How Does the Zambian Media Report China? Examining Episodic and Thematic Frames in the Zambian Newsrooms

Episodic vs thematic frames

As an essential sounding board, the media has the role of giving meaning to daily events. This is done through various means, including framing particular issues. According to Nelson and Kinder (1996), a frame “suggests how the issue should be thought about and understood” (p. 1057). This argument stems from Robert Entman’s (1993) article in the reprise of the Journal of Communication’s unique issue, “Ferment of the field.” In his quest for a normative approach to framing, Entman (1993) observed that the theory was an ascendant phenomenon in communication research. He observed its power and argued that journalists could efficiently classify what kind of information to communicate to their audience by framing an issue. But this was only possible if the framing paradigm was amended with a focus on showing how frames become embedded within the news texts and how those frames influence thinking (Entman, 1993: 51). In other words, the process should be clearly defined for one to claim that framing had occurred. According to D’Angelo (2002), this process requires the harnessing of communication paradigms that should include the cognitive, constructionist, and critical outlooks. This will provide media practitioners with the ability “to create specific images with which to examine the interaction of media frames and individual-or social-level reality” (p. 870). Central to the two arguments are ideas of thematic versus episodic frames that most scholars have perceived as the two hallmarks for understanding news frames.

News frames are understood in two types: thematic and episodic. Iyengar (2009) defined thematic news frames as depicting “a form of in-depth background” (p. 253). Accordingly, this kind of framing goes deeper into the event to explore the hidden agenda by using various investigative methods (Borah, 2011). Springer and Harwood (2015) observe that most stories of this nature “tend to use statistics and are usually enterprise” (p. 227). By using statistics, the stories are not content with simple reporting of events but use data to compare what has been presented with what has occurred over time. Unlike stories generated from press releases and routine or assigned reporting, thematic stories are an enterprise in nature because they reflect the creative nature of a journalist.

On the other hand, episodic news frames

typically appear as one of two types of case study: either a concrete event that serves as a representative anecdote of a broader social issue or the life story of a person who can, as journalists say, put a face on the issue. (Hove et al., 2013: 94)

For Iyengar (2009) episodic frames “depict issues in terms of individual instances or specific events” (p. 253). These instances tend to be temporary and are usually discussed in passing and typically refer to a single individual. The same argument is emphasized by Semetko and Valkenburg (2000), who hold that, while “episodic news, which refers to specific events, and thematic news, refers to more analytical, contextual, or historical coverage” (p. 95).

In their experimental study, Feezell et al. (2019) observed that when the media frames an issue episodically, citizens tend to attribute the responsibility to an individual, therefore, paying less attention to the possible general impact. On the other hand, thematically attributed frames tend to go deeper, and their influence is perceived as affecting everyone else. Consistent with the above arguments, Springer and Harwood (2015) argued that episodic issues are usually reflected in the narrative nature of an individual’s story. That is why Gross (2008) believed that episodic frames are more engaging because they tend to have a personal connection to the individual. However, the level of engagement does not imply importance, but most news content characterized as episodic tends to be excessive yet attractive to the audience. According to Hart (2011), such frames are standard in marketing and advertising messages but can be relevant in promoting behavior or policy change. Iyengar (1990) thought of them as digestible to the reader because of their low levels of producing counterarguments (Slater and Rouner, 2002). In other words, with episodic frames, individuals are lured into believing a news story with less criticism.

Further research on thematic and episodic frames has emerged to account for other multiple dimensions involving the cognitive process of frames. For example, in their study, Shah et al. (2004) argued that the earlier understanding of thematic and episodic frames ignored the probability of confounding variables. As a contribution, they argue for testing the mixture of frames by showing that a combination of frame categories provides a more detailed description of the issue. Empirical research has continued to explore this phenomenon, with Brosius et al. (2012) asserting that exemplars (such as ZNBC in our case) strongly influenced how the majority perceived the message and subsequently how other journalists reported that message. As Springer and Harwood (2015) hold, “the vividness of exemplars makes the message more memorable and triggers heuristic processing, giving exemplars an advantage over base-rate information in influencing perceptions of an issue” (p. 228). In our context, these exemplars have the power to frame China in either a positive or negative spotlight, thus providing justification for interrogating Chinese investment in the Zambian media.

