Sino-African journalism and journalistic fields: CGTN Africa’s workers between worlds

Much academic criticism and public-political opinion has been made of China’s “going out” in Africa, and particularly of its media apparatus’ role in this project. But there has been little concerted research into the forces that influence production at these news organisations. Why do they produce the news they do? Why do the journalists that work for them choose to do so? Drawing on almost fifty hours of semi-structure interviews and life histories with staff at one of these Sino-African news organisations, CGTN Africa, I will seek to explain and theorise its production of news.

This thesis argues that field theory, as proposed by Pierre Bourdieu, can provide a useful theoretical basis for studying the particular context of news production at CGTN Africa, and can contribute to wider understandings of international news production. Bourdieusian concepts such as habitus, capital, and field, are helpful analytical tools to explain the processes of work at an organisation like CGTN Africa, but also need considerable adaptation to the specificities of the context of this case study.

The analysis is presented in four chapters, the first three of which use the prism of differing vertical layers of field to interrogate the practice of CGTN Africa and its journalists: the global field, where CGTN competes with its international competitors; national fields, where journalists themselves emanate from; and urban fields, where news organisations tend to be based. The final analysis chapter then considers the overlapping of these layers of fields, and the unique patterns of practice this can produce.

In the case of each layer, the context of news production at CGTN Africa is used to reflect back on Bourdieu’s “thinking tools,” and propose novel theoretical approaches to studying international news production. It first considers how competing heteronomies work to protect unique forms of journalistic practice at CGTN Africa. Second, how journalists interact with forms of capital emanating from competing national fields, developing new dispositions to engage with their work. Third, it considers how social position within journalistic fields relates to physical mobility and geographic positioning within and in relation to urban environments. And finally, it reflects on the role of race and racism in the day-to-day work and career trajectories of journalists working for international news organisations.

Together, these analyses argue that, when used reflexively, field theory provides a fruitful toolkit for researchers investigating journalistic practice in a wider variety of contexts.