THE MEDIATIZATION OF SINO-KENYA RELATIONS BY THE KENYA MAINSTREAM PRESS

Abstract

Like all the other commercial mainstream media, the Kenya mainstream press is more often superficial in their news coverage. This was expected in their coverage of Sino-Kenya relations. This study examined the nature of mediatization of Sino-Kenya relations by the mainstream press, to investigate the meanings of emerging discourses from Kenya’s press mediatization of Sino-Kenya relations and explore the implications of the meanings of emerging discourses to broader Sino-Kenya relations. The study sought to answer the following questions: what was the nature of mediatization of Sino-Kenya relations in the mainstream Kenya’s press? What are the meanings of emerging discourses from Kenya’s mainstream press mediatization of Sino-Kenya relations? In addition, what are the implications of such meanings to the broader Sino-Kenya relations as mediatized in the Kenya’s mainstream press? An explorative research design approach was adopted which described a collection of sequential procedures which sought to elaborate the meanings of the emerging discourses and the implications, explorative research design was appropriate because the study was based on a critical discourse evaluation of the contents in the Kenya’s mainstream press on mediatization of Sino-Kenya relations. Triangulation was used in the analysis which combined the use of Qualitative and Quantitative approaches. A two-step purposive sampling method was used in first, selecting the three mainstream newspapers because they are market leaders and they are the newspapers that covered broadly the relations and then secondly the period of study the years from 2015 and 2019 because the years covered broadly many activities concerning Sino-Kenya relations. The advantage of this sampling method is that the study objects are always available and accessible. The study examined three newspapers: The Daily Nation, The Standard and The Star. The content from the three mainstream press was sampled producing a sample size of 70 newspapers, in addition, 3 journalists and 3 Chief Editors were equally purposefully sampled. Interviews were conducted with key informants and analyzed qualitatively while the coding sheet assisted in collecting data that was then analyzed quantitatively to record the frequency of occurrence of the identified nature of mediatization. Qualitative approach was used to study the meanings of emerging discourses, use of attributive words, pictures, and discussions and the implications of the meanings from the discourses. The identified nature of mediatization were found to be fused with ideological undertones that served in mediatizing the Sino-Kenya relations. The results indicated that articles adopted neutral tone whose implication was a dual beneficial relation. The study suggested that the editorial policies of publishing houses should also be points of focus in future studies and should have a deeper discussion in its contents