Chinese frames in the Zambian news content

Because of the understudied nature of the Zambian media and its performance amid Chinese presence, one cannot rigidly insist that a single theory can explain the implications (Gondwe, 2021). The novelty of the field calls for the observation of several phenomena as a prerequisite. It is this “unknown” newness of the field that makes a theory-building approach potentially productive. On the other hand, research on the Sino-Africa relationship continues to grow, yet most of them focus on the political and economic implications. Until recently, little or no research was dedicated to China’s implication on the Zambian media. As a result, the Manichean approaches reflect the debates on the political and economic implications, thus creating gaps in research on how China’s presence is influencing the media content through frames and agenda-setting.

Seminal studies on the topic have either explored the influence of the Chinese media operating in Africa, namely, China Global Television Network (CGTN) and CCTV news or the performance of journalists (Umejei, 2018, 2020). While the former was able to show evidence of the flow of influence by observing the Chinese news agenda, the latter demonstrated that Chinese media operating in Africa had two kinds of gatekeepers: Those comprised of Chinese nationals and gatekeeping every news item that mentioned China (a.k.a. the “Upstairs gatekeepers”) versus those assigned to gatekeep everything but news mentioning China in them (a.k.a the “Downstairs gatekeeper”). Umejei concluded that media relations between China and most African countries were asymmetrical in the sense that China controlled the news content, including what journalists could or could not report. This is consistent with Nothias’ (2020) argument that most journalists’ works are ultimately not theirs. As a result, the desire to do enterprise and investigative stories among most African journalists in proving evanescence.

When China decided to partner with the government-owned media, ZNBC, the level of influence was not directly observed except by observing the amount of money that China had invested in the media. By 2017, China officially owned more than 60% of the shares and received revenue for the next 25 years to offset the loan. Although China and the Zambian media rejected the idea of influence, media critics continue to question the possibility of independence. More importantly, ZNBC is seen as an exemplar for the entire media in the country.

Essentially, exemplars are perceived as trustworthy, and their accounts as vivid and represent public opinion. In the case of Zambia, ZNBC is considered an exemplar because of its financial ability to survive the media market and the range of coverage it takes. Chinese loans and direct government support have allowed the ZNBC to take precedence in reporting most stories across the country. As a result, most media in Zambia monitor news content from ZNBC and make them theirs. Because of limited financial support and government restrictions, commercial, Community, and religious media tend to limit their coverage and only report stories in their reach.

To accommodate other stories, they turn to stories reported in the government media, monitor them, twerk them a little bit, and report them as their own creativity. Thus, frames about China from ZNBC will also be reflected in the three other media categories (Commercial, Community, and Religious). As a result, we predict that most news content mentioning China will be episodic and thus reflect direct Chinese influence. In this study, we hold that episodic news content reflects Chinese influence because they do not go deeper to interrogate how China is shaping their perception and content. We further predict that most episodic contents develop from journalistic routine roles and press releases. In this view, we ask them how the media in Zambia framed stories about the Zambia-China relationship as a means to shape local opinions and discourse.

The first research question addresses the different types of frames used to report China. Therefore, we examine whether the coverage of China in the Zambian news reflects the claim that China’s engagement with the Zambian media is intended to bolster professional journalism practices among the local media. Obviously, the procurement of advanced gadgets does that, but does that translate to professional practices characterized by journalistic autonomy in news content? Against this backdrop, we ask the following question:

Generally, research on journalistic performance is approached through two lenses: As an isolated phenomenon informed by an individual journalist’s moral fiber (individual), or as a broadly systemic and public problem (societal). The same is true when it comes to analyzing news frames. In their study, for example, Hove et al. (2013) analyzed US news content and found that most news was presented as a either an individual or societal frame. Accordingly, an emphasis on one tend to negate or ignore the role of the other side of the frame. The same is true about how most studies on Chinese influence in Africa are studied. In Zambia, for example, a few existing studies that have attempted to analyze Chinese influence argue that journalists who report about the Zambia-China relationship can only claim to practice autonomy if their reporting is framed as a problem for which communities and society, in general, are responsible (Matambo, 2021; Mazurova et al., 2021). In other words, pointing out individual mistakes does not help. The argument is that when organizations and corporations or governments are held responsible by society, the likeliness of change is higher (Kunkel et al., 2006). This is consistent with Iyengar (1991), who argued that such approaches are thematic in the sense that they focus on social problems while seeking the cause, trends, and consequences (p. 14). In this view, we analyzed how the media in Zambia categorized as either government-owned (ZNBC), commercial, Community, and religiously owned frame China’s presence in Zambia. We adopted Semetko and Valkenburg’s (2000) generic frames of conflict, human interest, economic consequences, morality, and attribution of responsibility to serve as the independent variables. Unlike the inductive approach of analyzing frames in the news, the deductive approach’s ability to verify the extent to which the frames occur in the news, make it ideal for this study. As Semetko and Valkenburg notes, “The deductive approach can easily detect differences in framing between media (e.g. television vs press) and within media (e.g. highbrow news programs or newspapers vs tabloid-style media). Because of the aforementioned characteristics, we find it justified to use this approach for our study because it draws content between and within the media. In other words, our study draws its data from newspapers and broadcast content. We, therefore, ask the following question:

