626827

research-article2016
GMC0010.1177/1742766515626827Global Media and CommunicationGrincheva and Lu

Article

Global Media and Communication

BRICS Summit diplomacy: 1­–23

© The Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permissions:
Constructing national identities sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1742766515626827
through Russian and Chinese gmc.sagepub.com

media coverage of the Fifth

BRICS Summit in Durban,
South Africa

Natalia Grincheva
Concordia University, Canada

Jiayi Lu
Communication University of China, China

Abstract
This study identifies, analyses and compares media content produced by Russian and Chinese
TV channels surrounding the events of the Fifth BRICS Summit in Durban, South Africa,
in 2013. The study utilizes a comparative frame analysis to deconstruct and explain media
messages communicated by Russian and Chinese media representing national identities
of the countries through the BRICS Summit diplomacy. The study discusses important
questions with regard to the cultural, political and economic contexts that shape the
perceptions of the roles and ambitions of Russia and China on the world stage. The major
findings clearly demonstrate that Russian and Chinese media adopted different rhetorical
frames to portray their national identities through the media coverage of the Fifth BRICS
Summit. These positions imply an interior (in the case of China) or a straightforward (in
the case of Russia) approach to communicate a form of ‘collective resistance’ to the global
arena, where the countries seek larger global recognition and appreciation.

Keywords
BRICS Summit diplomacy, comparative frame analysis, identity construction,
public diplomacy

Corresponding author:
Natalia Grincheva, Department of Political Science, Concordia University, Henry F. Hall Building, S-H 1213,
1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, Montreal, QC, Canada, H3G 1M8.
Email: natalia.grincheva@concordia.ca

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
2 Global Media and Communication 

Introduction
In 2001, when Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O’Neill coined the term BRIC
(Brazil, Russia, India and China), he mainly acknowledged the rapid growth of these
emerging economies in the post-9/11 condition of increasing globalization (CNN, 2009).
Established in 2008 during the global financial crisis, the BRIC grouping emerged as a
new cooperative project of the developing countries that aimed to overcome the world
economic downturn and facilitate healthy economic development within and beyond the
borders of their countries in the future. More importantly, from the very beginning, BRIC
communicated a strong ambition to create a new polity with a distinct political identity,
tasks, goals and international programming that would provide the member-states with
an important leverage mechanism to reinforce their positions on the world stage. Even
though many experts doubted the actual ability of the group to galvanize their economic
power into political clout and called it a mere tool ‘for coordinating some short term
diplomatic tactics’ of ‘disparate countries that have deep divisions’ (Nye, 2010), BRIC
continued to grow and accumulated its powers to deliver the first successful initiative
that came out of its Sixth Summit in 2014. Commenting on the recently announced
agreement to establish a New Development Bank headquartered in Shanghai with a stag-
gering $100 billion in its coffers, O’Neill (2014), author of the term BRIC, confirmed:
The ‘BRICS name is certainly here to stay, and in terms of global governance, their
influence is likely to rise as a group because of this development’.
In this study, however, we want to take a step back to examine the events of the Fifth
BRICS Summit held in March 2013 in Durban, South Africa. This summit concluded the
first round of the BRICS Summits consecutively hosted by each member-state and was
a typical milestone to discuss key strategies of the BRICS cooperation development. Our
interest in this summit lies in understanding the capacity of the BRICS platform to be an
important public diplomacy tool for member-states seeking to enhance their visibility
and significance on the world stage. Taking media coverage of the Fifth BRICS Summit
by Russian and Chinese TV channels as the main empirical material for exploration, the
study intends to investigate how these two member-states projected their national identi-
ties and communicated important political messages to the outside world through medi-
ated public diplomacy efforts around the events of the Fifth BRICS Summit. Among the
five member-states, Russia, with a recognized history of the ‘Soviet empire’, and China,
as a ‘rising power’, take BRICS as an important agenda of their foreign policy; further-
more, the BRICS Summits provide an alternative but stable platform for them to com-
municate their messages to the international community. Comparing and contrasting
how the Fifth BRICS Summit was portrayed through the Russian and Chinese media
coverage, the study attempts to map, analyse and explain the identity construction strat-
egy by Russia and China in the framework of the BRICS Summit diplomacy.
The study first introduces the conceptual framework situating this research within
public diplomacy studies. Then it presents some background information emphasizing
the importance of BRICS Summit diplomacy within Russian and Chinese international
relation management frameworks. The sections that follow describe the methodology of
frame analysis utilized in this research that offers the most interesting and important
findings from this comparative study. The comparative analysis contrasts Russian and

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
Grincheva and Lu 3

Chinese media frames among three types of identities constructed within the media cov-
erage of the Fifth BRICS Summit: national identity, the identity of the BRICS bloc and
the identity of the new BRICS member-state, South Africa. Finally, the study concludes
with a discussion and conclusion section that situates Russia’s and China’s BRICS
Summit diplomacy efforts within larger national political contexts and explains the spe-
cific choices of particular media frames selected by Russian and Chinese TV channels in
portraying BRICS events.

Conceptual framework and background

Public diplomacy, mass media and summit meetings
Public diplomacy has traditionally been defined as a transparent means to engage foreign
publics and to promote a country’s policies overseas (Tuch, 1990). Cull (2009) explored
this concept further and pointed out that public diplomacy means ‘influence over public
attitudes on the formation and execution of foreign policies’ (p. 19), aiming to cultivate
a favourable public opinion in other countries through intercultural communications.
Public diplomacy is usually conceptualized through the notion of soft power, a term
coined and developed by Joseph Nye (2004), who argues that a country possesses ‘soft
power’ if it is capable of exploiting information to shape and inhabit the ‘mind space’ of
another country through the persuasive powers of attraction. As many scholars indicate,
public diplomacy has a long history as a means of promoting a country’s ‘soft power’ and
has become one of the most important components of foreign policy mechanisms in most
Western countries.
Usually, public diplomacy heavily relies on communication media, in particular mass
media, to attract and influence foreign publics. Mass media ‘provides a public platform’
where ‘multiple voices can be heard’ (Zhou et al., 2013: 875–876), resonating with the
core messages of a strategic public diplomacy agenda in a specific country context. The
role of mass media within the framework of public diplomacy has attracted the attention
of many political communication scholars. For instance, Gilboa (2000) indicated that
policymakers actively utilize mass media ‘to send signals and apply pressure on state and
non-state actors to build confidence and advance negotiations as well as to mobilize
public support for agreements’ (p. 62). He explicitly utilized the term ‘media diplomacy’,
highlighting the diplomatic function of mass media. Entman (2008) and Sheafer and
Gabay (2009) used the term ‘mediated public diplomacy’ to discuss the function of dif-
ferent media frames of the US foreign policies. Their research demonstrated that specific
media frames constructed as a part of the mediated public diplomacy play a crucial role
in shaping international political agendas. Frangonikolopoulos and Proedrou (2014)
studied the ‘discursive’ dimension of public diplomacy, focusing on how the principal
issues of politics are shaped and communicated in the global informational environment.
In short, all these studies focused on the media portrayal of public diplomacy efforts on
the world stage, discussing how media representations affect foreign publics’ attitudes
towards specific policies.
Among them, Gilboa (1998) briefly discussed the public diplomacy functions of media
activities, including press conferences, interviews, leaks, visits and summit meetings. Other

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
4 Global Media and Communication 

scholars advanced this discussion, highlighting a specific role of particular mass media in
constructing national images and communicating political messages in the global arena.
Fortner (1994) studied the international radio news coverage of summit meetings between
Americans and Soviets from 1987 to 1990, analysing the symbolic images of the summits
constructed by media representations. Wang and Chang (2004) specifically studied the public
diplomacy function of head-of-state visits through examination of the media images repre-
sented by three local newspapers in the United States. However, their studies mainly applied
a case-study method and focused on the messages represented by radio or printed media.
The role and importance of summit meetings among all media activities within the
public diplomacy framework were highlighted by several scholars. For example, Gilboa
(1998) and Melissen (2003) stressed that international summits provide a good oppor-
tunity for countries to illuminate and clearly communicate their political goals because
they usually bring the heads of states and governments together and attract international
media attention. Drawing on these findings, this research aims to contribute to the
scholarship that focuses on the role of mediated and summit public diplomacy in repre-
senting national images in the international arena. Specifically, this study compares and
critically analyses media images represented by TV channels around the events of the
BRICS Summits within two different country-based contexts: Russia and China.

