Media discourse in China and Japan on the COVID-19 pandemic: comparative analysis of the first three months

2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gulsan Ara Parvin ◽  
Md. Habibur Rahman ◽  
S.M. Reazul Ahsan ◽  
Md. Anwarul Abedin ◽  
Mrittika Basu

Purpose This study aims to analyze how English-language versions of e-newspapers in the first two countries affected, China and Japan, which are non-English-speaking countries and have different socio-economic and political settings, have highlighted Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic news and informed the global community. Design/methodology/approach A text-mining approach was used to explore experts’ thoughts as published by the two leading English-language newspapers in China and Japan from January to March 2020. This study analyzes the Opinion section, which mainly comprises editorial and the op-ed section. The current study groups all editorial discussions and highlights into ten major aspects, which cover health, economy, politics, culture and others. Findings Within the first three months, the media in both China and Japan shifted their focus from health and preparedness to the economy, politics and social welfare. Governance and social welfare were key concerns in China’s news media, while, in contrast, global politics received the highest level of attention from experts in Japan’s news media. Environment and technologies aspects did not receive much attention by the expert’s columns. Originality/value At the initial stage of a world crisis, how leading nations and initially affected nations deal with the problem, how media play their role and guide mass population with experts’ thoughts are highlighted here. The understanding developed in this study can provide guidance to news media in other countries in playing effective roles in the management of this health crisis and catastrophes.

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yating Yu ◽  
Mark Nartey

Although the Chinese media’s construction of unmarried citizens as ‘leftover’ has incited much controversy, little research attention has been given to the ways ‘leftover men’ are represented in discourse. To fill this gap, this study performs a critical discourse analysis of 65 English language news reports in Chinese media to investigate the predominant gendered discourses underlying representations of leftover men and the discursive strategies used to construct their identities. The findings show that the media perpetuate a myth of ‘protest masculinity’ by suggesting that poor, single men may become a threat to social harmony due to the shortage of marriageable women in China. Leftover men are represented as poor men, troublemakers and victims via discursive processes that include referential, predicational and aggregation strategies as well as metaphor. This study sheds light on the issues and concerns of a marginalised group whose predicament has not been given much attention in the literature.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 61-70
Author(s):  
Rosamma Thomas

This paper is an historical auto-ethnographic account by a middle aged journalist who has worked in the English language media in India for about 20 years. English language media staff is among the best paid in the country. Even so, work conditions are far from ideal, and the pandemic this year has rendered several journalists jobless. This is a personal account of one career trajectory that spans book publishing, work on national radio, newspapers and a news agency. Growth prospects are curtailed for women in the news media; one boss at the Times of India¸ India’s largest English daily, told the author that her “body language” betrayed a lack of interest in work.  


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benny Nuriely ◽  
Moti Gigi ◽  
Yuval Gozansky

Purpose This paper aims to analyze the ways socio-economic issues are represented in mainstream news media and how it is consumed, understood and interpreted by Israeli young adults (YAs). It examines how mainstream media uses neo-liberal discourse, and the ways YAs internalize this ethic, while simultaneously finding ways to overcome its limitations. Design/methodology/approach This was a mixed methods study. First, it undertook content analysis of the most popular Israeli mainstream news media among YAs: the online news site Ynet and the TV Channel 2 news. Second, the authors undertook semi-structured in-depth interviews with 29 Israeli YAs. The analysis is based on an online survey of 600 young Israelis, aged 18–35 years. Findings Most YAs did not perceive mainstream media as enabling a reliable understanding of the issues important to them. The content analysis revealed that self-representation of YAs is rare, and that their issues were explained, and even resolved, by older adults. Furthermore, most of YAs' problems in mainstream news media were presented using a neo-liberal perspective. Finally, from the interviews, the authors learned that YAs did not find information that could help them deal with their most pressing economic and social issue, in the content offered by mainstream media. For most of them, social media overcomes these shortcomings. Originality/value Contrary to research that has explored YAs’ consumerism of new media outlets, this article explores how YAs in Israel are constructed in the media, as well as the way in which YAs understand mainstream and new social media coverage of the issues most important to them. Using media content analysis and interviews, the authors found that Young Adults tend to be ambivalent toward media coverage. They understand the lack of media information: most of them know that they do not learn enough from the media. This acknowledgment accompanies their tendency to internalize the neo-liberal logic and conservative Israeli national culture, in which class and economic redistribution are largely overlooked. Mainstream news media uses neo-liberal discourse, and young adults internalize this logic, while simultaneously finding ways to overcome the limitations this discourse offers. They do so by turning to social media, mainly Facebook. Consequently, their behavior maintains the logic of the market, while also developing new social relations, enabled by social media.