More importantly, we also measure whether there have been changes in the way China is covered in the news from 2012 when China first declared its intention to invest in Africa to 2018, a year after China had officially declared 60% ownership of the Zambian media. Therefore, we ask the following question:

This is in reference to enterprise stories—those that reflect journalists initiatives as opposed to daily reporting routines; they are investigative and were able to report detailed information about the case and are willing to criticize China where necessary. The change is determined in the tone and fairness of how China has been reported over time: As either a subject or object of the story.

Sampling

The study employed content analyses methods to collect and analyze stories from the Zambian news over a period of 8 years. The unit of analysis was any story published between 2012 and 2020. To meet the criteria, stories were supposed to be published by a news media from Zambia, as this would subsequently help in categorizing news content as either belonging to government, commercial, community, or religious media. Year 2012 is particularly important because it reflects a time when China officially declared interest in investing in Africa. Stories were selected through a keyword search of the Noovell Global News software. The Noovell Global News software is a global aggregation platform with news in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Although not commonly used, the Noovell software has settings that allow the researcher to select and collect relevant stories for analysis.

With the help of two trained coders, we collected a total of 1321 stories using the following keywords: China in Zambia, ZNBC and China, Chinese investment in Zambia, StarTimes Zambia, and CCTV-Zambia, Chinese mining in Zambia, and Chinese labor laws in Zambia. The stories were collected from two-constructed days of the month (13th and 15th) generated using open-source online software (random.org). We manually copied and placed each story in a spreadsheet with foci on whether they came from a government-owned media, commercial, community, or religious. Accordingly, each of the stories was placed in their respective categories based on what media published them. Stories from individual bloggers or unidentified sources were eliminated. Of the 1321 stories, 739 stories came from ZNBC (the government-owned media), 377 from commercial media, 189 from community media, and 44 from religious media. As a further measure for robustness, we tested the extent of inter-coder agreement with the 2012 dataset. The intercoder test provided Krippendorff reliability results ranging between 0.85 and 0.93 across the two trained coders and the researcher.

Coding scheme

We created coding categories based on article attributes used in the coverage and presentation style of a particular story.

Like Hove et al. (2013), we binary-coded the societal versus individual frames separately as “yes” or “no.” This is because of the assumption that both the societal and individual solution frames were used in a single story. Therefore, the binary categories were merged to indicate four possible outcomes: “no frame presented,” “individual frame,” “societal frame,” and “both frames presented.” Also, just like Hover et al. (2013), Entman et al. (2009), and Matthes and Kohring (2008), we inductively and deductively framed our analysis by manually and holistically classifying each newspaper story as manifesting either an episodic or thematic frame. Deductively the operational definitions for news frames were drawn from Iyengar (1991), while inductively, we relied upon the researcher and the trained coders’ intuition to select the story features of every story. The NVivo software was partially used to identify such frames.

Independent and dependent variable

The independent variable in this study is Chinese news content in government, commercial, community, and religiously owned media in Zambia. Also, Chinese news content stands as the unit of analysis in all the various media categories. On the other hand, the dependent variables are reflected by five generic frames proposed by Semetko and Valkenburg (2000), namely, conflict, human interest, economic consequences, morality, and attribution of responsibility. Accordingly, Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) describe the conflict frame as emphasizing conflict in the story as a means of capturing audience attention, human interest to describe stories that bring a human face or an emotional angle, economic consequences as stories highlighting the economic ramifications, morality frames as those placing the event in religious tenets or moral proscriptions, and responsibility frames as presenting an issue with efforts to attribute responsibility for its cause or solution to either the government, an individual, or group. In addition, story tone also served as the dependent variable.