Public diplomacy in China and Russia

Although public diplomacy has been frequently utilized as a tool of international image
cultivation and nation branding in the Western countries, especially in the United States,
public diplomacy in recent years has acquired a particular significance within the foreign
policy agenda of other countries, including China and Russia. In China, a new Division
for Public Diplomacy was established in 2004 under the Information Department of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2010, public diplomacy was added to China’s ‘Twelfth
Five-Year Plan’, integrating it further into the dominant political discourse. Likewise, the
government of the Russian Federation has recently urged ‘the extension of the capacity
of its “soft power” … combining the richest cultural, spiritual heritage with unique
opportunities of dynamic development’ (Lavrov, 2013), which was officially stated in the
Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation.
However, the terms ‘public diplomacy’ and ‘soft power’ arrived in both countries with
quite negative connotations, specifically attributing this mechanism of influence over
foreign perceptions of US ‘propagandistic efforts’. Thus, in China, the initial interpreta-
tion of the term ‘public diplomacy’ is mainly associated with ‘cultural propaganda’ or
‘political propaganda’, and ‘its primary task is to support American foreign policy’
(Gong, 1993; Zi, 1988). In the Russian context, even today, the term ‘soft power’ is ech-
oed in official governmental documentation and public speeches in a negative sense. For
example, the Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation points out the
potential risks ‘of destructive and unlawful use of “soft power” … to exert political pres-
sure on sovereign states, interfere in their internal affairs, destabilize their political situ-
ation, and manipulate public opinion …’ (MFARF, 2013a).
As an alien strategic international communication mechanism within the foreign
policy mentality of both countries, public diplomacy under Russia’s and China’s grand

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
Grincheva and Lu 5

foreign policy framework of promoting their national cultures has steadily received
critical negative assessments from Western scholars and diplomats. In this regard,
Chinese efforts in ‘transforming soft power resources into real effect’ to ‘improve
China’s national image overseas’ (Jiang, 2011; Tan, 2011; Zhao, 2011) have been invar-
iably interpreted as desperate attempts to assuage concerns of a ‘China threat’ in the
context of the country’s increasingly powerful economy and military status on the world
stage (French, 2006; Guo, 2008); recently, even its symbolic ‘soft’ outreach-action
Confucius Institute has been faced with resistance overseas. In the Russian context,
promoting the country’s ‘spiritual and intellectual heritage’ (Putin, 2012) across borders
is usually interpreted by foreign experts as a communication strategy fighting against
‘foreign media’s negative depiction of the country’s policies and the Russian way of
life’ (Simons, 2014: 444) or ‘countering “soft” attacks on the country’ to counterbalance
the negative image of Russia in the global informational environment with a respectable
alternative’ (Monaghan, 2013).

BRICS Summit diplomacy in Russia and China

Despite negative assessments of their public diplomacy efforts in the Western world,
Russia and China aim to construct more appealing national images in the eyes of other
overseas audiences, which can communicate more powerful national identities in the
world arena. Thus, the BRICS Summits provide an alternative but stable platform for
both countries to present their images on the world stage; through portrayals represented
by their media around the BRICS Summit events, Russia and China seek identity con-
struction in the new era.
For Russia, its membership in the bloc and its self-perceived leadership among the
BRICS member-states have been an important asset with which to pursue its foreign
policy goals and renegotiate its political standing on the global scene. Russian President
Vladimir Putin initiated the establishment of BRIC, and since the first meeting in New
York City in 2006, he has actively advocated to transform it from an economic platform
to a recognized coalition of emerging powers bringing about changes in the international
arena. During the First BRIC Summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in 2009, then Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev (2009) announced that ‘Russia would like the cooperation
among the BRIC countries to become a major factor of multilateral diplomacy and to
make a substantial contribution to promoting the nascent multi-polarity and development
of collective leadership by the world’s leading countries’.
Indeed, the Russian government takes its involvement in the BRICS grouping and the
transformation of the bloc into an international political and economic mechanism as one of
the most important priorities on its foreign policy agenda. Issued right before the Fifth
BRICS Summit, Concept of Participation of the Russian Federation in BRICS placed even
greater emphasis on the importance of BRICS and on Russia’s direct involvement in its
activities, stressing that ‘the creation of BRICS […] has been one of the most significant
geopolitical events at the start of the new century’ (MFARF, 2013b). This document particu-
larly emphasizes that the most important long-term objective of the Russian Federation’s
participation in BRICS is ‘to gradually transform the association from a dialogue forum and
a tool to coordinate positions on a limited range of issues into a full-fledged mechanism of

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
6 Global Media and Communication 

strategic and ongoing cooperation on key international political and economic issues’
(MFARF, 2013b). In that sense, through prioritizing BRICS activities among its foreign
policy agenda, Russia seeks to communicate its leadership and reinforce its powerful role
not only among the BRICS members but also within a larger global environment. As inter-
national relations scholar Cynthia Roberts (2011) points out, ‘Moscow’s BRICS diplomacy
has been one of its most successful international initiatives’, which helps Russia to pursue
its foreign policy goals in ‘reforming key economic and security structures to increase the
voice and representation of Russia in the world’ (p. 38).
In line with Russian efforts to reconstruct a strong image of the country in the eyes of
foreign publics through BRICS Summit diplomacy, China also largely utilizes the dis-
cursive platform created around the events of the BRICS Summits; moreover, it further
places BRICS Summit diplomacy into its national strategy: as then-President Hu Jintao
emphasized in 2012, ‘maintaining strategic partnership with the other BRICS member-
states constitutes the priority of China’s foreign policy in the near future’.
In fact, developing friendly relationships with third-world countries is a historical
tradition of Chinese foreign policy, originating from the Cold War era when China was
completely isolated and needed stronger support from its allies in the developing world.
Since that time, the Chinese government has highlighted the importance of cooperation
with the developing countries through ‘seeking mutually beneficial cooperation and pro-
moting common development’ (Tian, 2013). This strategy was reinforced on entering the
21st century when China, relying on the rapid rise of economic power, started to pursue
a bigger role in global governance. Thus, during the 2014 Sixth BRICS Summit in
Fortaleza, Brazil, Chinese President Xi Jinping (2014) announced, ‘We should develop
the BRICS’ distinct spirit of cooperation and partnership … and play a constructive role
in the open world economy’, even expecting to inject ‘cooperative’ spirit into BRICS.
For China, the BRICS Summits serve as a platform to nurture a cooperative international
environment not only in the course of its rise but also in the process of the BRICS part-
nership development. Through ‘cooperative’ rhetoric, China seeks to communicate a
softer national image to global audiences in its BRICS Summit diplomacy efforts.
Although both countries stress the importance of their membership and leadership in
the BRICS bloc, it is evident that they have acquired quite different approaches to repre-
sent their national goals and objectives through BRICS diplomacy. That is why it is
interesting to compare how media coverage of the BRICS Summit in Russia and China
portrays the national images of these member-states. This comparative analysis of the
Russian and Chinese media representations in the framework of the BRICS Summit
events can further reveal and explain how the BRICS media diplomacy of both countries
aid their strategic foreign policy communication efforts.

