Beijing’s Media Trainings for Ghanaian Journalists: Building Their Professional Know-Hows?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Beijing is investing heavily in media soft power through near all-expenses-paid media trainings for Ghanaian journalists in the name of building their journalistic capabilities. But are the trainings really about boosting the participants' professional know-hows? And is Beijing’s use of soft power during the media trainings any effective? This paper explores these questions from the perspectives of 13 Ghanaian journalists that participated in such trainings. Through elite interviews and reflexive thematic analysis, the study shows that the Chinese media trainings for the Ghanaian journalists proved to be whimsical and too superficial in depth to add any meaningful value to the participants’ professional know-hows. This paper thus argues that Beijing is mainly using the media trainings as a ploy to achieve other strategic Chinese goals than building the professional know-hows of the Ghanaian journalists. It also determines that Beijing’s use of soft power during the media trainings is deemed as helping to improve the participants’ general perception of China. These findings make original contributions to bridging the existing gaps in the China–Africa scholarship on the nature and rationales of Beijing’s media trainings for Africans, as well as the efficacy of China’s use of soft power during the professionalization media trainings.