Comparisons of News Presentations of Afghanistan in Russian and Chinese Media

July 2018 No Comments

Comparisons of News Presentations of Afghanistan in Russian and Chinese Media

Speakers: Cooley, S. and Hinck, R.

Date: 5 July 2018

Speaker Session Preview

SMA hosted a speaker session presented by Dr. Skye Cooley (Oklahoma State University) and Dr. Robert Hinck (Monmouth College) as a part of its SMA CENTCOM (Afghanistan) Speaker Series. As part of the CENTCOM Reach Back effort, Dr. Cooley and Dr. Hinck identified what major narratives about Afghanistan are being disseminated to targeted populations through public media coverage. Dr. Cooley discussed his primary findings after assessing Russian news media content regarding stability efforts in Afghanistan, while Dr. Hinck presented his insights gained while looking at Chinese news media content. They outlined the three principle thematic narratives propagated in each country and explained what Russian and Chinese media think about a potential “grand bargain” in Afghanistan. They also called attention to their most significant take-away, which was that there was both a lack of firmly-established strategic narratives and an infrequency of media coverage on the subject.