Methodology
Russia Today and CCTV NEWS
This study focuses on news content analysis to deconstruct and interpret media messages
communicated by Russian and Chinese international TV channels broadcasting the Fifth
BRICS Summit in Durban. Specifically, this study examines the video clips produced by

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
Grincheva and Lu 7

the Russian TV channel, Russia Today (RT), and the Chinese TV channel, China Central
Television (CCTV) News.
RT and CCTV News are both supported by their national governments. Thus, CCTV
News is a state-owned channel. Even though RT (2014a) officially declares on its web-
site that it is an ‘autonomous non-profit organization’, independent journalists both from
Russia and from abroad have repeatedly indicated that the Russian government supports
RT with annual subsidies of around 11 billion rubles (Borchers, 2011; Gazeta, 2012;
Pravda-TVRU, 2012; Ru, 2010, 2012). In a recent interview, RT’s editor-in-chief
Margarita Simonyan announced that in 2015, funding coming from the Federal Budget
of the Russian Federation will be increased by as much as 41 per cent and will constitute
more than 15 billion rubles (RBC, 2014).
Both these international channels broadcast in English and predominantly target
global audiences in more than 100 countries and regions (CCTV, 2010; RT, 2014a).
CCTV (2010) News claims to potentially reach more than 85 million viewers globally,
and RT (2014a) states that its services are available to ‘over 700 million people in 100+
countries’. While, according to our knowledge, there are no independent statistics or
studies that could prove or disprove these figures, both channels do have broadcasting
offices located in many continents. Launched in December 2005, RT is a 24/7 news
channel with 22 official bureaus in 19 countries. With three international news channels
broadcasting in English, Spanish and Arabic, RT (2014a) targets first of all international
audiences. It positions itself as a channel addressing the most important international
issues by providing ‘an alternative perspective on major global events’ from the ‘Russian
viewpoint’ (RT, 2014a).
As some scholars have observed, since its establishment, RT has served the country
as ‘a central tool of Russian mediated public diplomacy’ (Borchers, 2011). In the Western
media and scholarly research, RT has always been negatively portrayed as a channel
promoting ‘Russian nationalistic values’ (Hsu, 2010) and covering US politics through
the prism of ‘Russia’s deep rooted rift with the United States’ (Cruikshank, 2009).
Whether the channel can be accused of being a government tool to spread ‘Russian
propaganda’ (Orttung, 2010) around the world or not, according to RT (2014a) policies,
it indeed focuses on constructing media narratives of international events through the
lenses of Russian history, politics, culture, identity and foreign policy objectives, ‘quot-
ing’ the voices of leading Russian politicians and governmental officials. RT editor-
in-chief Margarita Simonyan defines the mission of RT as counterbalancing Western
media narratives with informational coverage from a clearly Russian perspective: ‘If you
tune in to CNN or the BBC on a regular day, 80 or 90 percent of the stories are identical.
We want to show that there are more stories out there than you usually encounter’
(Bidder, 2013). Because the channel takes a leading role in representing a ‘Russian view-
point’ on internationally significant political and economic events, RT provides an inter-
esting media environment where portrayal of BRICS events can be seen through the
prism of Russian-mediated public diplomacy.
Likewise, as an English language news channel of CCTV, the nation’s biggest broad-
casting network, CCTV News has expanded quickly since its launch in April 2010. Thus,
in early 2012, it launched two divisions overseas in Africa and the United States, in line
with the ‘going-out strategy’ of the Chinese state media. CCTV (2010) News signifies

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
8 Global Media and Communication 

‘China’s contribution to greater diversity and wider perspectives in the global informa-
tion flow’; meanwhile, it places a special focus on the events taking place in Asia and the
developing world, as its logo ‘Your Link to Asia’ claims.
CCTV News is an official international TV channel, playing an important role in the
Chinese government’s overall public diplomacy strategy against the backdrop of the rise
of China, mainly through representing the country’s image on the world scene. As CCTV
News’ director announced: ‘The channel’s primary task is to represent the “national
interests” of China, taking the “oriental” perspective based in Asia and counterbalanc-
ing the international communication from the Western world’ (Fan, 2010: 15). Due to its
special position under the overall framework of China’s international communication,
CCTV News is an ideal media platform to explore important political messages from the
Chinese government and society and further probe its national identity construction strat-
egy in the new era.

Frame analysis
Methodologically, this study draws on frame analysis to decode critical discourses of the
TV channels’ media coverage. Framing is defined as a selection of ‘some aspects of a
perceived reality and making them more salient in a communication text’ (Entman,
1993). Since the time when the framing method was first introduced and developed by
Erving Goffman (1974), it has been frequently employed by many media scholars to
investigate how various political frames are produced (Gitlin, 1980; Tuchman, 1978),
how news stories articulate frames (Gamson and Modigliani, 1989; Pan and Kosicki,
1993) or what are the major effects of framing in political discourses (Kinder and
Sanders, 1990; McCombs et al., 1997). This study utilizes frame analysis to explore and
contrast the main strategic principles in national identity constructions employed by
Russia and China in their communications through BRICS Summit diplomacy.
This study uses comparative content analysis to identify and explore the frames that
are employed by the Russian and Chinese television channels with regard to the initial
themes offered by the main document of the Fifth BRICS Summit in Durban, the eThek-
wini Declaration. The declaration was issued and approved by all BRICS participants on
27 March 2013 and continues an earlier established commitment to strengthen and
deepen cooperation between the BRICS member-states. Our analysis of the declaration
revealed two of the most important themes covered by the document: the geopolitical
and economic standing and agenda of the BRICS bloc on the global stage and the inclu-
sion of South Africa as a fifth member of the group.
With regard to the first theme, the second paragraph of the declaration specifically
summarizes the key strategic tasks of BRICS in the world scene: ‘We aim at progres-
sively developing BRICS into a full-fledged mechanism of current and long-term coor-
dination on a wide range of key issues of the world economy and politics’ (Fifth BRICS
Summit, 2013: 1). Indeed, further analysis of the document proved the earlier expressed
focus of the summit on such important economic issues as the creation of the BRICS
Development Bank, discussed in paragraphs 9, 11, 12, 14 and 43, as well as the creation
of a Contingent Reserve Arrangement amongst BRICS countries, with an initial size of
US$100 billion, as presented in paragraphs 10 and 11. These new financial institutions

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
Grincheva and Lu 9

were presented in the declaration as necessary solutions for the developing countries
‘facing challenges of infrastructure development due to insufficient long-term financing
and foreign direct investment’ in order to make ‘more productive use of global financial
resources and make a positive contribution to addressing this problem’ (Fifth BRICS
Summit, 2013: 3). Also, the declaration highlighted a common frustration and disap-
pointment of the members with the existing financial institutions, notably the ‘slow pace
of the reform of the IMF’, and called for ‘International Financial Institutions to [be] more
representative and to reflect the growing weight of BRICS and other developing coun-
tries’ (Fifth BRICS Summit, 2013: 4).
Furthermore, the declaration also stressed the engagement of BRICS in the most
important political questions and issues in the international community: ‘We are commit-
ted to building a harmonious world of lasting peace and common prosperity and reaffirm
that the 21st century should be marked by peace, security, development, and coopera-
tion’ (Fifth BRICS Summit, 2013: 6). Specifically, the declaration expressed the commit-
ment of the members to actively participate and reassert their political positions with
regard to the following conflicts: ‘the security and humanitarian situation in Syria’ (para-
graph 26), ‘the lack of progress in the Middle East Peace Process’ (paragraph 27), the
‘Iranian nuclear issue’ (paragraph 28), ‘Afghanistan’s development as a peaceful state’
(paragraph 29) and many others. These commitments clearly illustrate that the BRICS
group positions itself as more than just an economic alliance between emerging econo-
mies and envisions its full involvement in resolving international political issues.
As for the inclusion of South Africa in the group, the declaration announced the over-
arching theme of the summit as ‘BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Development,
Integration and Industrialization’ (Fifth BRICS Summit, 2013: 1). The members of
BRICS paid special attention in the declaration to announcing their official support of
Africa’s integration processes into the world economy for the continent’s ‘sustainable
growth, development and poverty eradication’ (Fifth BRICS Summit, 2013: 2). In para-
graphs 5, 24, 25, 31 and 32, the declaration also highlighted BRICS support of various
regional organizations and political entities, as, for example, the African Union (AU) and
its Peace and Security Council, in dealing with a wide spectrum of political and eco-
nomic issues within the continent.
Based on these two broad themes, we conducted the comparative content analysis of
the selected video clips from RT and CCTV News, assuming that these topics should
gain the maximum focus and attention in coverage by both channels. Thus, we examined
all relevant video clips, including news coverage and special programmes produced by
the two TV channels from 22 to 29 March 2013 (both dates included). In the case of RT,
the Russian author of this article collected English samples from the online archive of the
main channel’s feed from Moscow by entering the keyword ‘BRICS 2013’. In total, she
collected nine video clips from RT (Table 1). For CCTV News, the author from China
searched the main channel’s online archive and used the phrase ‘BRICS 2013’ as the
search keyword, resulting in 43 video clips being collected (Table 2).
In the first stages of research, the authors analysed collected data from Russian and
Chinese sources separately and only later compared and discussed the initial findings
from each channel. The analyses in each case, indeed, confirmed that both channels paid
maximum attention to covering BRICS’ economic and political agendas and strategic

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
10 Global Media and Communication 

Table 1.  Video clips selected from RT.

