Framing of the Sino–Africa relationship in diasporic/pan-African news magazines

Abstract

Using the New African magazine and the African Business magazine as its case study, this paper examines the coverage of the Sino–African relationship in the pan-African news magazines of the African diaspora. The objectives of the study are twofold. The first objective is to provide insights on the level of coverage of Sino–African relationship by the diasporic African media. The second objective is to understand how the presence of China in the socioeconomic and political spheres of many African countries is portrayed. The findings show that the African Business provides extensive coverage of the multidimensional complexity of China's presence in Africa, as opposed to the episodic-oriented coverage that Sino–African relationships get in the New African magazine. While the thematic framing of the Sino–African relationships are similar in both magazines, the New African magazine takes a dogmatic approach in its portrayal of the relationship in an overly positive manner in comparison to the African Business's more contextual and nuanced coverage.