Morales, PS (2018) Could Chinese News Channels Have a Future in Latin America? Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 13 (1). pp. 60-80. ISSN 1744-6708
Abstract
China’s global media expansion has entailed the creation of a series of multilingual media outlets targeting different regions of the world. With Latin America being one of them, Spanish has arisen as a key language within China’s international media strategy. Nevertheless, as the region is also targeted by other competitors from Western countries and beyond, China faces serious challenges in both trying to convey its message and earning the approval and acceptance of audiences. By looking at how Latin American viewers perceive CCTV’s Spanish language channel (rebranded in 2016 as CGTN), compared to Russia’s RT and Iran’s HispanTV, this article seeks to evaluate what factors may be undermining the effectiveness of China’s international media strategy in this particular region and how this affects its soft power ambitions. This study is based on a series of focus groups conducted in Mexico and Argentina between September and October 2016, whereby participants were shown video excerpts from these broadcasters and encouraged to discuss an array of different topics. This paper shows that besides lagging behind in terms of viewership, CCTV-E faces multiple challenges such as changes in news consumption patterns, scarce availability and accessibility across Latin America, and issues of credibility and trust in the media. As CCTV-E faces competition from other broadcasters, its survival depends on how well it can align its services with the audiences’ needs and preferences, such as perceived objectivity and impartiality.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Keywords: | soft power; CGTN; CCTV; China; RT; HispanTV; Latin America |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Media & Communication (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 17 Oct 2019 12:11 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 22:01 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | University of Westminster |
Identification Number: | 10.16997/wpcc.276 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:152228 |