Citation Date Title Format Duration

in text
RT 1 22.03.2013 BRICS key element of emerging News 4:55 minutes
multi-polar world – Putin
RT 2 26.03.2013 Under construction: BRICS the News 3:17 minutes
stage to build multi-polar world
RT 3 22.03.2013 ‘BRICS multiplies influence, but Interview 14:05 minutes
doesn’t challenge anyone’
RT 4 27.03. 2013 ‘BRICS on the rise, but the dollar Interview 3:57 minutes
isn’t going anywhere’
RT 5 27.03. 2013 BRICS plan new $50bn bank to News 10:47 minutes
rival World Bank and IMF
RT 6 28.03.2013 Hegemonic corporations scared as News 6:59 minutes
BRICS plan bank to rival IMF’
RT 7 26.03.2013 Geopolitical Giants: BRICS world’s News 3:35 minutes
wealthiest bloc in 30 years?
RT 8 29.03.2013 Cross-Talk: BRICS By brick Show 24:26 minutes
RT 9 27.03.2013 Bodyguard face-off video: Putin’s, Scandal 1:22 minutes
S. African security scuffle at BRICS video
summit
  Total time 1:13:23 hours

Source: Russia Today: http://rt.com/ DATE ACCESSED.

RT: Russia Today.

Table 2.  Video clips selected from CCTV News.a

Citation in text Date Format Duration

CCTV News 1 25.03.2013 Special Programme: The Rise of BRICS 71:30 minutes
CCTV News 2 26.03.2013 News 43:10 minutes
CCTV News 3 26.03.2013 Special Programme: The Rise of BRICS 59:10 minutes
CCTV News 4 27.03. 2013 News 117:05 minutes
CCTV News 5 27.03. 2013 Special Programme: The Rise of BRICS 68:40 minutes
CCTV News 6 28.03.2013 News 81:05 minutes
CCTV News 7 28.03.2013 Special Programme: The Rise of BRICS 25:00 minutes
CCTV News 8 29.03.2013 News 8:20 minutes
  Total time 7:54:00 hours

Source: CCTV News: http://english.cntv.cn/ DATE ACCESSED.

CCTV: China Central Television.
a43 CCTV News clips were categorized according to two main formats: a special programme and news

coverage and were grouped in the table according to date.

plans for development, as well as the inclusion of South Africa in the group and African
integration. However, representations of these topics by the two channels varied in scope,
intensity and focus. Also, the content analysis in comparative context between the RT

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
Grincheva and Lu 11

and CCTV News videos revealed important differences not only in how the channels
talked about BRICS and Africa but also how they presented their countries’ involvement
in the BRICS project, which made it necessary to focus the frame analysis on the issues
of the countries’ identity representations.
Based on these preliminary observations, as well as drawing on Castells’ (2010) iden-
tity typology proposed in his seminal study, The Power of Identity, we distinguished
three of the most important thematic areas which we focused on in the content analysis
of the channels’ coverage. They include the following (1) how Russian and Chinese
media understand and represent the BRICS bloc to the world with regard to its economic
and political agenda, (2) how they cover the topic of South Africa’s inclusion in the
group and (3) how the two channels portray their respective countries of origin to the
international community in the framework of the summit events. Thus, concentrating on
these key areas, we organized our frame analysis around three of the most important
themes, including Chinese and Russian self-identities, the identity of BRICS as pre-
sented by Chinese and Russian media and the identity of the ‘Other’ (South Africa as a
new BRICS member).
Castells writes that the most important international events, conflicts and situations
are usually used by governments and media to construct collective national identity, by
‘rearranging their meaning, according to social determinations and cultural projects
that are rooted in their social structure, and in their space/time framework’ (Castells,
2010: 8). Following his observations, our comparative content analysis proved that all
three identities were framed differently in the coverage of the two channels. The com-
parative analysis demonstrated the usage of contrasting frames by the Russian and
Chinese media in representing the summit in their coverage, illuminating a difference
in the perceptions of roles and ambitions of these two countries on the international
scene. These perceptions in the channels’ coverage pushed the media to communicate
quite different political identities of their countries, of the new BRICS member and of
the BRICS group as a whole, which constituted specific representations contributing
to the public diplomacy efforts of both countries.

Findings
Self-identity: Russian political leadership versus Chinese economic power
Both Russia and China used the media coverage of the Fifth BRICS Summit as a rhetori-
cal platform to promote their leadership within the group and to portray their countries
as major players in the international arena, especially within the BRICS grouping.
However, the constructed and promoted self-identities of Russia and China presented by
their media efforts within the BRICS discourse were quite different.
The Russian media used the coverage of the Fifth BRICS Summit as a platform to
promote the country’s political leadership and stress its strong military position on the
world scene against other partners. RT, portraying the country as the one with a legacy of
the ‘superpower’, as well as an important political actor and major initiator of BRICS,
deliberately created a self-image of Russia in opposition to other developing partners.
Although the Chinese media also emphasized the country’s unprecedented economic

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
12 Global Media and Communication 

success among BRICS members, it employed much ‘softer’ frames to portray its leader-
ship within the group. Emphasizing the country’s ability to serve as a model for eco-
nomic development, CCTV News tried to create an influential and powerful image of the
country that projected its strength rather through the powers of mutual help and coopera-
tion with other developing countries.
In the Russian media discourse, the country was presented as a unique, strong and
powerful political actor within and beyond the BRICS community, with a more privi-
leged position in world organizations such as the United Nations Security Council. For
instance, RT stressed the fact that Russia was the main initiator of the bloc and the chair
of its first Summit in Yekaterinburg in 2009 (RT 5). In particular, it emphasized the lead-
ership of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who started a discussion with other parties
‘to gradually transform BRICS from a dialogue forum … into a full-scale strategic coop-
eration mechanism that will allow … to look for solutions to key issues of global politics
together’ (RT 2). In presenting the news about the creation of the New Development
Bank, which was one of the key agendas of the Fifth BRICS Summit, the Russian media
framed it as a Russia-focused initiative and emphasized the Russian centrality. For exam-
ple, it claimed that ‘A feasibility study on the construction of the Development Bank
recommends setting up the headquarters of the bank in Moscow and allocating a capital
of $50 billion’ (RT 2). Furthermore, it emphasized that it was the Russian ‘experts’ who
first suggested ‘creating a Bank for International Settlements, to protect the BRICS econ-
omies from sharp fluctuations of the dollar and “currency wars”’ (RT 2).
RT was also successful in referring to opinions of the representatives from other coun-
tries to promote the Russian advanced position within BRICS. Thus, Professor Sreeram
Chaulia from India, interviewed by RT, shared that ‘Russia and China are the central
pillars of BRICS and are much more global in their overall approach to transform the
world order … towards multi-polarity’ (RT 2).
Quite similarly, the Chinese media also emphasized China’s central role in the Fifth
BRICS Summit. However, instead of employing the oppositionist rhetoric as RT did,
CCTV News utilized a cooperative rhetoric and projected a positive and strong self-
identity of China in the international arena by highlighting the relations between China
and other actors, in particular with South Africa. Through news coverage and expert
interviews, CCTV News emphasized the outstanding economic achievement of China in
the past decades and framed China as ‘a model that South Africa and Africa would like
to learn from’ (CCTV News 4/5). Pushing further the promotion of the ‘China Model’
and Chinese economic success in the 21st century, CCTV News made good use of ‘expert
discussions’ that deliberately created a strong contrast between the poor economies of
Africa which were ‘disillusioned in the Washington consensus’ and the ‘Chinese model
that can be copied by Africa’ for harmonious development (CCTV NewS 4/5).
Interestingly, by highlighting the ‘disillusion’ of the Western world and the ‘hope’ of the
China model, the Chinese media stressed the cooperative spirit of China to ‘help’ their
partners in Africa, implicitly portraying the country in a ‘strong and powerful’ position.
Thus, the Chinese media focused on introducing and discussing future economic ben-
efits that the country could potentially bring to the world and, in particular, to the success-
ful growth of the developing countries. In contrast, the Russian media concentrated on the
tangible assets, secured position and past achievements as a historically recognized
‘empire’ in order to construct a powerful image of the country. The ‘political leadership

