or French by news websites in 39 African countries. We offer evidence of the existence of online news deserts at two levels: at a continental level (i.e., some countries/regions are hardly ever covered by online media of other African countries) and at a domestic level (i.e., online news media of a given country seldom cover large areas of the said country). This article contributes to the study of news deserts by (a) examining a continent that has not been featured in previous research, (b) testing a methodological approach that employs computational tools to study news geographies online, and (c) exploring the flexibility of the term and its applicability to different media ecosystems.</span>

This paper explores sourcing practices in three international broadcasters in Spanish: China’s CGTN Español, Iran’s HispanTV and Russia’s RT. Often described as counter-hegemonic, in that the worldview they present is not in alignment with dominant Anglo-American media, these three State-sponsored TV channels have grown their presence globally in recent years, but remain largely understudied. Drawing on literature about non-elite sourcing, source functions and public diplomacy, we examine the degree to which citizen sources are featured in these three channels, and, when that happens, how these sources are used to advance the foreign policy objectives that inform the broadcasters’ raison d’être (i.e., promoting the interest of their home country while challenging the international status quo). To do so, we conducted a quantitative content analysis of news stories broadcast in 2014 and 2017 (N = 1,265). Our results show the use of non-elite sources is not ubiquitous but strategic, and is often linked to critical reporting of countries that are not political allies. We also present evidence that the practice is not equally common across broadcasters.

Purpose Informational use of social media facilitates political engagement. Yet, there is also evidence of the perils of frequent political engagement in misinformation propagation. This study aims to examine the association between online political engagement, perceived exposure to misinformation, individuals’ cognitive characteristics and misinformation sharing. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, online surveys were conducted in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa (Study 1) and the United States (Study 2). Findings Study 1 finds that online political engagement is positively associated with perceived exposure to and sharing of misinformation. Mediation analyses suggest that the relationship between online political engagement and misinformation sharing is mediated by perceived exposure to misinformation. Further, the likelihood of sharing misinformation is found to increase at higher levels of online political engagement, but those with low need for cognition (NFC) are more vulnerable to such sharing. Study 2 explores cognitive ability in place of NFC. The results follow similar patterns as Study 1 – online political engagement is linked to misinformation sharing via higher perceived exposure to misinformation. The authors also find that the tendency to share misinformation increases with frequent exposure to misinformation but those with lower cognitive ability are more prone to such sharing. Originality/value In both contexts, the data show that perceived exposure to misinformation mediates the relationship between online political engagement and misinformation sharing and those with low NFC and cognitive ability are more vulnerable. Overall, the findings offer insight into the mechanisms of political engagement and sharing misinformation.

This paper examines the documentary series Faces of Africa, broadcast on CGTN Africa, the African branch of China Global Television Network (CGTN, formerly known as CCTV International) since 2012. Using in-depth interviews and content analysis, we canvas the layers of supervision, censorship, agency and cross-cultural collaboration that lead to a creative dialogue between filmmakers and Chinese commissioning producers. We argue that, compared to news programs on both CGTN and other global networks, the documentary series allows a more positive and humane portrayal of African people. However, given that CGTN often engages non-Chinese filmmakers and seeks to emulate global production values to attract non-Chinese viewers, the extent to which CGTN’s documentaries on Africa contrast to those of other global networks remains a question for further debate.

After radio and television, online media are fast becoming a primary source of information for many Africans. With this increase, it is becoming necessary for media researchers to explore ways to better understand production, content and reception patterns of online news in the continent. This paper introduces freely available tools for systematic and (semi-)automated collection, storage and analysis of digital news that builds on recent advances in the computational power of personal computers, and the decreasing costs of storing large amounts of data. I start by describing existing challenges in the collection of online news text data, including the limited amount of African news content in commercial databases, and the methodological shortcomings of using commercial search engines. Then, I present a four-stage approach using packages written in the open-source R programming language to automate the collection of online news content (web scraping); transform this content for easier storage and analysis (data processing); use computational text analysis tools to describe and categorise data; and present the results in ways that are easier to understand (data visualisation). The paper concludes with a summary of recommendations for using computational methods to study African communication phenomena.