Significance Tahrir News suggested that the vanished archives related to the 2011 uprising, according to BBC Monitoring. Under President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi, press freedom has decreased, with the military making inroads into the country’s media landscape. Impacts Foreign news media will face more difficulties in reporting, including possible deportations and restricted access to official sources. The military's greater control over the media will make it easier to disguise the armed forces's expanding economic activity. Already-opaque military matters will be even more obscured by increased use of state propaganda and regulation.


Subject 'Fake news' and US politics. Significance Throughout his presidency and the campaign that preceded it, Donald Trump has attacked news media that broadcast or write critical coverage of him and his circle. His habitual denial of unfavourable reports has established ‘fake news’, ‘alternative facts’ and ‘post-truth’ in the political lexicon. In contrast to Trump’s shifting positions on policy questions, the president’s animus for the media has been one of the constant aspects of his presidency. Impacts Trump’s central focus on his personal legitimacy will see him increase attacks on the media as difficulties mount. Deregulation will concentrate corporate ownership of local and national media, exacerbating the polarisation of news. Increased regulation of social media platforms is unlikely to restore consumer trust. The traditional media will probably cater to concentrated pockets of affluent and educated consumers.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gulsan Ara Parvin ◽  
Reazul Ahsan ◽  
Md. Habibur Rahman ◽  
Md. Anwarul Abedin

During all critical incidents, the media frame our understanding and create powerful forces at both individual and societal levels. The mental health of readers and viewers can also be affected by the media after tragic events. Potentially, the media have a proactive role in shaping the actions of the mass population and thereby influencing policy actions. The print media especially are considered a key avenue for taking information to the masses. However, in this information and communications technology (ICT) era, people are increasingly reluctant to carry hard-copy newspapers, instead preferring e-newspapers. At the present time, entire newspapers, and especially their opinion sections, are deluged by concerns about the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. After China and Japan first encountered COVID-19, other Asian countries began their COVID-19 fight at different times between January and March 2020. All affected countries sought to manage the pandemic in their own way, following lessons learned from China and Japan. Every form of media in affected countries highlighted concerns by presenting news, perceptions, and opinions related to the pandemic. With opinion sections and editorials, the key sections of e-newspapers to reflect experts' perceptions and thoughts, this study aims to examine experts' views in the e-newspapers of five different countries in Asia, in relation to China and Japan. Considering the diversity of socioeconomic and geopolitical settings, five countries—South Korea, Singapore, Iran, India, and Bangladesh—are selected, each represented by one leading English-language e-newspaper. This study explores how experts' perceptions in the studied countries present different aspects of life. It also examines which e-newspaper emphasized which aspect of life and in which period of the outbreak. By intensive text mining in each selected e-newspaper, the study found that experts' opinions addressed diverse issues with regard to COVID-19. These issues are grouped under the following eight categories: health and drugs, preparedness and awareness, social welfare and humanity, the economy, governance and institutions, politics, the environment and wildlife, and innovation and technology. This pioneering study of five different e-newspapers in Asian countries from January to March 2020 presents a similar picture of experts' concerns and their roles in shaping responses to health crises; thus, it plays a role in contributing to policy actions.


2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (5/6) ◽  
pp. 314-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Anne Mavin ◽  
Carole Elliott ◽  
Valerie Stead ◽  
Jannine Williams

Purpose The purpose of this special issue is to extend the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (ESRC)-funded UK seminar series–Challenging Gendered Media (Mis)Representations of Women Professionals and Leaders; and to highlight research into the gendered media constructions of women managers and leaders and outline effective methods and methodologies into diverse media. Design/methodology/approach Gendered analysis of television, autobiographies (of Sheryl Sandberg, Karren Brady, Hillary Clinton and Julia Gillard), broadcast news media and media press through critical discourse analysis, thematic analysis, metaphor and computer-aided text analysis software following the format of the Gender Media Monitoring Project (2015) and [critical] ecological framework for advancing social change. Findings The papers surface the gendered nature of media constructions of women managers and leaders and offer methods and methodologies for others to follow to interrogate gendered media. Further, the papers discuss – how women’s leadership is glamourized, fetishized and sexualized; the embodiment of leadership for women; how popular culture can subvert the dominant gaze; how women use agency and how powerful gendered norms shape perceptions, discourses and norms and how these are resisted, repudiated and represented. Practical implications The papers focus upon how the media constructs women managers and leaders and offer implications of how media influences and is influenced by practice. There are recommendations provided as to how the media could itself be organized differently to reflect diverse audiences, and what can be done to challenge gendered media. Social implications Challenging gendered media representations of women managers and leaders is critical to social justice and equality for women in management and leadership. Originality/value This is an invited Special Issue comprising inaugural collection of research through which we get to “see” women and leaders and the gendered media gaze and to learn from research into popular culture through analysis of television, autobiographies and media press.