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
Grincheva and Lu 13

among others’ versus ‘economic power with an intention to help’ frames, utilized by the
Russian and Chinese media, respectively, communicated different levels and degrees of
confidence of two countries in representing themselves in the global arena. Quite logi-
cally, Russia, with its ‘imperial’ legacy, uses all opportunities to highlight and emphasize
its dominance against other stakeholders in the group and employs more straightforward
strategies in communicating its messages. China, as a new economic power on the world
scene, uses ‘softer’ and cooperative frames to push forward the discourse of economical
superiority over other BRICS members and to promote its national power.

Identities of BRICS: ‘Geopolitical Giant’ versus an alternative economic

solution
Both the Russian and Chinese media portrayed the Fifth BRICS Summit with the goal
of stressing the growing power of BRICS as an emerging economic and political force
in the international arena. Nevertheless, they used different frames in the construction
of the BRICS identity in the international discourse. The Russian media employed
many threatening and competitive frames that portrayed the BRICS bloc as a rival and
a competitor to the Western economic and political hegemony, especially to the
United States. In contrast, the Chinese media, although it also stressed the strong
potential of BRICS to reform the present world economic order, tended to project a
much ‘softer’ identity of BRICS by emphasizing its positive changes to the world
economy and its alternative nature. In terms of the focus on particular topics related
to the identity of BRICS, Russian media prioritized a discussion of the geopolitical
standing and agenda of BRICS, while the Chinese media clearly highlighted the eco-
nomic dimension of the bloc.
The Russian media portrayed the Fifth BRICS Summit as a discursive playground,
where BRICS was framed as the political instrument of member-states – in particular, for
Russia to pursue its foreign policy objectives. Since one of the most important goals of
Russia in the international arena is to reinforce its secured position in the global scene as
a major political player, the Russian media highlighted the geopolitical role of BRICS as
a very powerful and important actor that can challenge the West-dominated world order.
For instance, some headlines of RT news, such as ‘Geopolitical Giants: BRICS world’s
wealthiest bloc in 30 years?’, ‘BRICS key element of emerging multi-polar world –
Putin’ or ‘Under Construction: BRICS the stage to build multi-polar world’, were illus-
trative in presenting BRICS as an emerging polity that indeed can change the power
dynamics on the international scene.
Although RT voiced different opinions regarding BRICS’ political strength and real
power in the international arena, the interviewees featured by RT frequently supported
the position that the ‘geopolitical weight of BRICS is already very high’ (RT 7) and as
‘experts say even in a current configuration may become the world’s wealthiest union of
states in 30 years’ (RT 7). During another interview, political scientist and State Duma
Deputy Vyacheslav Nikonov also stressed:

As for political role of BRICS is quite huge, actually now it’s a major international institution
which preserves the whole human kind solving economic problems, for example as G20. I think
by this point the positions of G20 are predetermined by BRICS. (RT 7)

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
14 Global Media and Communication 

Specifically, the political power of BRICS was stressed through the coverage of the
crisis in Syria. RT particularly emphasized the contradictions between the general
approach of the BRICS countries to major issues such as the Syrian crisis, Iran, and
Middle East settlement and the strategies adopted by the West. In an interview with
ITAR-TASS, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that: ‘BRICS is a key element of
the emerging multi-polar world …. Our countries do not accept power politics or viola-
tion of other countries’ sovereignty. We share approaches to the pressing international
issues, including the Syrian crisis …’ (RT 6). Opposing foreign interventions and accus-
ing the West of forcing regime change, ‘Russia, China, and South Africa have vetoed
U.N. Security Council resolutions on Syria’ (RT 2). Before the summit, Sergey Ryabkov,
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, stated that the BRICS
countries work together to establish ‘a platform for inter-Syrian dialogue, for some rec-
onciliation’ (RT 1) and assured that the upcoming summit in Durban would contribute to
developing ‘a unified and coherent message of what should be done there to resolve the
problem’ (RT 1).
Although, like the Chinese media, RT also illuminated the economic goals and objec-
tives of the BRICS bloc by highlighting the intentions of the members to establish the
BRICS Development Bank and the Contingency Reserve Fund, they were strategically
linked with the political power of the group to challenge the Western hegemony. For
example, in the Cross-Talk show, Yaroslav Lissovolik, Chief Economist of the Deutsche
Bank in Russia, argued that international policies creating free trade zones between the
United States and Europe and between the European Union (EU) and Japan ‘have been
shaped in response to the challenges set by the BRICS, which created a new architecture
of transnational economic and political multi-polar world order’ (RT 8). The geopoliti-
cal strength of BRICS was further reinforced through the voices of experts. For exam-
ple, Sreeram Chaulia, a dean at the Jindal School of International Affairs in Sonipat,
India, shared the following on the Cross-Talk show: ‘We need to create multi-polarity.
Multi-polarity is a political project. The economic vehicles, I see them as means for a
achieving a political goal and end point, which is to create a more just and equitable
world order’ (RT 2).
The Chinese media, in contrast to RT, constructed the identity of the BRICS bloc
focusing first of all on the economic agenda and devoted a large amount of airtime to
covering the details surrounding the establishment of the BRICS Development Bank and
the Contingency Reserve Fund. Through CCTV News, these two mechanisms were por-
trayed as the most innovative solutions to the recovery of the world economy. On one
hand, the Chinese media coverage meshed with the Russian news discourse that voiced
the negative opinions from BRICS member-states about the uni-polarity of the world
economy, where the West-dominated financial institutions set the rules for the develop-
ing world. On the other hand, in framing the economic agenda of BRICS, the Chinese
media, unlike the Russian media coverage, tried to portray the bloc of developing coun-
tries as a group of ‘brothers working together’ (CCTV News 2/3/4/5/6/7) with the pur-
pose of improving the global economic situation and contributing to the sustainable
development of the world economy.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the Western media have questioned the actual eco-
nomic ability of the BRICS member-states to sustain their economic growth in the

