Networking a quiet community: South African Chinese news reporting and networking

Abstract

Half of all Chinese people living in Africa reside in South Africa, a community with a long history. On the surface, the South African Chinese community resembles a quiet community, yet it is actually a highly networked community that has developed networks and support structures to protect itself and to maintain its unique and vibrant identity in a dangerous environment. At the forefront of this is a community organization called the South African Chinese Community and Police Cooperation Centre. This community has also developed a home-grown South African Chinese language media to tell its own story. The South African Chinese media has been all but neglected by researchers and is analysed in depth here in English for the first time. This article examines six months of content, January–July 2017, produced by South African Chinese media, lifting the veil on news reporting and networking in the South African Chinese community.