A Study Of The Rhetorical Construction Of COVID-19 Vaccine News In The New York Times From The Perspective Of Narrative Rhetorical Criticism

With the orderly implementation of vaccination,the phenomenon of “vaccine hesitancy” has become a big test for human being.Therefore,how responsibly reporting on vaccines and guiding the public to form correct knowledge about vaccines is obvious solution to the “vaccine hesitancy” problem.The United States,as a representative of western countries,has a good influence in its mainstream media.The image of the COVID-19 vaccine created by the media constitutes an essential source of information about the COVID-19 vaccine for most people.Based on the theory of narrative rhetorical criticism,we employ an integrated approach of rhetorical analysis and corpus-assisted discourse analysis to explore the narrative rhetorical strategies of the COVID-19 vaccine news in the New York Times from January 15,2021,to March 14,2022.We mainly concentrate on the following questions: What are the narrative factors in the COVID-19 vaccine news,and how does each element works and what is rhetorical motive? What functions does the narrative play in the rhetorical construction of the COVID-19 vaccine?The main findings of this study are as follows.The COVID-19 vaccine news narrators are mostly hidden.And there are fewer public narrators.The narrators have a pluralistic nature.The COVID-19 vaccine news presents a narrative perspective characterized by a predominantly external focalization narrative perspective,assisted by zero and internal focalization narrative perspectives.We grouped the samples into four narrative types: responsibility frame,conflict frame,human interest frame,and economic consequences frame.More than half of the news was about “responsibility”,followed by “conflict”.It echoes President Biden’s blitz policy.And it is consistent with current U.S.policy.It highlights the political philosophy of enhanced vaccination in the United States.The keyword analysis shows that the hot topic of the COVID-19 vaccine news is responsibility,but the emphasis is on the U.S.government’s response to these conflicts.The metaphor identification shows that war,architectural,and nature metaphors are used most frequently in the New York Times.Moreover,the media has a positive attitude toward the COVID-19 vaccine and recognizes it with a high degree of approval.Finally,the narrative rhetoric in the COVID-19 vaccine news have the cognitive guidance function and rhetorical persuasive function.The thesis focuses on how these narrative elements in events combined to form the functions of persuasion.It provides a reference for subsequent research on narrative news analysis.The narrative strategy can provide a reference for other media,to tell the COVID-19 vaccine narrative well.