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[中文标题]看法:中国对非洲的正面宣传
[原文标题]Opinion:China's postive spin on Afica
[登载媒体]CNN(作者:Harry Verhoeven&Iginio Gagliardone)
[链接地址]http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/18/opinion/china-media-africa-verhoeven-gagliardone/index.html?hpt=hp_c4
[译者]上传图片花了十多分钟还停留在0%的,最后发现忘了按"上传"按键的很愤怒生气的高贵连长
<中国日报>的非洲版是最新的敢冒险进入非洲大陆的中国媒体.
编者按:哈里·费尔赫芬(Harry Verhoeven)是牛津大学政治与国际关系学院的博士后研究员,也是牛津大学中国-非洲网络(OUCAN)的发起人.伊吉尼奥·加利亚多内(Iginio Gagliardone)是牛津大学比较媒体法及政策影响项目的研究人员.
(CNN)--上周,北京主要的英文报纸<中国日报>,开始每周发行一期非洲版的<中国日报>,关注财经新闻,主要面向非洲不断增加的中产阶层.
今年早些时候,中国的跨国电视媒体CCTV,在非洲开展了一个引入注目的媒体运营平台,每天制作一小时的节目,内容涉及非洲的方方面面,此外,还有非洲事务的专题报道,整个新闻采编站拥有超过40个中国人和70个非洲雇员.
这一主动性不仅加强了中国新闻机构的活跃度,同时也给他们自己提供了世界各地的新闻和很多驻有记者的非洲国家的新闻,新华社在最近几年中和非洲媒体也深化了合作关系.
中国媒体闪电般的扩张得益于中国外交官,维和士兵,商业活动人士(代表国家或私人)和那些在最近10~15年里改变着非洲大陆的普通中国人的惊人膨胀.
从安哥拉的油田,达喀尔的市场,刚果的矿井,再到内罗毕的新闻编辑室,供给和需求的中枢正在重新配置,文化的对抗也在撼动着社交圈,不寻常的政治联盟也不断涌现.媒体的新发展提供了一个有趣的镜头来定义日益复杂的中非事务,尤其强调权衡和学习曲线(the trade-offs and learning curves).
当非洲对全球经济的影响力变得越来越重要时,中国媒体的出现对于西方记者来说是一个激烈的挑战.
最近在牛津大学的一个会议上就着重提到了中国新闻媒体正在同西方媒体,如CNN和半岛电视台竞争,但这些媒体认为新闻不是只有一条路,可以有很多种角度.中国媒体发出了非洲的"正面报道",这些媒体关注整体的成就,而不是就单个的问题比如政治危机,或耸人听闻的负面新闻比如饥荒展开报道.
非洲跟中国差不多,在西方控制下的国际媒体报道了太多关于他们两国的负面新闻.而现如今,中国和非洲的声音终于找到了地方可以发出,终于找到了地方讲述自己的故事,并给循规蹈矩的西方报道提供了一个有益的修正,非洲一直被他们报道成"没有希望的大陆",有着永无止境的战争,艾滋病和饥荒.
今天的非洲,尽管仍在被许多积累已久的问题磨灭,但早已不是90年代的非洲了:数百万非洲人利用前所未有的机会在建造一个全新的生活.
这种关于非洲转变的乐观消息也经受着不同方面的批判.其中一个最中肯的批评是"正面报道"无法体现新闻报道的主要职能:充当监察者的作用,让权力受到监督,而不是对政府的功绩唱赞歌.
中国严密的媒体控制就是非洲报道的一个映像,比如,非洲的正面新闻不会质疑北京与邪恶政权,比如罗伯特·穆加贝(Robert Mugabe)统治下的津巴布韦或是多斯桑托斯(Dos Santos)领导的安哥拉之间的关系,再比如,非洲的正面新闻只有极少数具有重要意义的研究性新闻,因为研究性的新闻必须确保非洲经济增长数据的真实,并且正面的新闻也不敢报道经济增长积累的财富集中在社会最顶层的1%的人身上.
然而,对涉及非洲经济和政府管理层的正面报道有所质疑是合理的,并且,做非洲新闻的要素并不是单纯的带有某种色彩的去报道:相反,做非洲新闻的关键之处在于能够抛弃陈腔烂调,并且使用可利用的资源,从而更好地了解非洲大陆.
一个主要的潜在圈套是正面形象一边倒的出现,代替了负面的非洲,这只是换汤不换药而已.有一大堆自封的专家们重复着这些陈腔滥调,着重强调非洲尚未开发的潜能,然而这些人在几年前,还是一个个无情的非洲悲观主义的宣传者.
这样的报道对于想要了解一个充满生机,而不是动荡的国家,比如埃塞俄比亚,尼日利亚或者莫桑比克的人而言,是没有帮助的.另外也难以获得那些认为媒体的报道忽视了复杂的困境和挑战的非洲人的认可,他们觉得要让非洲焕然一新是很艰难的.
第二个重要的圈套在于思辨的逐渐意识形态化:一个适当的良机会给那些没有新意的思辨注入的新活力,诸如那些'关于如何制作出好的新闻'的浪费资源的,墨守成规的讨论.
冷战时期见证了一场正面报道与负面报道的战争,也见证着这些报道并没有给新闻业带来什么好处.西方的新闻业自鸣得意,并强调其在"调查性工作"上有着道德上的至高,但没有意识到,如果没有强有力的资源和谋略,想在非洲反腐的话,很难起作用,要嘛就没了下文.
同样,中国的记者可能也体会到,报道正面的新闻可能会失去很多机会去了解这个大陆的复杂面.中国媒体本来可以获得巨大的国际尊重及非洲受众青睐的,但可惜他们没有去揭露那些有着中国公司和私人财团影子的腐败案.