Although most democratic theories assume that political participation other than voting constitutes an essential input to the political process, little is known about the cultural universality of this assumption. Drawing on cultural psychology findings derived from the widely shared framework of collectivism versus individualism, the present study tests the hypothesis that political demonstrators in collectivistic countries are socially avoided because they are perceived to be a threat to harmonious interpersonal relationships. A cross-national experiment in eight countries (US, UK, France, Germany, Japan, China, South Korea, and India) and one region (Hong Kong) indicated that political demonstrators are socially avoided, and this tendency was significantly stronger in collectivistic countries. Moderated-mediation analyses suggested that the social avoidance of political demonstrators in collectivistic countries is mediated by the perception that they are a threat to harmonious interpersonal relationships. The cross-cultural validity of democratic theory is discussed.

Since the mid-2000s, China’s State-owned media have engaged in a process of internationalization that has the objective of increasing Beijing’s ability to sway global public opinion. Africa, where some of the most influential Chinese media (Xinhua, CRI, China Daily…) have set up regional headquarters, is the continent where this process is more clearly seen. One of these news organizations is CGTN Africa, China’s Central Television’s (CCTV) production and broadcasting centre in Nairobi (Kenya). This paper uses 36 in-depth interviews with current and former CGTN Africa employees to answer three questions: what is the news production process like at the station; what are the news values most commonly used in the newsroom; and, what impact does CGTN Africa have on media professionals in the continent. The analysis of interviews reveals, on the one side, a constant negotiation between agency and structure, which leads to a hybrid news product that could be labelled, paraphrasing other similar uses, “African news with Chinese characteristics.” On the other hand, this paper calls for more academic research on communication processes between countries and regions in the Global South.

Los primeros estudios experimentales sobre el uso de Internet revelaron un efecto negativo de este sobre la acumulación de capital social. Desde entonces, muchos estudios han identificado efectos positivos. Estos resultados poco concluyentes se deben a la diversidad de usos de Internet, la ambigüedad conceptual del término ‘capital social’, la falta de estudios sobre diferentes culturas, y las limitaciones metodológicas de la inferencia causal. En este estudio, aplicamos inferencia causal estadística a datos del Asian Barometer Survey para estudiar si el uso de las redes sociales para conectar con otras personas incrementa el capital social en cuatro países y territorios de Asia Oriental. Hallamos resultados dispares, sin efectos claramente positivos en el impacto del uso de las redes sociales sobre la participación en asociaciones y la confianza en general. En cambio, vemos que el uso de las redes sociales incrementa el tamaño de la red interpersonal de forma bastante consistente. También analizamos las repercusiones de estos resultados.

Amidst a growing body of academic works dealing with inter-Asian cultural flows and transnational cultural phenomena (Chua, 2012; Iwabuchi, Muecke, & Thomas, 2004), the truth is that there is a rem...

The increased presence of Chinese media in Africa has been the focus of much debate since the early 2010s. Discussions tend to revolve around issues of production and content, providing little evidence on the way audiences decode media messages aimed at extending China’s “soft power.” This article uses data from seven focus groups with media and communication university students in Kenya and South Africa to explore the efficacy of Chinese-mediated public diplomacy. We show that Chinese media have little impact on students’ information habits, demonstrate that attitudes toward China are predominantly negative, and argue that this stereotyping affects opinions about Chinese media. We also suggest that some students’ favored news values overlap with those associated with Chinese media. This may indicate a potential affinity between the journalistic practice of Chinese media in Africa and that of future Kenyan and South African media professionals, which could increase the chances of China’s media engagements having an impact in the long term.

Abstract Purpose This paper measures how often audiences in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa consume Chinese media, and investigates whether a positive relationship exists between the consumption of English language Chinese media and attitudes towards China. Method We analyze three waves of survey data collected in 2017/2018, 2020 and 2021 ( N = 5876) in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. Findings We show that, while Chinese State-owned news media have a growing but limited following, the minority of media users who report getting news from Chinese media have better attitudes towards China than those who don’t. Implications Our findings suggest that Beijing’s external communication activities might have the potential to fulfil Beijing’s goal of improving the country’s image overseas, provided that media reached a wider audience. Value The paper overcomes the limitations of previous studies on the reception of Chinese external communication practices in Africa (i.e., small sample sizes, failure to differentiate between increased presence and increased impact, and use of indirect rather direct measures of media use to infer possible effects on public opinion).

