Critical Framing Analysis Of News Reports On China’s Response To Public Health Emergencies

In the era of “everything is media”,the interactive game between political power and news production plays a crucial role in shaping public perception and reconstructing media ecology and value order.Public health emergencies have always been the news subject of extensive media attention and coverage,besides a hot spot for research in the field of Humanities and Social Sciences.This study integrates models of Critical Discourse Analysis(CDA)and Framing Theory to analyze the discourse characteristics of Chinese and British mainstream media news reports on public health emergencies.Specifically,a total of 180 news reports from China Daily(English version)and The Guardian on SARS(March 2003-March 2004)and COVID-19 pandemic(January 2020-January 2021)are selected as corpora for this study.Based on the Critical Framing Analysis Model,this study uses Ant Conc 4.1.0 and MIPVU(Steen et al.,2010)to identify the high-frequency frames in related reports from both media and interpret the potential meaning of the discourse,and summarize the framing strategies.The questions are as follows:(1)What surface frames can be extracted from China Daily and The Guardian?What deep frames can be activated by those surface frames?(2)What are the media’s framing intentions and ideological roots?(3)What framing strategies can be summarized from the two media news reports?The major findings are as follows:1.As to surface frames and deep frames:(1)The SARS corpus of China Daily mainly contains 3 types of metaphorical surface frames(war,journey,and crime)and 3types of non-metaphorical surface frames(help,strength,cooperation);the COVID-19 pandemic corpus mainly contains 5 types of metaphorical surface frames(war,competition,journey,human,drama)and 5 types of non-metaphorical surface frames(cooperation,help,strength,rumor,duty).These metaphorical surface frames construct9 kinds of conceptual metaphors like SARS/COVID-19 PREVENTION AND CONTROL IS A WAR/JOURNEY,SARS SPREAD IS A CRIME,CHINA IS A HUMAN,the deep frames of metaphorical surface frames;the value like “collectivism”,“multilateralism” and “people-oriented” are deep frames of non-metaphorical frames on SARS and COVID-19.(2)The SARS corpus of The Guardian contains 4 types of metaphorical surface frames(crime,journey,war,human),2 types of non-metaphorical surface frames(violence,incompetence);the COVID-19 pandemic corpus mainly contains 3 types of metaphorical surface frames(journey,war,human)and 3 types of non-metaphorical surface frames(illegal,help,undemocratic).The above metaphorical frames construct 8 conceptual metaphors like SARS SPREAD IS A CRIME/JOURNEY,SARS/COVID-19 PREVENTION AND CONTROL IS A WAR,CHINA IS A HUMAN;the values of “illegality” and “immorality” are deep frames reflected in related nonmetaphorical frames.2.As to framing intentions and ideological roots:(1)In constructing the realities of China’s response to two types of public health emergencies,frames used by China Daily restore the realities and convey the enthusiasm for upholding principles and principles,thus guiding the target audience’s positive emotions and constructing positive national images like “responsible”;the above framing reflects the “benevolence” and “harmony and cooperation” in the traditional culture.(2)Framing used by The Guardian distorts part of realities and makes state country’s actions illegal and immoral to mislead the audience’s emotions,and mainly constructs negative images of the dominant state such as “low efficiency and cover-up” on SARS and opposing images such as “proactive response”,and “inaction” on COVID-19;the above framing reflects the inherent “Cold War”,and “zero-sum” mentality to varying degrees.3.As to the use of framing strategies:(1)The Guardian uses the strategy of frame amplification in its coverage of the SARS and COVID-19 pandemic periods respectively,which achieves a negative discourse on structuring China and to achieve stigmatization of China.(2)Compared with coverage during the SARS period,China Daily applies the metaphorical reframing strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic period to fill the potential negative impact brought to the public by the solidified expression of war in the coverage by increasing the distribution and proportion of competition and drama metaphorical framing.(3)China Daily also uses the counter-frame strategy to effectively refute foreign media’s rootless accusations and further enhance correct public perceptions of COVID-19.(4)Both of them use the same internal strategy in terms of common metaphorical frames,which controls the proportion,collocations,and content referents of words activating related frames,then achieves the construction of opposing realities and national images.This study expands the research scope of media discourse and the summary of reporting strategies will help Chinese media improve the communication ability of relevant discourses,explore and construct language strategies suitable for China’s international discourse patterns in the future,and help build China’s image as an international power.