George Sichinga

Profile

I am a recipient of the School of Media Doctoral Scholarship at the University of Leeds. The focus of my doctoral study is on China’s entry into the African mediascape specifically assessing China’s role in public communication in Zambia.

I have an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s degree from City, University of London, UK and Aarhus University, Denmark (2021). I have a Bloomberg Media Initiative Africa (BMIA) postgraduate certificate in Financial Journalism from University of Zambia, University of Lusaka, and Strathmore Business School, Kenya (2019). In addition to a BA in Communication Science from University of South Africa (UNISA) (2017) and a diploma in Journalism from the Zambia Institute of Mass Communication (2010).

Research interests

My research interests include:

• Political economy of media and communication
• Cultural imperialism discourse in the global south
• Chinese public diplomacy and soft power processes

In June 2024, I presented a paper on Chinese investment in media and telecommunications in Zambia at the International Communication Association (ICA) preconference in Australia themed ‘Whose News Is It? Assessing the Role and Influence of International Media Assistance in Defining the News Agenda’.

In July 2022, I presented my paper “Repositioning Financial Journalism Practice in Zambia’s Media Landscape” at the International Association of Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) Conference in Beijing. Developed from my master’s thesis, I hypothesised that Zambian journalists fail to report on economic and finance issues because financial journalism, especially as it is practiced in western countries, does not exist in Zambia.

My earlier research paper “The Impact of Ownership on Media Content: An Exploratory Case study of News Diggers Zambia and the Zambia Daily Mail” was also presented at the 2021 IAMCR conference in Nairobi Kenya. I utilised Political Economy of Media (PEM) theory to investigate the link between media ownership and news content using a content analysis of finance related articles published by a privately owned newspaper and state-owned daily in Zambia between 2017 – 2019. 

Qualifications

• PhD Media and Communication (Ongoing)
• MA in Journalism, Media and Globalisation
• BA Communication Science