<p class="p1">Most journalists around the world will agree that a central element of their jobs is to be as truthful as possible to the events they are covering. However, as John Lloyd writes in The Power and the Story, staying loyal to the truth is not always an easy task. In authoritarian regimes, the State’s shadow looms large over journalistic freedom, dissenting voices are suppressed and mainstream media are under the tight control of those who wield power. In democratic societies, journalism is often practised under the pressure of the market, frequently leading to partial accounts of events. Based on personal interviews with some of the defining figures in contemporary journalism, Lloyd’s direct experience in Egypt, the UK, Italy, Russia and other countries, and a comprehensive review of secondary sources, The Power and the Story surveys the state of journalism across the globe, starting in China and concluding with the United States, highlighting the apparently shrinking appreciation for good journalism worldwide.

Objective With an aim of extending the scope of group threat theory from within‐country tensions between racial groups to international economic competition, this study specifically examined the impacts of perceived relative economic status of an in‐group country on attitudes about contentious political issues with a rival out‐group country. Methods Two survey experiments were administered, both of which manipulated Japanese participants’ perceptions of the relative economic powers of Japan and South Korea. Results When Japanese perceive that their country's economic power is declining relative to South Korea's economy, they demonstrate more hardline attitudes about territorial and historical issues between the two countries. Conclusion This study demonstrates the applicability of group threat theory to bilateral international relations. It also suggests that public opinion about international conflicts is a function of the long‐term rebalancing of economic power, which cannot be easily influenced by short‐term policies.

In most African countries, “fake news,” politically motivated disinformation, and misinformation in the media were common occurrences before these became a preoccupation in the Global North. However, with a fast-growing population of mobile users, and the popularization of apps such as WhatsApp, misinformation has become much  more pervasive across the continent. Researchers have shown that perceived exposure to false information is high in some African countries, and yet citizens often share made-up news intentionally. This article explores the motivations and contributing factors for sharing misinformation in six sub-Saharan African countries. Our analysis of 12 focus groups with university students reveals two common motivations: civic duty and fun. The sharing of political (dis)information was uneven, but common among students with high levels of self-reported political engagement. We also present an array of cues used to determine credibility, which often determines the shareability of information. Cross-national differences are also discussed.

Dataset including information from 3,864 academic articles published in high-impact indexed journals from 2000 to 2020 that includes the words disinformation, misinformation and/or fake news. Information was retrieved from JSTOR and EbscoHost databases, as well as scraped from the websites of Taylor and Francis and SAGE. This collection also includes the R language script using to analyse the data, included in the chapter Research Methods in Comparative Disinformation Studies. The data (in a csv format) includes the following fields: Journal Title (journal_title) Article Title (article_title) Publication Year (article_year) Article Abstract (article_abstract) Article URL (article_url) Article DOI (article_doi) Source Database (source_db)

This dataset includes a corpus 200,000+ news articles published by 600 African news organizations between December 4, 2020 and January 3, 2021. The texts have been pre-processed (punctuation and English stopwords have been removed, features have been lowercased, lemmatized and POS-tagged) and stored in commonly used formats for text mining/computational text analysis. Users are advised to read the documentation for an explanation of the data collection process. This dataset includes the following items: 31 tables (one per day) of lowercased and lemmatized tokens with the following additional variables: POS tags, document id, sentence id, token id and publication date (stored as a tibble). A single document-feature matrix (DFM) with raw counts of feature frequencies in each news article (stored as a quanteda dfm object). The DFM comes with the following metadata for each document: date of publication and source URL. A metadata table with the following fields: document id, publication date, source url, news source and country of the news source. A list of sources included in the course grouped by country name. All items are stored in formats readable in R. The documentation provides instructions on how to load the RDS files to R. If you decide to use the data for your own project, please do cite it using the information above. If you identify errors or missing sources, please contact us so that these can be addressed.