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
Grincheva and Lu 15

conditions of the global economic turndown. The Chinese media specifically addressed
this question and provided some convincing answers through discussions and interviews
with experts. As the CCTV News correspondent in Durban particularly stressed: ‘In
order to dispel misunderstandings and further demonstrate that the BRICS member coun-
tries can cooperate effectively, the Fifth BRICS Summit is expected to launch the BRICS
Development Bank and the Contingency Reserve Fund’ (CCTV News 2/3/6/7). The
channel specifically portrayed these two institutions as excellent solutions for the BRICS
bloc to overcome the global economic crisis, which, in fact, was caused by the ineffi-
ciency of the Western economy. The establishment of these financial institutions was
represented not only as a positive step towards recovering the BRICS members’ econo-
mies, but, more importantly, as a significant step contributing to successful economic
development of the whole world community.
Furthermore, the Chinese media, contrary to the Russian coverage focusing on ‘chal-
lenging the Western economic hegemony’, portrayed the BRICS bloc as an economic
power bringing ‘more balance and stability to the world’ (CCTV News 4/5). For exam-
ple, as Josef Janning, Mercator fellow of the German Council on Foreign Relations, said
during an expert discussion: ‘I don’t think EU takes the BRICS as a threat … It sees it as
more opportunities than risks, and we welcome the continuing rise of BRICS’ (CCTV
News 1). His comment implicitly delivered the message that the BRICS bloc cannot
challenge the current dominating powers led by the United States and the EU, and the
group can only be taken as an alternative power to the existing world order. This opinion
was further reinforced by quoting the official discourse from the Chinese Minister of
Finance Lou Jiwei, asserting that ‘the BRICS Development Bank could be a complemen-
tary institution to the existing World Bank and the IMF’ (CCTV News 4/5/6/7). In this
way, the Chinese media projected the identity of BRICS as a complementary and posi-
tive force contributing to the existing international financial and economic order, high-
lighting its alternative nature.
The above different portrayals of BRICS by the Russian and Chinese media clearly
communicated quite distinct political messages in the construction of the global identity
of the group. Russia used the coverage of the Summit as a playground to promote ideas
of the economic independence and political power of the new player on the world stage
– the BRICS bloc. The Russian media discourse emphasized BRICS as a financial col-
laboration project that can help rearrange the unfair distribution of global economic and
political powers. China, in contrast, utilized the ‘reformation’ discourse, portraying the
BRICS Development Bank and the Contingency Reserve Fund as alternative mecha-
nisms contributing to the existing economic order without an ambition to completely
restructure it. In promoting BRICS’ growing economic status, China employed a ‘softer’
rhetoric of enhancing global ‘peace and stability’, while Russia portrayed the group as a
new growing power communicating a strong ambition to fight Western hegemony.

Identities of the ‘Other’: Developing ‘Partner’ versus ‘Continent of Hope’

Because the inclusion of South Africa in BRICS was one of the most important agenda
items of the Fifth BRICS Summit, South Africa, and the continent of Africa, it inevitably
attracted much attention from the Russian and Chinese media. Interestingly, both

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
16 Global Media and Communication 

channels portrayed the identity of South Africa to illuminate the political and economic
superiority of their own countries; however, they employed different techniques and
focused on different issues to portray this superiority. Although both the Russian and
Chinese media stressed developing partnerships and collaborative projects with South
Africa, the Russian media focused more on portraying Russia’s advanced position in
contrast to South Africa’s underdeveloped context.
One of the most interesting and representative episodes that can best illustrate the
Russian approach in portraying South Africa is RT’s coverage of an incident that hap-
pened during the summit. RT devoted a substantial amount of time to exposing a ‘scan-
dalous incident’ to international audiences. It occurred when South African security for
the summit not only shut the doors to Russian journalists and the president’s security
team but also did not let in important members of Putin’s official delegation, such as the
Head of the Ministry of International Relations of Russia, Sergey Lavrov, the former
Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the United States, Yuri Ushakov, and the Press
Attaché for the President of Russian Federation, Dmitry Peskov. RT intensely discussed
this incident, which was framed as damaging to the reputation of South Africa, portray-
ing it as an unfriendly and poorly organized host of such an important international
event. Thus, RT reported,

While President Putin and his counterpart South African President Jacob Zuma were securing
important deals, friendship and cooperation were nowhere to be seen on the sidelines of the
summit. The South African security officers guarding the meeting apparently took their task
extremely seriously, cutting off Putin’s team at the entrance and ordering them out. (RT 8)

In this way, the Russian media illustrated the South Africans’ weakness and back-
wardness in comparison with Russia and therefore elevated the image of Russia within
the BRICS bloc as a strong and powerful international political actor.
In comparison with Chinese media, RT covered South Africa rather succinctly and
stayed within the frame of the country, while CCTV News employed much broader and
more inclusive frames and associations to represent South Africa to its viewers. First, the
accident that was so strongly stressed by RT was completely ignored in the Chinese cov-
erage of the summit. Furthermore, CCTV News focused on the special historic relations
between China and Africa and paid much attention to representing and discussing both
South Africa as a new member of BRICS and the whole continent of Africa. In contrast
to RT, CCTV News utilized a more positive and cooperative approach in constructing
their images. On one hand, the channel emphasized that ‘Africa is the continent full of
opportunities’ (CCTV News 2/3/6/7), highlighting the extent to which African partners
can provide new resources and contribute to BRICS’ collective efforts in meeting eco-
nomic challenges. With the same approach, the channel also tried to portray Sino-African
relations from a positive and optimistic perspective, emphasizing historical friendship
and mutual benefits.
Similar to the Russian media coverage, the Chinese media constructed the image of
South Africa to demonstrate its national superiority, especially its more advanced eco-
nomic position. For instance, as mentioned above, CCTV News projected South Africa
as a major developing country following the ‘China Model’ and seeking assistance and

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
Grincheva and Lu 17

help from China to pursue growth and secure a more stable position in the international
community. Such media discourses implied a superior attitude of China over its South
African counterparts. In this sense, constructing the identities of South Africa (both
channels) and Africa (CCTV News) within the media coverage of the BRICS Summit
was instrumental for both Russia and China in representing their own national images in
a positive light, illuminating their strong positions in comparison with their new devel-
oping partners.

Discussion and conclusion

The above comparative analysis clearly demonstrates that the Russian and Chinese media
adopted quite different frames to portray three types of identities: their own national iden-
tities, the identity of BRICS and the identity of the new BRICS member, South Africa.
The Russian media predominantly portrayed the identity of Russia by highlighting its
political strength, in particular its historical ‘imperial’ influence and its attempt to reas-
sume its powers in the new era. RT used the methods of comparison and contrast to rep-
resent the BRICS group as a powerful force challenging the current international order,
which has been dominated by the United States and the EU. Thus, it elevated the image of
Russia and emphasized its leadership in restructuring the uni-polar world architecture. In
contrast, the Chinese media adopted softer and cooperative frames in portraying all three
identities. CCTV News highlighted the identity of China as a positive collaborative force,
not only within the BRICS grouping but also in a larger global community. It distinctively
portrayed BRICS as a powerful force that can help stabilize and further contribute to the
economic prosperity of both the developing and developed countries.
Such contrasting representations of national images as well as the BRICS bloc in the
world arena point to the dissimilar approaches of Russia and China in communicating
their global missions and goals within their public diplomacy frameworks. Indeed,
China’s softer and cooperative identity construction strategy is deeply rooted in its domi-
nant political discourse, ‘China’s peaceful rise’, which was first proposed by Professor
Zheng Bijian from the Communist Party School back in 2003. As Zheng (2004) explains,
in its core, ‘China’s peaceful rise’ stresses China’s development through cooperation
rather than confrontation; securing a ‘peaceful international environment’ not only ben-
efits China but also safeguards global stability and prosperity. On the global stage, since
the 2000s, China, with its exceptional economic growth, has been increasingly perceived
as a ‘threat’; in this scenario, the concept of ‘China’s peaceful rise’ was quickly adopted
by the Chinese leadership as countering the negative rhetoric in the international dis-
course space. Framed under such a dominant political discourse, China strategically con-
structed a non-violent and friendly self-image on the global scene, further integrating
into the developing mechanisms of the national public diplomacy strategy. China’s com-
mitment to peaceful development and cooperation is evident in the portrayal of Chinese
identity by CCTV News in its coverage of the Fifth BRICS Summit. In fact, the channel
follows the leads of the official public diplomacy strategy to create a collaborative and
friendly image of China that would not ‘seek hegemony or confrontation’ (Xiong, 2010).
In contrast to the Chinese media, RT portrayed the image of Russia in more rebellious
colours and created strong allusions to the legacy of the Cold War based on the

