Critical Discourse Analysis Of Indian Hindi Media Coverage Of The Belt And Road Initiative Under Geopolitical Thresholds

The Belt and Road Initiative has received widespread attention from the international community since its inception.India is a major stakeholder and a key external factor for the smooth advancement of Belt and Road construction in South Asia.Based on geopolitical considerations,India is full of contradictions and choices regarding the Belt and Road Initiative.News discourse and social power are inextricably linked,and there are often complex social power relations behind the discourse.Therefore,from the perspective of geopolitics,this paper provides a step-by-step analysis of Hindi media coverage of Belt and Road Initiative based on Critical Discourse Analysis theory and Fairclough’s three-dimensional analysis path.The study found that:(1)China’s discourse influence on Hindi media is seriously lacking,and the Belt and Road Initiative is generally portrayed in a negative light in Hindi reports,and is depicted as a symbol of "Chinese threat theory" and "Chinese hegemony.(2)Hindi-language media mainly examine and present the Belt and Road Initiative through three geopolitical sub-frames: land power framework,sea power framework and living space framework,among which the living space framework is the most leading;during the period of tension between China and India,the land power framework comes to the fore.(3)Compared with economic issues,sovereignty issues are most prominent in Hindi media’s coverage of the Belt and Road Initiative.The media tend to discuss land rights and living space under the issue of sovereignty,while discussing living space under the issue of economy.(4)Hindi media reports on Belt and Road are more likely to use surface logic and less likely to use explanatory logic.When the media present Belt and Road Initiative with an explanatory logic,it is more often discussed in the context of maritime rights.(5)The characteristics of the readership influence the reporting style.(6)Political and diplomatic trends influence the reporting density.(7)Political views and political ambitions are directly integrated into the content production of news.It is the direct and indirect effects of multiple social contextual factors that creates the final news story presented to audience.