Author: Alessandro Jedlowski, Ute Röschenthaler.

Following the exponential growth in China–Africa relationships over the past few years, African and Chinese media industries have developed new ties and increased their reci- procal relationships. For instance, Chinese state media corporations such as Xinhua News and China Central Television (CCTV) have significantly invested in developing their African chapters, private companies such as StarTimes acquired a leading role in the continent-wide satellite television market, and Chinese telecommunication firms such as Huawei and ZTE have transformed the African continent into their testing ground for new products and marketing strategies, to be later exported elsewhere around the world. These developments have confirmed emerging trends in the multipo- larization of media transnational flows, which scholarship grounded on cultural imperial- ism theories had often overlooked (but see Larkin 1997; McNeely and Soysal 1989; Shohat and Stam 2003; Sreberny 1991). A growing number of studies addressed the increasing China–Africa media interactions over the past few years. Some of these studies made an attempt at interpreting the con- sequences of these interactions on the African mediascape, often connecting them to the wider debate about the transformations of Chinese soft power strategies (cf. Banda 2009; Gagliardone 2013; Gagliardone, Stremlau, and Nkrumah 2012; Harber 2013; Li and Rønning 2013; Rønning 2014;Wu2012; Xin 2009; Zhang, Wasserman, and Mano 2016; see also Kurlantzick 2007;Li2009). Others investigated African audiences’reception of Chinese media and popular culture, and analysed African media coverage of China- related news and African visual representations of China (cf. Gorfinkel, Joffe, and van Staden 2014; Joseph 1999; Simbao 2012; Stern 2009; Wasserman 2012,2013; Wekesa 2013). A relatively smaller number of studies explored also the activity of African media entrepreneurs in China and questioned the representation of Africa and of Africa- related news in Chinese media.