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
18 Global Media and Communication 

us-versus-them mentality. Such a position is rooted in the larger cultural–political context

of Russian identity formation in the post-Soviet era. Creating the desired image of Russia
as a powerful economic, military and geopolitical player on the world stage is a continu-
ous work in progress, which slowly started after the collapse of the Soviet empire. Once a
superpower on the global stage, Russia is re-entering the international community on its
own terms, projecting its independence and defending its geopolitical interests.
In contrast to China, Russia very openly communicates its great power ambitions
(Sakwa, 2011). Pavleeva (2011) indicates that the ‘imperial’ dimension has historically
been present in the self-identification and self-representation of Russia to the outside
world. This ‘imperial vision’ stems from its traditional understanding of the national role
and global mission in the world. As many Russian philosophers and historians point out,
Russia has always seen itself through the prism of the messianic vision that took different
forms throughout the history of the country (Berdiaev, 1931; Dostoevsky, 1992; Soloviev,
1892):

For the Russian Empire it was the idea of Moscow as the third Rome that implied the mission
keeping original Christian values that had been lost elsewhere, for the Soviet Union – the idea
of bringing freedom and equality in the form of communism to the rest of the world. (Duncan,
2000: 11)

This study clearly demonstrates that RT coverage of the Summit events in Durban
emphasized Russian leadership in BRICS and promoted the country as a major initiator
of BRICS, challenging dominant economic and political inequalities across the world,
which is actually in line with the best traditions of representing Russia through ‘imperial’
and ‘messianic’ lenses.
Obviously, both countries suffered from negative perceptions from global audiences
and struggled to counterbalance negative representations of themselves in Western media
coverage. A typical example can be found in the Western misinterpretation of China’s
foreign strategy, Tao Guang Yang Hui, which was proposed by the late Chinese leader
Deng Xiaoping in the late 1980s. Unlike the literal English translation of ‘hide one’s
ambitions and disguise its claws’, which explicitly delivered the messages of ‘insincer-
ity’ and ‘ambition’ and further provoked strong sentiments of mistrust and fear in the
Western world, the Chinese interpretation highlights its low profile and tradition of mod-
esty. Similarly, the Russian ambition to communicate its strong power and leadership on
the world stage has always been met in the Western media with severe criticism as a
Russian ‘assumption that there is a “natural” attraction of weak powers to the strong on
voluntary basis’ (Simons, 2014: 443). As Russian writer Viktor Erofeyev (2007) explains,

The weakness of the current Russian policy is not that it fails to defend national interests, but
that the Russian imperial discourse and the desire to speak from strength is in principle not
translatable into other languages. It provokes only irritation.

Although the two countries’ mediated public diplomacy efforts around the BRICS
Summits reemphasized their powerful identities, they might not necessarily lead to
favourable images in the eyes of foreign publics; in fact, BRICS as a discursive platform
‘contributes to the transcendence of the cold peace and offers the prospect of a more

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
Grincheva and Lu 19

stable and just international order’ (Sakwa, 2011: 972). Drawing on the scale of Manuel
Castells’ classifications of identity, it is possible to situate the identities of Russia and
China created around the BRICS Summits between two main categories: the ‘resistance’
and the ‘project’ identities. The ‘resistance’ type refers to an identity constructed by
countries ‘who are in the inferior place or given no rights [to] try to construct forms of
collective resistance against otherwise unbearable oppression’ (Castells, 2010: 9), and
the ‘project’ identity is formed by parties who are engaged in building ‘a new identity
that redefines their position in society’ in order to transform overall social structures
(Castells, 2010: 8). This study clearly illustrates that the national identities, presented
through the media discourse around the Fifth BRICS Summit by the Russian and Chinese
media, project a hybrid, combining ‘resistance’ and ‘project’ identities.
Furthermore, the media discourses around the BRICS events assist the two countries in
constructing a reinforced collaborative national image; even more, both countries effec-
tively employ the collective representation as a platform to promote national power,
though through quite different rhetorical frames. In both countries’ coverage attempts, the
Russian and Chinese media place themselves in comparison with and even in opposition
to the rest of the world, thus illuminating national exceptionalism and dominance in their
particular spheres of influence. These positions imply an interior (in the case of China) or
a straightforward (in the case of Russia) approach to communicate a form of ‘collective
resistance’ to the global arena, where the countries seek larger global recognition and
appreciation. However, through the strategic collaboration within the BRICS bloc, both
countries promote their efforts in restructuring the existing world political and economic
architecture, proposing a new multi-polar redistribution of powers and resources that can
bring benefits to the international community.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this
article.

References
Berdiaev N (1931) The Russian Revolution. London: Sheed and Ward.
Bidder B (2013) Russia Today’s editor-in-chief: ‘The west never got over the Cold War stereo-
type’. Der Spiegel, 13 August, p. 13. Available at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/
spiegel-interview-russia-today-editor-in-chief-margaritasimonyan-a-916356.html (accessed
July 2014).
Borchers N (2011) ‘Do you really think Russia should pay up for that?’ How the Russia-based TV
channel RT constructs Russian-Baltic relations. Juvnost-The Public 81: 89–106.
Castells M (2010) The Power of Identity. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
CCTV (2010) CCTV News, Your Link to Asia. Available at: http://english.cntv.cn/20100426/104481.
shtml (accessed July 2014).
CNN (2009) For Mr. BRIC, Nations Meeting a Milestone. Available at: http://www.money.cnn.
com/2009/06/17/news/economy/goldman_sachs_jim_oneill_interview.fortune/index.htm
(accessed July 2014).
Cruikshank S (2009) U.S. presidential politics on the global stage: A content analysis of 2008
election coverage on Al Jazeera, the BBC, and Russia Today. MS Degree Thesis, Ohio State
University, Columbus, OH.

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
20 Global Media and Communication 

Cull N (2009) Public diplomacy before Gullion. In: Snow N and Taylor P (eds) Routledge
Handbook of Public Diplomacy. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 19–23.
Dostoevsky F (1992) The Brothers Karamazov. Cambridge University Press.
Duncan P (2000) Russian Messianism: Third Rome, Revolution, Communism and After. London
and New York: Routledge.
Entman RM (1993) Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of
Communication 43(4): 6–27.
Entman RM (2008) Theorizing mediated public diplomacy: The U.S. case. Press/Politics 13:
87–102.
Erofeyev V (2007) Moscow’s image problem. The International Herald Tribune. Available at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/opinion/21iht-edviktor.4278822.html?_r=0 (accessed
July 2014).
Fan Y (2010) International communication of CCTV NEWS. TV Research 9: 14–16.
Fifth BRICS Summit (2013) eThekwini Declaration. Available at: http://www.brics5.co.za/assets/
eThekwini-Declaration-and-Action-Plan-MASTER-27-MARCH-2013.pdf (accessed July
2014).
Fortner RS (1994) Public Diplomacy and International Politics: The Symbolic Constructs of
Summits and International Radio News. London: Praeger.
Frangonikolopoulos CA and Proedrou F (2014) Reinforcing global legitimacy and efficiency: the
case for strategic discursive public diplomacy. Global Discourse 4(1): 49–67.
French H (2006) Another Chinese export is all the rage: China’s language. The New York Times. Available
at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/11/international/asia/11china.html?pagewanted=alland_r=0
(accessed July 2014).
Gamson WA and Modigliani A (1989) Media discourse and public opinion: A constructionist
approach. American Journal of Sociology 95: 1–37.
Gazeta RU (2012) Putin forbids funding cuts to state-run media outlets. Available at: http://
en.gazeta.ru/news/2012/10/29/a_4828917.shtml (accessed July 2014).
Gilboa E (1998) Media diplomacy: Conceptual divergence and applications. The Harvard
International Journal of Press/Politics 3(56): 56–75.
Gilboa E (2000) Mass communication and diplomacy: A theoretical framework. Communication
Theory 10(3): 275–309.
Gitlin T (1980) The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the
New Left. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Goffman E (1974) Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. New York:
Harper and Row.
Gong WY (1993) The technique of propaganda: The implementation of media in American politi-
cal communication. Studies of International Politics 4: 63–70.
Guo XL (2008) Repackaging Confucius: PRC Public Diplomacy and the Rise of Soft Power.
Stockholm: Institute for Security and Development Policy. Available at: http://www.isdp.
eu/images/stories/isdp-main-pdf/2008_guo_repackaging-confucius.pdf (accessed July
2014).
Hsu S (2010) Competing discourse of nationalism in the global news arena: The analysis of the
news program in context of Russia Today. Paper presented at the ICA annual conference in
Singapore, Suntec Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre, Suntec City,
Singapore, June 21.
Hu JT (2012) Hu Jintao’s comments on the BRICS member states. China News Service. Available
at: http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2012/03-29/3783690.shtml (accessed July 2014).
Jiang CJ (2011) Soft power in turbulence and new public diplomacy. Modern Communication
Journal of Beijing Broadcasting Institute 8: 55–60.

