On China's image constructed from western news coverage of China's humanitarian aid.

Despite the growing body of research on media representations of China during the COVID-19 outbreak, limited scholarly attention has been devoted to Western news coverage of specific events involving China. Based on a self-built corpus of reports from English-speaking news sources on "China...

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Main Author: Lei Sun
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2025-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0326214
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author Lei Sun
author_facet Lei Sun
author_sort Lei Sun
collection DOAJ
description Despite the growing body of research on media representations of China during the COVID-19 outbreak, limited scholarly attention has been devoted to Western news coverage of specific events involving China. Based on a self-built corpus of reports from English-speaking news sources on "China's Humannitarian Aid to Europe (2019-2024)", this study aims to contribute to the scholarship by examining how Western news media represents China's humanitarian aid to Europe, using quantitative and qualitative methods. The study employs corpus-based Critical Metaphor Analysis to analyze how China is linguistically represented through discursive strategies. Guided by the conceptual metaphor THE NATION AS PERSON, the analysis reveals a series of secondary metaphors-including CHINA AS PERSON, EUROPE AS PERSON, and AMERICA AS PERSON. In particular, CHINA AS PERSON is associated with multifaceted images such as "a politician," "an upstart," "a vendor," "an aggressor," and "a dictator," which collectively serve to undermine China's efforts and reframe humanitarian aid as a diplomatic maneuver. This highlights the effectiveness of corpus-assisted CMA in in analyzing media representations of national images amid a global health crisis.
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spelling doaj-art-fb2ecb65fa6c4ae98a1ea5cd9cbd76912025-08-20T02:37:30ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032025-01-01206e032621410.1371/journal.pone.0326214On China's image constructed from western news coverage of China's humanitarian aid.Lei SunDespite the growing body of research on media representations of China during the COVID-19 outbreak, limited scholarly attention has been devoted to Western news coverage of specific events involving China. Based on a self-built corpus of reports from English-speaking news sources on "China's Humannitarian Aid to Europe (2019-2024)", this study aims to contribute to the scholarship by examining how Western news media represents China's humanitarian aid to Europe, using quantitative and qualitative methods. The study employs corpus-based Critical Metaphor Analysis to analyze how China is linguistically represented through discursive strategies. Guided by the conceptual metaphor THE NATION AS PERSON, the analysis reveals a series of secondary metaphors-including CHINA AS PERSON, EUROPE AS PERSON, and AMERICA AS PERSON. In particular, CHINA AS PERSON is associated with multifaceted images such as "a politician," "an upstart," "a vendor," "an aggressor," and "a dictator," which collectively serve to undermine China's efforts and reframe humanitarian aid as a diplomatic maneuver. This highlights the effectiveness of corpus-assisted CMA in in analyzing media representations of national images amid a global health crisis.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0326214
spellingShingle Lei Sun
On China's image constructed from western news coverage of China's humanitarian aid.
PLoS ONE
title On China's image constructed from western news coverage of China's humanitarian aid.
title_full On China's image constructed from western news coverage of China's humanitarian aid.
title_fullStr On China's image constructed from western news coverage of China's humanitarian aid.
title_full_unstemmed On China's image constructed from western news coverage of China's humanitarian aid.
title_short On China's image constructed from western news coverage of China's humanitarian aid.
title_sort on china s image constructed from western news coverage of china s humanitarian aid
url https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0326214
work_keys_str_mv AT leisun onchinasimageconstructedfromwesternnewscoverageofchinashumanitarianaid