Vivien Marsh

Vivien Marsh


I completed my PhD in 2018, comparing the English-language news output of Chinese state television (CCTV) with that of BBC World News TV (since extended and turned into a book). I've led undergraduate and postgraduate media studies seminars at Westminster since 2014 and I supervise BA and MA dissertations. 

Before I returned to academia, I was a BBC global news journalist for more than 25 years. I worked mainly as a World Service radio news editor, but I also spent several years in regional, national and international TV news, wrote for the BBC news website, edited the daily European current affairs programme Europe Today and was an Asia-Pacific news editor/reporter. I still work occasionally as a freelance journalist.


My PhD research compared the news output of CCTV-News, the English-language 24-hour news channel of the Chinese state broadcaster (now renamed CGTN), with BBC World News Television between 2014 and 2016. My book, due in early 2023, extends this research further into the Xi Jinping era and the relaunch of CCTV-News as CGTN. I have also developed an experimental method of comparing news texts (published in Journalism Studies).


Sustainable Development Goals
In brief

Research areas

journalism, broadcast news, Chinese media, political communication

Skills / expertise

newswriting, editorial decision-making, comparative content analysis, frame analysis