Professional Affiliation

Associate Professor, Department of Communication, Georgia State University

Expert Bio

Maria Repnikova is a scholar of Chinese politics and an Associate Professor of Global Communication at Georgia State University. Her research focuses on domestic and global public opinion management, including critical journalism and internal propaganda, and most recently, China's soft power in Africa. Her work has been published in China Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, Comparative Politics, and New Media and Society, amongst other venues. She also writes for major media outlets such as the New York Times, Foreign Policy, and The Wall Street Journal. Maria's book, Media Politics in China: Improvising Power under Authoritarianism won the Book of the Year award from the International Journal of Press and Politics. Maria has a doctorate in Politics from Oxford University where she was a Rhodes Scholar.

Wilson Center Project

Wilson China Fellowship Project: Transnational Civil Society & Authoritarian Politics in China and Russia

Former Project: In the Shadow of the United States: The Rise of Chinese Soft Power in Africa

Project Summary

This book project examines the workings of state-sponsored Chinese soft power campaigns in Africa, including elite trainings, youth outreach and mediatized public engagement. It analyses how these initiatives trickle down from policy formation in Beijing to on-the-ground implementation and negotiation in Ethiopia—one of China’s closest allies on the African continent. Contrasting Chinese activities to those of their American counterparts and their Soviet predecessors, this study will illuminate the distinctive features of the Chinese soft power enterprise, shaping the competitive strategies of policymakers on the continent and beyond.

Major Publications

Media Politics in China: Improvising Power Under Authoritarianism (Cambridge University Press 2017)

“Digital Media Experiments in China: “Revolutionizing” Persuasion under Xi” (with Kecheng Fang). China Quarterly 239 (2019): 671-709.

“Contesting Authoritarianism: Critical Journalists in China and Russia.” Comparative Politics 51 (1) (2018): 41-60.