Coding procedure

The coding process was iterated and discussed weekly for a month by the researcher and the coders who received a cash incentive. Since we had two trained coders, we adopted Perreault and Leigh’s (1989) index. The index has been used extensively by several researchers because of its rigorousness and the fact that it takes chance agreements into account (Hove et al., p. 97). For each feature, the following intercoder reliability coefficients were arrived at: Story source = .95; story topic = .85; story type = .95; story enhancement = .95; Story frame - .95; individual frame of the cause = .88; societal frame of the cause = .79; individual frame of the solution = .86; societal frame of the solution = .92.

In addition, we measured power relations through syntactic analyses. We began by creating a word and phrase frequency using the NVivo software and then performed syntactic analyses. As Hulden (2016) asserts, “a syntactic analysis has the potential to go beyond the ‘bag-of-words in illuminating power relations, as well as capturing more clearly who exactly is at the center of the analysis” (p. 140). Based on this assertion, the first step was to collect all the sentences that had China in them from the news using an auto-coding command, then perform the syntactic analysis for all the media categories. This provided a total of 923 sentences/phrases from ZNBC, 228 from private media, 162 from community media, and 61 from religious media. Together with the two trained coders, we manually labeled the data for each news story in the four media categories and presented them as either China is a subject or an object in the story. This was done after conducting an intercoder reliability test with 50 sentences from each category, therefore providing the coders and me with the Cohen’s Kappa Coefficients ranging between 95% and 100%.

RQ1: what are the most important issues covered in the Zambian news content when talking about China?

Data from our sample indicate that more than 60% of the stories focused on political and economic issues culled within routine/daily kinds of news reporting. On the other hand, stories about the environment, agriculture, scientific innovations, culture, and so on, accounted for less. Descriptively, the findings indicate that ZNBC and Commercial media that provided more data to the sample had a higher inclination to routine events (62.06% and 52%, respectively). Intermedia sources were also a significant category in the findings of ZNBC and Commercial media. However, community and religious media showed a rather different form of dedication to story source. Particularly, 62% of the stories came from the community, and 58% of the stories from religious media were a result of enterprise and investigative. Nonetheless, routine stories still held a privileged position in the sample.

On the other hand, ZNBC seemed to follow hard and brief news formats, as opposed to analytical story formats such as features and opinions. 69% and 20% of the stories in ZNBC, respectively, followed a hard and brief news format, therefore privileging political and economic subject matters over storytelling narratives. This kind of reporting contradicts the general population of Zambians, who rely on different literary styles of writing and narrating stories. Whose literacy levels are just above 50% (Kombe and Mwanza, 2019; Wanda et al., 2021). The interpretation is that the local media in Zambia is keenly interested in interrogating the Zambia-China relationship in the sense that little effort is dedicated to interrogating the meaning of that relationship. Table 1 below presents a summary of the sample characteristics of the stories.

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Table 1.

Overall sample characteristics.

Variable	ZNBC		Private		Community		Religious
	Freq	%	Freq	%	Freq	%	Freq	%
Story source
Routine	458	62.06%	188	52%	19	10%	16	37%
Intermedia source	196	27%	74	20%	47	25%	2	5%
Enterprise	71	10%	87	24%	116	62%	25	58%
Not indicated	3	0.4%	14	4%	5	3%	0	0%
Total	728	100	363	100	187	100	43	100
Story topic
Political	407	56%	141	39%	13	7%	2	5%
Economic	291	40%	67	18%	89	48%	21	49%
Social	9	1.06%	39	11%	3	2%	1	2%
Scientific	3	0.4%	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
Environment	18	2%	101	28%	63	34%	11	26%
Cultural	0	0%	13	6%	2	1%	0	0%
Human Interest	0	0%	2	1%	18	10%	8	19%
Other	0	0%	0	0	0	0	0	0%
Total	728	100	363	100	187	100	43	100
Story Type
Hard news	502	69%	119	33%	47	25%	23	53%
Brief News	145	20%	7	2%	39	21%	5	12%
Opinion	51	7%	22	6%	86	46%	7	16%
Feature	14	2%	215	59%	15	8%	8	19%
Other	16	2%	0	0%	0	0	0	0%
Total	728	100	363	100	187	100	43	100
Story Enhance
Picture	673	92%	218	60%	106	57%	9	21%
Illustration	28	4%	122	34%	4	2%	0	0%
None	27	4%	23	6%	77	41%	34	79%
Total	728	100	363	100	187	100	43	100
Story Frames
Episodic	614	91%	137	38%	70	37%	5	12%
Thematic	14	9%	226	62%	117	63%	38	88%
Total	728	100	363	100	187	100	43	100

Percentages were estimated to the nearest whole number.

