Western and Chinese media representation of Africa in COVID-19 news coverage

In news production and dissemination, media represent communities, countries, and continents by constructing concepts, images, and identities as viewed by selected information sources. It is often assumed that foreign countries are labelled 'Others' by global media and misrepresented. This study aims to explore how differently Western and Chinese media source and frame events in Africa. Comparative content analysis of news coverage of COVID-19 prevention in Africa revealed that Western media used African official, African non-official, and Western non-official channels as information sources whereas Chinese media mainly used African and Chinese official sources. The result demonstrated that Western media covered events in Africa in Conflict, Negativity, Human interest, Impact, Eminence, and Novelty frames in positive, neutral, and negative tones whereas Chinese media covered mainly in Impact, Eminence and Novelty frames mostly in positive tone. Overall, the results suggest that Western media coverage of the events is not predominantly negative; and Chinese media coverage is uncommonly affirmative. The findings also suggest that sourcing shapes frames, tones, and representation of 'Others' by news media.