我们相信,在今天瞬息万变的非洲,这里是实践和互相学习的广阔天地:那片大陆可能已经成了国际媒体反省深思的前线,无论是亚洲媒体还是阿拉伯,非洲或者西方的媒体.
综上所述,我们期望中国将不再只是报道非洲的新面貌,但另一方面,非洲本身希望有CCTV和新华社这样的媒体进驻,通过虚假的新闻节目,正面报道非洲内外的言论自由,媒体联系,人权,发展和商业持久性.
随着中国通过媒体连通非洲,他自己也必须批判审视一下自身:非洲大陆的最大的地缘政治力量可能会发现,自身的改变比起初预想的还多.
[原文]
Editor's note: Harry Verhoeven is Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford's Department of Politics & International Relations and is the Convenor of the Oxford University China-Africa Network (OUCAN). Iginio Gagliardone is Research Fellow at the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy at the University of Oxford.
(CNN) -- Last week, Beijing's leading English-language newspaper, China Daily, begun publishing a weekly Africa edition, focusing on financial news and targeting Africa's growing middle class.
Earlier this year, China's international broadcaster, CCTV, launched an impressive media operation in Africa, producing one hour a day of content from the continent as well as feature programs on African affairs, through a newsroom of more than 40 Chinese and 70 African staff members.
Both initiatives add to the more established activities of China's news agency, Xinhua, which in recent years has deepened its partnerships with African media outlets and provides them with news from across the world as well as from the dozens of African countries where it has correspondents.
Can China tell the African story?
The lightning growth of Chinese media is part of the dramatic expansion of the presence of Chinese diplomats, peacekeepers, commercial actors (state-owned or private) and ordinary citizens that has been transforming the African continent in the last 10-15 years
From Angola's oilfields and Dakar's markets to Congo's mines and Nairobi newsrooms, supply and demand centers are being reconfigured, cultural encounters are shaking social networks and alternative political alliances are emerging. The new developments in the media offer an interesting lens to highlight the trade-offs and learning curves that define the increasingly complex China-Africa story.
In a context of Africa's growing importance to the global economy, Chinese media present a radical challenge to Western style journalism.
As was highlighted at a recent conference at Oxford University, Chinese news media are seeking to compete with players such as CNN and Al Jazeera, but they are rolling out what they claim is a different approach to journalism. What Chinese media are offering to Africa is "positive reporting," a style of journalism that focuses on collective achievements rather than divisive issues like political crises or sensational negative news like famines.
Their message is that Africa, similarly to China, has received too much negative publicity in the Western-dominated global media. In this view, Chinese and African voices are finally finding ways to tell their own stories which offer a healthy correction to stereotypes of Africa as the "hopeless continent," with endless wars, HIV and hunger.
The Africa of today, while still consumed by many intractable problems, is no longer the Africa of the 1990s: Millions of Africans are seizing on unprecedented opportunities to build new lives.
This optimistic message about Africa turning a corner has faced criticism on different fronts. One of the most pertinent charges is that "positive reporting" fails to deliver on one of the main mandates of journalism: acting as a watchdog and keeping those in power in check, rather than praising them for their successes.
The tight controls on the media landscape that dominate public debates in China are being mirrored in coverage of Africa, which does not question Beijing's ties with unsavory regimes like Mugabe's Zimbabwe or Dos Santos's Angola, and which does little of the important investigative journalism that is required to ensure Africa's real economic growth does not just accrue to the top 1% in society.
Read related: Is the West losing out to China in Africa?
Yet however justified the questioning of uncritical positive reporting about African economies and their political regulators is, the main risk of reporting Africa is not simply on the tone of the reporting: rather, it is the ability to shed clichés and use the resources available to promote a better knowledge of the continent.
A major potential pitfall is that an equally stereotypical positive image will substitute a stereotypical negative image of Africa. There is a crowd of self-appointed experts of the continent who are reinventing clichés to stress Africa's untapped potential, when just a few years ago they were the propagators of a relentless Afro-pessimism.
This is unhelpful in terms of understanding what is happening in dynamic but confusing countries like Ethiopia, Nigeria or Mozambique. Nor can it be considered empowering for ordinary Africans who will continue to feel that media coverage ignores the complex dilemmas, challenges and opportunities they face as the continent tries to reinvent itself.
Read related: The Africans looking to make it in China
A second major danger lies in a creeping ideologization of the debate: An opportunity to bring new energy to the debate on how to produce good journalism risks being wasted by entrenchment of old positions and repetition of sterile debates.
The Cold War world witnessed a battle between positive and negative reporting that did not do much good to journalism. Western-style journalism risks being complacent and stressing its moral superiority in supporting "investigative work" while not realizing that uncovering corruption in Africa and not having the resources to follow up on that story will produce little or no results, apart from praise to the brave (probably white, middle aged) journalist who reported it.
Similarly, Chinese journalists may feel too attached to their idea of telling upbeat stories that they will miss many opportunities to learn about the complexities of the continent. That is a shame, because Chinese media would gain enormous international respect -- and a strong bond with African media consumers -- if they were able to expose corruption cases in which Chinese companies and individuals are involved.
We believe that in today's rapidly changing Africa, there is great room for experimentation and mutual learning: the continent could be at the forefront of an overdue exercise in soul searching by the international media, whether Asian, Arab, African or Western.
Above all, we expect that China will not just continue to reshape Africa in the coming years, but that Africa itself will force the likes of CCTV and Xinhua to participate in more intensive internal and external discussions about freedom of expression, the links between media, human rights and development, and the commercial durability of an artificial good news show.
As China engages Africa through the media, it is also in turn engaged and forced to think critically about itself: the greatest geopolitical force for change on the continent could find itself more changed than it originally signed up for.
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