The next speakers in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore are Guolin Chen and Xialei Zhang, whose focus is on the global media landscape. Increasingly, we have seen the emergence of state-driven English-language networks, including CGTN from China, RT from Russia, TRT International from Turkey, etc. This goes beyond mere propaganda, which is too simplistic and broad a label; it represents a soft power agenda.
But how do such media construct their imagined communities, both at the national and global level – indeed, how do they advance beyond imagination and towards expressing their vision of these communities? This is no collective imagination as per Benedict Anderson, but instead a distinctly manufactured expression of media nationality through media.
Media nationality is constricted through language, represents a certain national culture, is represented by media practitioners, and serves a particular state. This embodies the style, culture, values, and spirit of a given nation, and stands as a symbol of that nation in the international field.
This politics of expression responses to media imperialism: it reacts to and challenges the unequal dominance of western and Anglophone media in international communication, ensuring that the voices of other nations are heard in the international, global media landscape. This works through broadcast, but is also extended through social media and other platforms. It represents a form of global nationality.
This project explored this for networks such as CGTN and RT; it observed explicit state mandates for these networks as challenging western media hegemony; the coverage of geopolitical narratives that are of interest to the home nation; and the promotion of national cultural values and economic interests.
In doing so, the networks draw on globalised formats and talents, including well-known western journalists; and on globalised infrastructure, with production hubs around the world and the use of mainstream social media for promoting content.
This uses globality as a means to achieve nationality; it seeks to leverage globally accepted, seemingly neutral formats for specific national aims. This understanding of such initiatives offers a more precise understanding than terms like propaganda or soft power. These channels are complex hybrids, not simple propaganda tools; their strategy is to use a global shell to deliver a national core. Understanding this helps us navigate the increasingly competitive global information environment.
