All Lingua Sinica Dispatches
HTC Corporation is a Taoyuan-based company that specializes in consumer electronics. It was founded in 1997 and initially focused on manufacturing laptop computers as an original design manufacturer and provider. It later shifted its focus to smartphones and gained popularity for its HTC One series of mobile devices.
Purple Bridge Media is a UK-based media training and consulting company founded in November 2008 by Mark Egan, a former BBC journalist. The company provides journalism training, video production, and AI-focused media skills development, and has worked with organizations including the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and the European Broadcasting Union. Purple Bridge Media also provides consulting services in video strategy and social media content creation.
The Middle East Broadcasting Center, also known as MBC Group, is a state-controlled media company based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, serving the Middle East and North Africa region. While the company identifies itself as “the largest and leading private multimedia company in the Middle East North Africa region,” it is 54 percent owned by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), a sovereign wealth fund chaired by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The company operates over 13 free-to-air television channels and three radio stations across the region. MBC Group also runs Shahid, an Arabic streaming platform offering series, movies, live television channels, sports, and international content. The company operates MBC Studios for content production and MBC Academy, a training platform for media professionals launched in 2020.
Warner Bros. Discovery is an American media conglomerate formed on April 8, 2022, through the merger of AT&T’s WarnerMedia and Discovery Inc. The company operates the original Warner Bros. studios — founded April 4, 1923, by four brothers from the Warner family (Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack) — along with HBO, CNN, the Discovery Channel, and streaming services HBO Max and Discovery+. Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific, the company’s Singapore-based subsidiary, has engaged in numerous co-productions with Chinese state media since at least 2012, including a series about Xinjiang co-produced with CGTN called “World’s Ultimate Frontier” (走進新疆), and the 2017 three-part documentary “China: Time of Xi” (中国:习近平时代), which China Media Group chief described as serving “external communication” goals for building “a Chinese discourse and narrative system.”
SMG International (上海文广國際傳播中心) is an international communication center established on October 23, 2023, by the Shanghai Media Group (上海廣播電視台/上海文廣集團), the state-owned media conglomerate operating under the oversight of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The center’s mission is to position Shanghai as “the vanguard in shaping Chinese-style modernized urban civilization and international communication.” The center is apparently meant to function as the primary center for international propaganda emanating from the municipal-level financial center, presenting it as the exemplar of “Chinese-style modernization” to global audiences — this being a key propaganda concept introduced by Xi Jinping in early 2021. SMG International, which integrates resources from SMG’s television and radio operations, claims to maintain production capabilities in seven foreign languages through a network of five overseas correspondent bureaus. The center’s flagship product, ShanghaiEye (魔都眼), was launched on November 8, 2023, and operates as a 24-hour YouTube livestream, offering interviews, world news, and videos of foreign influencers visiting politically sensitive regions such as Xinjiang to counteract international allegations of human rights abuses. The center’s documentary productions have also included the three-part series “Chinese Puzzle: Learning Chinese in America,” which profiles Americans studying Chinese, framing language learning as a tool to eliminate biases and correct misunderstandings about China.
On April 10, 2025, the Swedish website NewsVoice announced the signing of a news-sharing agreement with China Daily (中國日報) that allowed NewsVoice to translate and publish articles from the Chinese government-run outlet on its website. According to a letter on the deal published by China Daily and bearing the byline of NewsVoice founder and editor-in-chief Torbjörn Sassersson, the partnership provides “insight into China’s thinking, philosophy, and political perspective.” Sassersson added that the partnership would enable his website to “become a player in media diplomacy using journalism to build bridges between countries and peoples”—language that closely mirrors Chinese state media rhetoric surrounding media cooperation agreements. Torbjörn Sassersson is a Swedish freelance journalist and communications consultant who has worked in environmental consulting, bioenergy, and corporate communications since the 1990s. He founded NewsVoice.se in 2011, a bilingual news and — says Sassersson — debate platform. As Sassersson explains in a bio on the NewsVoice website, he shifted focus in 2023 to covering the multipolar world, BRICS, and China’s Belt and Road Initiative after receiving an invitation from the Chinese embassy to visit Shanghai. In June 2025, Sassersson interviewed Cui Anmin, China’s ambassador to Sweden, on Sweden-China relations for NewsVoice.
The Beijing Municipal Radio and Television Bureau (北京市廣播電視局), under the local city leadership of the CCP, and Uganda’s Vision Group jointly hosted the “Love Beijing Night” cultural exchange event in Kampala on June 27, 2025. Also launched at the event was a new program for the distribution of Chinese television dramas called “2025 ‘LOVE Beijing’ Audiovisual Arts International Communication Initiative Africa” (2025年’LOVE北京’視聽文藝國際傳播行動·非洲). Under the terms of the project, Vision Group will broadcast a series of Chinese television dramas, including Six Sisters (六姊妹), a family drama, alongside TV shows such as Minning Town (山海情), a series about a community in China’s arid northwest that promotes the Party’s anti-poverty campaign. Chinese state media reported that the programming aimed to “deepen China-Africa audiovisual cooperation” (深化中非視聽合作). The initiative also established dedicated audiovisual content zones on the African mobile app Scooper News, featuring an English-language “Beijing Broadcasting Service Package” that runs documentaries and short videos. Vision Group CEO said that the programming would “open a window for Ugandan audiences to see China,” while Chinese officials emphasized the shows demonstrate Chinese “family and national sentiments” to African viewers.
Scooper News is a news and entertainment mobile app launched in 2019 by Chinese smartphone manufacturer Transsion Holdings (深圳傳音控股股份有限公司). The platform aggregates trending news, videos, and entertainment content tailored for users in Africa, featuring personalized news feeds from all around the world. Scooper integrates Chinese state media content, with China Daily (中國日報) having a cooperation agreement to deliver Chinese domestic news to Africa through the platform. The official Xinhua News Agency reported in September 2025 that its Scooper account had “achieved 31 million hits in six months” in 2023. According to company statements, Scooper News reached more than 3.8 million downloads at launch. It now reports more than 50 million monthly active users across Africa.
The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) is a regulatory body for telecommunications, broadcasting, and communications infrastructure established under the Uganda Communications Act No. 1 of 1997 and the Electronic Media Act of 1996. The commission oversees telecommunications, data communications, broadcasting, postal services, radio communications, and infrastructure services across Uganda, while also licensing cinemas and video libraries. As a government-owned statutory body, the UCC has ordered internet shutdowns and social media blocks during elections and requires licensing for online publishers. The body has been criticized for using its ostensibly regulatory role to conduct censorship through penalizations over broadcast standards and onerous registration requirements for online outlets.