China-Africa media co-operation should be symmetrical: Shamu

Forum on China-Africa Media Co-operation in Beijing recently, Information and Publicity Minister Webster Shamu said Africa’s media relations with China must not seek to reproduce the asymmetry that existed between Africa and the West.
“The scope is great. With digitalisation, we should be able to carry on a reciprocal basis channels from each other’s sub-continents so our civilisations interact continually as equals.”
Both parties, he said, could also news-gather on each other’s territory in ways that ensure equal presence on the sub-continents.
Minister Shamu said Africa and China could even explore possibilities of mutual hosting of crews and exchange programmes in all areas of news processing. 
Earlier on, Minister Shamu had alluded to how Africa had remained an outpost of the West in its media practice.
“Africa had remained a free continent served by a foreign media- a paradox on our continent. Not only are we targeted for transfrontier broadcasts by the West; in a number of cases we have ceded our airwaves to re-broadcasting Western stations both for radio and television,” said Minister Shamu.
He said the situation left Africa without a voice and allowed it to be shaped by the West by way of its political economy and media coverage.
And because Africa was mortgaged to Western media systems, said Cde Shamu, the continent found it difficult to negotiate its way towards new media relations with the rest of the world.
He said the West had always beaten Africa in the sense that experts who shape news and interpret events in the continent all hailed from the West.
“We need to challenge that interpretive or perspectival dominance of the West so we begin to interpret our own circumstances. These should reflect in our news values. Equally as we interact with China, we have mutual interests to develop and protect. Let these come through our media systems,” added Minister Shamu.
He gave the example of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s deliberate decision to use broadcast footage from international stations such as CCTV9, Russia Today and Press Television, which saw BBC requesting for similar concessions from ZBC.
The Minister also revealed that Africa was facing challenges in meeting the world digitalisation deadline of 2015. He added that Sadc had even brought the deadline forward to 2013.
Minister Shamu hinted that he was aware that Chinese capital was being used in the implementation of the programme, something he described as a welcome partnership provided it was founded on a win-win situation.
“Our Chinese friends must remain conscious that this is a very sensitive area to do with national security, the national consciousness and national identity.
“We would want to partner each other in this area recognising that while we might not have the capital for rolling out the programme, we have the consumer market that is national. The digital era translates into an era of great demand for new and more content,” he said.
The Forum, which began on Wednesday, in Beijing, China ends today.
It was aimed at providing a platform for the parties to discuss ways of boosting media co-operation.