2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 384-398
Author(s):  
Marc Jungblut

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the German and Hungarian Governments’ mediated public diplomacy (mpd) efforts during the European migrant crisis and their reflection in the international news media. Design/methodology/approach The study relies on a quantitative content analysis of English press releases and interviews distributed by the governments and their reflection in CNN and Al-Jazeera English. Overall, a sample of 483 texts was coded. Herein, the main actors, topics, frames, and information subsidies were analyzed. A comparison of the public diplomacy efforts and their reflection in the news then allows for assumptions about their potential impact on the news. Findings The data shows that the Hungarian Government uses more information subsidies in their communication than their German counterpart. Hence, the news agenda shows more similarities to the main topics put forward in the Hungarian sub-sample. The news framing, however, is more favorable toward the perspectives put forward in the German public diplomacy. Practical implications The results indicate that well planned and designed messaging does not guarantee successful communication. It also shows that critical journalism still plays an important role in the international news production. Originality/value The paper’s main contribution is that it goes beyond the war-based case studies on mpd and investigates one of the most relevant transnational issues in the last decades. In addition, it sheds light on why the media reflect some sponsored frames while they mostly discredit others.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia A. Duff ◽  
Tim Anderson ◽  
Liam Doherty ◽  
Rachel Wang

Abstract The growing body of research on Chinese as an international (or “global”) language examines linguistic, psycholinguistic, social-psychological, and orthographic aspects of acquisition primarily. There has been relatively little critical discussion or analysis of the larger social context and discourses in which Chinese language education is embedded. However, recently sociocultural, discursive, and critical aspects of the teaching, learning, and use of Chinese as an additional language have begun to receive more attention. This study analyzes circulating discourses, ideologies, and tropes related to Chinese in news media, as one means by which information and perspectives are spread by media and by which public attitudes and policy decisions are (recursively) shaped or reproduced. To this end, a large sample of English-medium news reports of Chinese language education in three Anglophone countries was created and analyzed for the years 2004 to 2012. The findings revealed that reports dealing with Chinese education tended to fall into one of several major tropes, which we have roughly classified as “hope,” “hype,” and “fear,” distinctions that parallel existing models of cyclical or amplified media coverage of innovations or otherwise newsworthy events. The sociopolitically and socioeconomically motivated occurrence of these tropes in the media, combined with the novelty of the Chinese language itself, a historically less frequently taught language in comparison with various European languages, constituted a consistent and recurring narrative. Thus, the shifting representations of Chinese learning in the media tended to appear as corollaries or “side stories” servicing the needs of larger geopolitical events and perceived or desired changes in public sentiment. These trends and their significance are illustrated and discussed in relation to Global Chinese.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yulia Anggraeni ◽  
Elvi Citraresmana ◽  
Eko Wahyu Koeshandoyo

There is a scarcity of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) studies on the representation of social actors in news media, thus this study addressed this research gap by analysing the way news represented the French President Emmanuel Macron, regarding his controversial support of Samuel Paty, a history teacher in France who was murdered because he showed a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad in his class. This research aims to see the representation of Emmanuel Macron from the perspective of the French media, The Connexion France, which published their news in English language online to reach world-wide audience.  Four articles of the news were purposively selected for this CDA study, which were published from October 18 until November 1, 2020. The French President’s representation was analysed with the nomination and predication strategies.  Results showed that the Connexion France uses four nomination strategies to refer Emmanuel Macron. The professional anthroponyms refer to Emmanual Macron as “the President”, proper names as “Emmanuel Macron” to be the centre of the discourse, synecdoche as “Emmanuel Macron”, and deixis as “he” to avoid repetition the subject of the text. Two predication strategies were also used, the explicit predicate of how the President “has promised” action against Islamists and presupposition from the way the news linked pictures of boycotted French supermarket products with the President. This research provides a take on fresh news with CDA and can beneficial for the students who learn English language by showing how the media uses language for political figures.


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