RQ2: how are stories about China in the Zambian media frequently framed as episodic versus thematic and/or individual versus societal inclined?

To answer RQ2, we used a chi-square test through which we measured each of the news frames by how China was presented in the story. In this case, we categorized the stories about China in terms of conflict, human interest, economic interest, morality, and attribution of responsibility. The five variables were measured by observing the attributions of frame type, causation, and solutions. For accuracy purposes, we removed the “no” and “multiple cause and solution” frames with the purpose of analyzing only two kinds of relationships in a frame: The individual versus the societal. Table 2 below presents a summary of the findings.

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Table 2.

Chinese media frames by type of story attribution.

	Conflict	Human Interest	Economic Interest	Morality	Responsibility	χ 2	(df)
	% (N)	% (N)	% (N)	% (N)	% (N)
Frame Type
Episodic	88.5 (216)	37.3 (79)	68.7 (465)	73 (54)	1.5 (12)	19.13	(4)**
Thematic	11.5 (28)	62.7 (133)	31.3 (212)	27 (20)	0.5 (2)
Cause Frame
Individual	90.6 (221)	23.1 (49)	89.1 (603)	89.2 (66)	64.3 (9)	29.07	(4)***
Societal	9.4 (23)	76.89(163)	11 (74)	10.8 (8)	35.7 (5)
Solution
Individual	77 (188)	81.6 (173)	94 (637)	94 (71)	78.6 (11)	26.04	(4)***
Societal	23 (56)	18.4 (39)	6 (40)	4 (3)	28.6 (4)

**

p < .01. ***p < .001.

Findings indicate that episodic frames were significantly prevalent in conflict, economic, morality, and responsibility frames except for stories with’ human interest’ attributes. The chi-square test with the story frame by type of Chinese news frames indicates a statistically significant difference in the frequency of thematic versus episodic frames used across the five types of variables describing Chinese investment in the Zambian media (χ²(4) = 19.13, p < 0.01). In other words, this suggests that most stories about China in the Zambian news are episodic, usually culled from daily events. In the same way, both cause and solution frames were statistically supported with significant results of difference (χ²(4) = 29.07, p < 0.01 and χ²(4) = 26.04, p < 0.01), respectively, to indicate that all the stories about China in the Zambian media utilized the individual as a basis for their cause and solution frames. In each case, economic interest characterized the stories. Another finding of interest is the number of stories under the attribution of responsibility variable (n = 14), which seem not to correspond to the morality variable (N = 74).

Generally, Chinese activities were positively framed with a language that focused on how the presence of China in Zambia was going to benefit the Zambian people. For example, statements like, “China will correct Zambia’s infrastructure deficit,” “China a star of Zambian cooperation,” “China aiming to help Africa develop,” and so on, were used. In contrast, negative frames were presented by uncomplimentary expressions that especially showed concerns about the growing influence and the worrisome impressions that it was coming to colonize Zambia and “take over” the resources through soft powers. Statements like, “Say no China. . .,” “Workers detail abuse in Chinese Mines,” “China in Zambia, Jobs or exploitation?,” “Give us trade deals, not debts,” and so on, characterized what constituted negative frames. Stories representing neutrality were mostly characterized by government official visits to China or Chinese officials visiting Zambia, that is, “In China, First Lady Esther Lungu takes part in the gathering of heads of states,” “International students flocking to China,” “China urges stability,” and so on

RQ3: How has the coverage of China in the Zambian media changed over time?

RQ3 sought to examine whether there are patterns of interest across time in how the Zambian media has covered stories about China. General findings indicate that there has been a gradual increase of stories about Chinese activities in the Zambian media from 2012 to 2018. In all the media, a peak is recorded in 2015 and 2017 to indicate the years that China’s influence became more prevalent and salient. However, a drop in the number of stories is observed in 2018, as Table 3 below presents.

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Table 3.

Number of Stories per year in the Zambian media.

The peak of stories was in 2015 and 2017.

