Western and Chinese Media Representation of Africa in COVID-19 News Coverage

“Western and Chinese Media Representation of Africa in COVID-19 News Coverage” is an academic article by Ethiopian journalism scholar Samuel Mochona Gabore that compares the tone, framing, and sources of COVID-19 news from Africa in Western and Chinese news outlets. Historically, Western media has been biased against the African continent as it has tended to depict Africa in a pessimistic and racist light, labeling Africans as “Others” inferior to residents of Western countries. Many scholars observe that Western media primarily reports on instances of poverty, conflict, and general instability in Africa, framing Africa as violent and hopeless. In contrast, in line with China’s goal of strengthening diplomatic relations with African countries, Chinese media reporting often creates a positive image of a “rising Africa,” and approaches events in Africa through a lens of economic opportunity and progress, instead of disaster and backwardness.

This study collected articles that reported on the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa from British, American, and French news outlets, and three Chinese news websites in early April of 2020. It found that Western news reports obtained information from mainly non-official African sources, including interviews with African locals, as well as statements from government officials and supplementary analyses or opinions from Western academics and experts, whereas Chinese news agencies relied only on official African sources. Gabore argues that the diversity of sources and perspectives covered by Western reporters led to a relatively even distribution of articles with positive, negative, and neutral tones, with topics ranging from the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths, socio-economic impacts of the pandemic, challenges of pandemic policy implementation, and tragic stories of illness, such as a “Zimbabwean broadcaster [who] died scared and alone in [an] isolation ward” (Gabore 309). Chinese news outlets reported on the pandemic situation in Africa as constructed through official narratives of African governments, focusing on the efforts of politicians, artists, and other high-status individuals and China’s involvement in assisting with the pandemic response in Africa, resulting in an overwhelmingly positive tone and a near absence of negative news.

Published in 2020, this study sheds new light on the evolution of Western media reporting on Africa at the beginning of the pandemic. It provides evidence that contradicts older research suggesting that Western media only reports on Africa through a lens of crisis, and instead shows the comprehensiveness of Western media reporting, as seen from its diverse source material. Although the findings of the study demonstrate that Chinese reporting does not share the biases against Africa prevalent in earlier Western reporting, Gabore cautions that its “uncommonly positive” tone may not reflect the reality of the pandemic in Africa. The article shows how national political agendas shape the portrayal of other countries in media, as well as the considerable progress Western media has made in providing unbiased reporting of Africa.