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
Grincheva and Lu 21

Kinder DR and Sanders LM (1990) Mimicking political debate with survey questions: The case of
white opinion on affirmative action for blacks. Social Cognition 8: 73–103.
Lavrov S (2013) Russia’s foreign policy philosophy. International Affairs, March. Available at:
http://bit.ly/1mYOcZG (accessed July 2014).
McCombs M, Shaw DL and Weaver D (eds) (1997) Communication and Democracy:
Exploring the Intellectual Frontiers in Agenda-Setting Theory. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum
Associates.
Medvedev D (2009) First BRIC summit. Yekaterinburg, June (President of Russia). Available at:
http://archive.kremlin.ru/eng/articles/bric_1.shtml (accessed July 2014).
Melissen J (2003) Summit diplomacy coming of age. Discussion papers in diplomacy. The Hague:
Netherlands Institute of International Relations.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (MFARF) (2013a) Concept of the Foreign
Policy of the Russian Federation. Available at: http://www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/0/76389FEC16
8189ED44257B2E0039B16D (accessed July 2014).
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (MFARF) (2013b) Concept of Participation
of the Russian Federation in BRICS. Available at: http://eng.news.kremlin.ru/media/events/
eng/files/41d452b13d9c2624d228.pdf (accessed July 2014).
Monaghan A (2013) The New Russian foreign policy concept: Evolving continuity. Chatham
House Paper. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs.
Nye J (2004) Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. New York: Public Affairs.
Nye J (2010) What’s in a BRIC? Project Syndicate. Available at: http://www.project-syndicate.
org/commentary/what-s-in-a-bric (accessed July 2014).
O’Neill J (2014) Is the BRICS rise over? Bruegel. Available at: http://www.bruegel.org/nc/blog/
detail/article/1404-is-the-brics-rise-over/ (accessed July 2014).
Orttung R (2010) Russia’s use of PR as a foreign policy tool. Russian Analytical Digest 81:
7–10.
Pan ZD and Kosicki GM (1993) Framing analysis: An approach to news discourse. Political
Communication 10: 55–75.
Pavleeva E (2011) Russian national identity: Beyond ‘empire’ versus ‘nation’ dichotomy. The
Annual of Language and Politics and Politics of Identity 5(1): 41–56.
Pravda-TVRU (2012) International state budgets to support national mass media. Available at:
http://www.pravda-tv.ru/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/932495833.jpg (accessed January
2015).
Putin V (2012) Speech at a meeting with Russian ambassadors and permanent representatives
in international organizations. Available at: http://eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/4145 (accessed
July 2014).
RBC (2014) In 2015 RT will receive 41% more of government funding. Available at: http://top.
rbc.ru/politics/23/09/2014/950629.shtml (accessed January 2015).
Roberts C (2011) Russia’s BRICS diplomacy: Rising outsider with dreams of an insider. Polity
42: 38–72.
RT (2014a) About us. Available at: http://rt.com/about-us/ (accessed July 2014).
Ru L (2012) Putin Saved RT from Budgets Cuts. Available at: http://lenta.ru/news/2012/10/29/
letthembe/ (accessed January 2015).
Ru L (2010) Russia will Spend 174 Milliards Rubles to Support Media. Available at: http://lenta.
ru/news/2010/08/06/smi/ (accessed January 2015).
Sakwa R (2011) Russia’s identity: Between the ‘domestic’ and the ‘international’. Europe-Asia
Studies 63(6): 957–975.
Sheafer T and Gabay I (2009) Mediated public diplomacy: A strategic contest over international
agenda building and frame building. Political Communication 26: 447–467.

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
22 Global Media and Communication 

Simons G (2014) ‘Russian public diplomacy in the 21st century: Structure, means and message.
Public Relations Review 40(1): 440–449.
Soloviev V (1892) The Meaning of Love. Moscow: Moscow Press.
Tan YZ (2011) The construction of China’s public diplomacy system from the strategic perspec-
tive of soft power. Pacific Journal, March, 37-44.
Tian WL (2013) Why China relies on the developing countries. CCTV Opinion. Available at:
http://opinion.cntv.cn/2013/05/27/ARTI1369632539253935.shtml (accessed July 2014).
Tuch H (1990) Communicating with the World: U.S. Public Diplomacy Overseas. New York: St.
Martin’s Press.
Tuchman G (1978) Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality. New York: Free
Press.
Wang J and Chang TK (2004) Strategic public diplomacy and local press: How a high-profile
‘head-of-state’ visit was covered in America’s heartland. Public Relations Review 30:
11–24.
Xi JP (2014) Xi Jinping initiates the BRICS’ spirit of cooperation. Available at: http://news.ifeng.
com/a/20140716/41180112_0.shtml (accessed July 2014).
Xiong GK (2010) The diplomatic context of the English translation of ‘Tao Guang Yang Hui’.
Public Diplomacy Quarterly 4: 10–15.
Zhao QZ (2011) Public Diplomacy and Communication Between Cultures. Beijing, China: China
Renmin University Press.
Zheng BJ (2004) China’s peaceful rise and the future of Asia: A speech at the 2003 Boao Forum
for Asia. Theoretical Reference 5: 3–4.
Zhou SH, Shen B, Zhang C, et al. (2013) Creating a competitive identity: Public diplomacy
in the London Olympics and media portrayal. Mass Communication and Society 16(6):
869–887.
Zi ZY (1988) On characteristics of U.S. diplomacy in the post-war era. American Studies Quarterly
1: 7–34.

Author biographies
Natalia Grincheva is a recent graduate of the Humanities PhD Program at Concordia University, in
the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture and a part-time lecturer in the
Political Science Department at Concordia University teaching courses on the roles of culture in
international politics. Holder of several prestigious academic awards, including Fulbright (2007-
2009), Quebec Research Fund (2011–2013) or Australian Endeavour (2012–2013) fellowships,
Natalia has traveled around the world to conduct research for her doctoral dissertation on digital
diplomacy. Focusing on new museology and social media technologies, she has successfully
implemented a number of research projects on the “diplomatic” uses of new media by the largest
internationally recognized museums in North America, Europe, Russia and Australia. A frequent
speaker, panel participant and a session chair in various international conferences, Natalia is also
an author of numerous articles published in international academic journals, including Hague
Journal of Diplomacy, Critical Cultural Studies, The International Journal of Arts Management,
Law and Society, and others.
Jiayi Lu is an Assistant Professor at the School of Journalism, Communication University of China,
Beijing, P.R. China. Her research interests are international communication, public diplomacy,
media diplomacy and political communication, and she has published several papers in Public
Relations Review, Chinese Journal of Communication and Chinese Journal of Journalism &
Communication.She received both her MA and PhD from the School of Journalism, Renmin
University of China, and BA from the School of International Studies, University of International

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016
Grincheva and Lu 23

Business and Economics, Beijing, P.R. China in 2003. From August 2012 to August 2013, she was
the visiting scholar to the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of
Southern California, United States, sponsored by the China Scholarship Council. While a graduate
student, she worked at the Embassy of Finland in Beijing as an intern. From 2005 to 2011, she
worked at the Press and Culture Section, Embassy of Finland, in Beijing, also as chief interpreter
to the Finnish Ambassador to China as well as other senior government officials from Finland. She
was the recipient of the National Scholarship for PhD Students awarded by China’s Ministry of
Education in 2013 and got the Award for Research and Innovation given by Renmin University of
China in 2013.

Downloaded from gmc.sagepub.com at Middle East Technical Univ on January 27, 2016