Making space for emotions: exploring China-Africa 'mediated relationships' through CCTV-9's documentary African Chronicles (Feizhou jishi)

Abstract

This article explores how the image of China 'as engaged with Africa' is promoted within China, by looking at a State-sanctioned, Chinese-language media text targeting the domestic audience. It first proposes two paradigm shifts: in the direction adopted in investigating China's soft power, and in the dimension considered in exploring China-Africa media interactions. After reviewing the relevant existing literature, it introduces African Chronicles(Feizhou jishi), a TV documentary screened by CCTV-9 in 2011, and carries out a social semiotic analysis of the first episode, A Journey through Memory (Jiyi zhilü). The analysis reveals that the storytelling of Prof. Ge, the protagonist, is instrumental in reminding the audience of the old rhetoric of the revolutionary years; it also serves the function of dismissing its adaptability to the contemporary postsocialist era, characterized by a less explicit political engagement and the prominence of economic interests. More importantly,...