Could Chinese News Channels Have a Future in Latin America?

Pablo Sebastian Morales

doi:10.16997/wpcc.276

Pablo Sebastian Morales

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.16997/wpcc.276

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Abstract

China’s global media expansion has entailed the creation of a series of multilingual media outlets targeting different regions of the world. With Latin America being one of them, Spanish has arisen as a key language within China’s international media strategy. Nevertheless, as the region is also targeted by other competitors from Western countries and beyond, China faces serious challenges in both trying to convey its message and earning the approval and acceptance of audiences. By looking at how Latin American viewers perceive CCTV’s Spanish language channel (rebranded in 2016 as CGTN), compared to Russia’s RT and Iran’s HispanTV, this article seeks to evaluate what factors may be undermining the effectiveness of China’s international media strategy in this particular region and how this affects its soft power ambitions. This study is based on a series of focus groups conducted in Mexico and Argentina between September and October 2016, whereby participants were shown video excerpts from these broadcasters and encouraged to discuss an array of different topics. This paper shows that besides lagging behind in terms of viewership, CCTV-E faces multiple challenges such as changes in news consumption patterns, scarce availability and accessibility across Latin America, and issues of credibility and trust in the media. As CCTV-E faces competition from other broadcasters, its survival depends on how well it can align its services with the audiences’ needs and preferences, such as perceived objectivity and impartiality.

Highlights

During the last decade, China has been investing heavily in creating international media networks including radio stations, television channels and even magazines and newspapers for a number of foreign languages
The findings suggest that international broadcasters such as China Central Television (CCTV) and its competitors need to take into account a series of factors that will influence the degree of their impact
By looking at the specific case of how CCTV is targeting Latin America, this paper argues that understanding local particularities of audiences across the globe constitutes one of the key factors that will determine the degree of success of such an endeavour

Summary

Introduction

China has been investing heavily in creating international media networks including radio stations, television channels and even magazines and newspapers for a number of foreign languages. By using international media as tools to spread soft power, Beijing seeks to expand its sphere of influence worldwide (Zhang 2008) and reportedly counter the often negative image of China portrayed by other international media (Duan 2007). This public diplomacy strategy aims to influence the perception of audiences in different regions of the globe by producing multimedia content in an array of foreign languages besides. This paper analyses a range of factors that may be limiting the efforts of China Central Television to reach viewers in Latin America through its Spanish-language channel. The main findings are presented and discussed in light of their implications for CCTV’s effectiveness in targeting Latin American audiences

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