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This paper measures how often audiences in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa consume Chinese media, and investigates whether a positive relationship exists between the consumption of English language Chinese media and attitudes towards China.

Concerns over the existence of a global "information disorder" marked by the contamination of the public sphere with deception campaigns have grown in recent years. This "disorder" has domestic and international dimensions, with multiple state actors standing accused of malicious influence abroad. Previous research, focused on the Global North, has neglected the potential role of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist sentiments in shaping public opinion in the Global South, where problems with foreign influence operations have persisted for decades. Using survey data (N  = 4,613) collected in Angola, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Zambia in late 2022, this paper addresses this knowledge gap by exploring the relationship between individuals' worldviews and news consumption, and their support of strategic disinformation narratives favored by Russia and China, both of which have been active in trying to use the news media to influence public opinion. At a country level, we find that support for these narratives is most pronounced in Ethiopia and South Africa, while at an individual level, we find limited evidence that news consumption is connected to the adoption of these narratives. In discussing these findings, we argue that African public opinion is simultaneously shaped by global, geopolitical shifts and domestic, and local contestations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Morning talk radio in Mauritius has established itself as a popular platform where participants phone in to raise problems they encounter in their everyday lives. The first wave of liberalization of the airwaves in Mauritius has allowed private radio stations to schedule talk programmes, especially in their morning editions, that create spaces for the voices of ordinary people to be heard as they speak, contest decisions of powerholders and look for alternatives through the mediation of talk radio. Through discourse theoretical analysis, this article looks into a set of five cases and argues that morning talk radio has mediated a process of democratization conflicts and engaged popular cultural dynamics in the unequal context of Mauritius. It argues that through the prism of 'proper distance', the mediation of everyday life can be deciphered highlighting the moral and political dimensions of these morning programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored the main themes present in South African editorial cartoons related to Covid-19 published in 2020 to examine how they portrayed the societal discourse around the pandemic. Our data set of 1196 single-frame editorial cartoons, created by 19 cartoonists in three languages and published in 24 publications over the course of 2020, shows that Covid-19 was a pertinent topic for South African cartoonists. Thematically, "politics and government" dominated as broad themes, while other pertinent themes were "society and social consequences", "economic impacts" and "health". Politics and politicians were prominent, but science and scientists were represented only rarely. In terms of tone, the cartoons were predominantly negative, with fear as a frequently used emotional appeal. Very few cartoons contained educational messages, but most did depict the virus and face masks, which could have heightened public awareness about health-related issues. We conclude that editorial cartoons added to the media coverage of the pandemic, often adding to general media discourses of fear and anxiety, and therefore it is likely that these cartoons influenced public sentiment. Furthermore, through their focus on politicians, these cartoons added to the politicisation of the pandemic, but made only a minor contribution to public education and the combating of misinformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]