Exploring the role of media framing in constructing a country’s image during public health emergency: A comparative analysis of the news coverage about China fighting against COVID-19 in the New York Times and China Daily
Abstract
Media framing could function as constructing social reality and a country’s image, which is embedded in certain social and cultural contexts. This study sets out to explore the role of media framing in constructing China’s image during COVID-19 based on a comparative analysis of news coverage in the New York Times and China Daily. Based on the review of topics and the metaphors in the news articles, it is found that: 1) NYT and CD demonstrated different topic preferences and tendencies when reporting COVID-19 with NYT exhibiting a certain degree of politicization and polarization while CD emphasizing the medical efforts in fighting against the pandemic and corporation; 2) Both NYT and CD employed war metaphors to indicate the challenges brought about by COVID yet CD applied more diversified metaphors in the news coverage. The topics and metaphors analyzed in the corpus work together to frame and construct China’s image in the time of COVID-19. This paper offers novel perspectives to explore the role of media framing in a country’s image construction during public health emergency.