Further, specific chi-square tests indicate a gradual decrease in thematic frames (χ²(6) = 28.05, p < 0.00) predicated by the years 2015 and 2017. The same is true about the societal solution frame that recorded a statistically significant rise and then the fall of the attributions to society (χ²(6) = 18.06, p < 0.01), with the peak fall happening in 2017. At face value, these findings seem to be presenting an obvious interpretation. However, a thorough introspection of how issues are framed through story generation belies the argument. In other words, if we look at the findings without a critical lens, we would conclude that its criticism of the Chinese activities in Zambia could be just as complimentary as the positive image it presents about the Zambian China relationship.

In addition, we measured power relations in the news by computing the frequencies of significance in the tests according to the degrees of “subjectness” or “objectness” of China and Chinese activities in the Zambian media as per the syntactic analysis. This was done by selecting the most frequently used noun phrases on China (NPs) in the data and then calculating the ratio of how many times it appeared as a subject (passive or active) versus as an object (indirect or direct). An aggregate ratio indicated that China in the phrases was especially used as a subject in ZNBC and Private media and only as an object when used in the passive voice. Examples of phrases in which China was a subject included a statement like, “China means well,” “China is a good partner,” and so on, were used. On the other hand, China was used as an object in instances like, “ZNBC has benefited from loans given by Chinese TopStar,” “The Zambia Geo-Engineering company is being rehabilitated with the engagement of China,” “ZNBC’s collapse was redeemed by China,” and so on. This implies that China was in less or no circumstance receiving the command in stories found in ZNBC or Private media.

Second, in both media categories, the object level of China appeared only in events in which a Chinese individual or company was accused of doing something bad (e.g. in cases where people complained about the working conditions or in a story where a Chinese national had shot and killed a Zambian teenager). These did not align with community and Religious media that seemed to have presented China as an object for the most part. However, an average total of 47% of the news items from community and Religious media indicated that they still presented China as a subject. The difference in stories was revealing. For example, while most stories that presented China as a subject in ZNBC and Private media were Routine and glorifying Chinese activities, most stories from community and Religious media were based on criticism (e.g. China’s contentious stake in the Zambian media. . .). A Chi-square test was also performed for the overall data in which “subject and object” were treated as nominal categorical variables. The results (χ²= 16.34, df = 1, p < 0.001) for “subjectness” and (χ² = 0.117, df = 1, p < 0.091) also support the assumption by indicating a strong association of how power relations are exercised between China and Zambia in the Zambian media. In other words, China as a subject in the overall Zambian news was significantly supported by the findings to indicate that most media, and particularly ZNBC and private media gave authority to China in the news. It is in rare circumstances, and particularly in passive voice or in events where certain calamities have occurred, that China was used as an object. Following the general grammar principles, we could, therefore, deduce that China exhibits power relations in the Zambian news as opposed to the purported “constructive reporting of Africa.”

The finding implications

Some of the findings mirror the existing literature on the implications of China in the African media. Demographically, the current study lends credence to Umejei (2018, 2020); Wasserman and Madrid-Morales (2018); Madrid-Morales and Wasserman (2018), Banda’s (2020) assertion that China’s role in sub-Saharan Africa has raised some implications of concern. However, a schism still exists between scholars who argue for, versus those who see China’s unprecedented interests in the African newsrooms as an affront to the development of African professional journalism. In their studies, the authors found that China’s presence in Africa had both positive and negative implications. While Madrid-Morales and Wasserman perceived China as having little or no impact on the African media, other scholars were able to identify the negative implications. What remains an avenue for future research is the underlayment of what the media will look like in the next decade. Umejei (2020) suggests a hybridized media and journalistic practice, but his findings are far from making that conclusion.

The unique situation of China owning more than 60% shares of the Zambian government media illustrates another point of departure of understanding China’s influence in sub-African. The main contribution to the existing theory and literature is its extension of prevailing indices, which, as noted, were done with mild conceptions of how far China would go in investing in the African media. The continued decline in local content and the increased growth in Chinese educational programs in the Zambian media attests to the problem. What other perfect way is there to disseminate your culture other than through the media? Also, the education system it provides to journalists, the push for constructively journalism, as some would argue, is soft power strategies that will eventually make the African media less critical. As a final note, I say that the presence of China in the Zambian newsroom is slowly reverting the quest for African media to develop in its own accord. The dream of creating an African professional journalistic system that is rooted in African values and designed to promote thematic and “issue-based” practices is now an evanescent endeavor. The hope for a hybridized African media capable of competing at a global scale, as Umejei (2018) suggests, is equally something that needs a lot of justification. The answer lies in the constant interrogation of what we mean when we say, “The African media.”