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Media representations of China in the Covid-19 crisis : a critical discourse analysis of news coverage in the Straits Times and Channel News Asia
Author
Liu, Yuman
Supervisor
Seilhamer, Mark
Abstract
In 2020, a year marked by chaos and fear, the biggest focus of all the news discourse was COVID-19. As the primary epicenter of the pandemic, China has become a ubiquitous theme in the news coverage. The texts that constructed various images of the Chinese government and people in a range of news topics have been a common focus for Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) researchers. Most studies examining the ideological construction of China in Western news discourse have found that China has been depicted in negative and static ways in American and British elite newspapers, while few studies have explored Asian news media, so little is known about how China has been represented by news agencies in other Asian countries. The aim of this study is to explore how different Chinese participants were represented in the COVID-19 news coverage in Singapore. I focus on 24 news articles released at the beginning of the outbreak (from January 3 to February 2 in 2020) by two Singapore news organizations: The Straits Times and Channel News Asia.
My analysis of these reports combines the analytical paradigm of van Dijk’s news schemata analysis and Halliday’s transitivity analysis. The analysis is undertaken in three stages. First, at the macrostructure level, I analyze the main participants and actions of all the headlines to reveal how text producers choose to distill the stories by highlighting the soaring infection cases and the actions taken by the Chinese government. Then, at the superstructure level, I summarize the contextual routines of the reports collected. The demonstration of thematic organization is followed by an analysis of verbal reactions based on Halliday’s transitivity framework (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2015). It identifies which Chinese-oriented voices are selected by news producers to voice certain facts and opinions. Finally, at the microstructure level, I scrutinize some lexical choices to show how news producers implicitly construct the internal conflicts between Chinese local and central governments and how different degrees of attribution of blame are assigned to each role. I also investigate how Chinese medical workers and common people are portrayed. My study concludes with a summary of findings and a discussion on the contextual factors that neutralize and complicate the ideological construction of China in Singapore’s news discourse.
My analysis of these reports combines the analytical paradigm of van Dijk’s news schemata analysis and Halliday’s transitivity analysis. The analysis is undertaken in three stages. First, at the macrostructure level, I analyze the main participants and actions of all the headlines to reveal how text producers choose to distill the stories by highlighting the soaring infection cases and the actions taken by the Chinese government. Then, at the superstructure level, I summarize the contextual routines of the reports collected. The demonstration of thematic organization is followed by an analysis of verbal reactions based on Halliday’s transitivity framework (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2015). It identifies which Chinese-oriented voices are selected by news producers to voice certain facts and opinions. Finally, at the microstructure level, I scrutinize some lexical choices to show how news producers implicitly construct the internal conflicts between Chinese local and central governments and how different degrees of attribution of blame are assigned to each role. I also investigate how Chinese medical workers and common people are portrayed. My study concludes with a summary of findings and a discussion on the contextual factors that neutralize and complicate the ideological construction of China in Singapore’s news discourse.
Date Issued
2021
Call Number
PN4888.C75 Liu
Date Submitted
2021