Othering as soft-power discursive practice: China Daily’s construction of Trump’s America in the 2016 presidential election

Politics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chengxin Pan ◽  
Benjamin Isakhan ◽  
Zim Nwokora
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Chinese Media ◽  
Media Communication ◽  
Power Construction ◽  
The Media

The relationship between Chinese soft power and Chinese media has been a focus of a growing body of literature. Challenging a resource-based conception of soft power and a transmission view of communication that inform much of the debate, this article adopts a discursive approach to soft power and media communication. It argues that their relationship is not just a matter of resource transmission, but one of discursive construction, which begs the questions of what mediated discursive practices are at play in soft power construction and how. Addressing these oft-neglected questions, we identify a typology of three soft-power discursive practices: charm offensive, Othering offensive, and defensive denial. Focusing on the little-understood practice of Othering offensive, we illustrate its presence in Chinese media through a critical discourse analysis of China Daily’s framing of Donald Trump and the United States, and argue that the Othering offensive in Chinese media that portrays Trump’s America as a dysfunctional and declining Other serves to construct a Chinese self as more responsible, dynamic, and attractive. Adding a missing discursive dimension to the study of soft power and the media, this study has both scholarly and practical implications for analysing a nation’s soft power strategy.

scholarly journals Ground Zero mosque in the context of America’s post-9/11 religious pluralism: CDA of mainstream news media’s coverage of the discursive event

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 253
Author(s):  
Saad Boulahnane
Keyword(s):  
Data Mining ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Ground Zero ◽  
Fox News ◽  
American Muslim ◽  
Perceived Reality ◽  
The Media

This article analyzes the Ground Zero Mosque discursive event and the discourses surrounding the American Muslim Community and explores the role of the media in the production and reproduction processes of anti-Muslim frames. To understand Islamophobia in the United States in the context of religious pluralism, this article adopts Critical Discourse Analysis, under which two theories unfold: sourcing theory and framing theory. The sourcing analysis targeted the media voices monitoring the discourses and contributing to the discursive construction and interpretation of mosque proposal into an agenda-led image. The second theory is framing, which consists of including a perceived reality—in the news—, making it more salient, and presenting it to the audience. The data analyzed were collected from CNN and Fox News via Lexis Nexis online academic database. A total of 225 media transcripts—(n=138) Fox News and (n=87) CNN—constituted the text and were coded and analyzed using Atlas.ti data mining software program. The critical analysis has resulted in a number of 180 voices—e.g. journalists, politicians, academics, officials, etc. — contribution of the discursive construction of the non-violence event, ofwhich 150 were anti-Muslim activists, journalists, politicians, reportedly formerMuslim Brotherhood member, etc. The study has also resulted in two mainframes: frame of illegitimacy and frame of terrorism, transforming the nonviolenceevent into a celebrated violent one, thereby providing a vivid image ofAmerica’s project of religious pluralism and its capacity to accommodate thereligions existing within the American confines.Artikel ini menganalisis peristiwa acara diskursif Masjid Ground Zero danwacana seputar Komunitas Muslim Amerika dan mengeksplorasi peran mediadalam proses produksi dan reproduksi bingkai anti-Muslim. Untuk memahamiIslamophobia di Amerika Serikat dalam konteks pluralisme agama, artikelini mengadopsi Analisis Wacana Kritis, di mana dua teori terungkap: teorisumber dan teori framing. Analisis sumber menargetkan suara-suara mediayang memonopoli wacana dan berkontribusi pada konstruksi diskursif daninterpretasi proposal masjid ke dalam pencitraan yang dipimpin oleh suatuagenda. Teori kedua adalah framing, yang terdiri dari memasukkan realitas yangdirasakan — dalam berita—, membuatnya lebih menonjol, dan menyajikannyakepada pemirsa. Data yang dianalisis dikumpulkan dari CNN dan Fox Newsmelalui database akademik online Lexis Nexis. Sebanyak 225 transkrip media—(n = 138) Fox News dan (n = 87) CNN — merupakan teks dan dikodekandan dianalisis menggunakan program perangkat lunak data mining Atlas.ti.Analisis kritis telah menghasilkan sejumlah 180 suara — misalnya wartawan,politisi, akademisi, pejabat, dll. - berkontribusi terhadap konstruksi diskursifdari peristiwa non-kekerasan, yang 150 di antaranya adalah aktivis anti-Muslim,jurnalis, politisi, mantan anggota Ikhwanul Muslimin, dll. Studi ini juga telahmenghasilkan dua kerangka utama: bingkai illegitimacy dan bingkai terorisme,yang mengubah peristiwa non-kekerasan menjadi peristiwa yang sangat kejam.Inilah gambaran yang jelas tentang proyek pluralisme agama Amerika dankapasitasnya untuk mengakomodasi agama-agama yang ada dalam batas-batasAmerika.

Chinese Television in Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 026327642110120
Author(s):  
Alessandro Jedlowski
Keyword(s):  
Soft Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Chinese Media ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
The Media ◽  
Chinese Television ◽  
Media Company

On the basis of the results of an ongoing research project on the activities of the Chinese media company StarTimes in Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire, this paper analyses the fluid and fragmentary dimension of the engagements between Chinese media and African publics, while equally emphasizing the power dynamics that underlie them. Focusing on a variety of ethnographic sources, it argues for an approach to the study of Chinese media expansion in Africa able to take into account, simultaneously, the macro-political and macro-economic factors which condition the nature of China–Africa media interactions, the political intentions behind them (as, for example, the Chinese soft power policies and their translation into specific media contents), and the micro dimension of the practices and uses of the media made by the actors (producers and consumers of media) in the field.

Constructing the myth of protest masculinity in Chinese English language news media

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yating Yu ◽  
Mark Nartey
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
News Media ◽  
English Language ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Social Harmony ◽  
Chinese Media ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
News Reports ◽  
The Media

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.

Media Communication Perspectives of African American Males Regarding Criminal Behaviors

2019 ◽  
pp. 28-38
Author(s):  
Carl L. Gardiner
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
African American Males ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Identities ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Media Communication ◽  
The Media ◽  
Criminal Behaviors

The representation of African Americans in the media has been a major concern in mainstream American culture and is also a component of media bias in the United States. Representation, in itself, refers to the construction in any medium of aspects of “reality” such as people, places, objects, events, cultural identities, and other abstract concepts. Such representations may be in speech or writing as well as still or moving pictures. Media representation of minorities is not always seen in a positive light; therefore, representation of African Americans in particular propagates somewhat controversial and misconstrued images of what African American represent. According to Potter, research on the portrayal of African Americans in prime-time television from 1955 to 1986 found that only 6% of the characters were African Americans, while 89% of the TV population was white. Among these African-American characters, 19% lacked a high school diploma, and 47% were low in economic status.

scholarly journals Media construction of the immigrant’s image: specifics of discourse strategies (based on the content of a Facebook group and articles in The Daily Mail)

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 23-44
Author(s):  
M. S. Matytsina ◽  
O. N. Prokhorova ◽  
I. V. Chekulai
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Daily Mail ◽  
Reciprocal Effect ◽  
The Media ◽  
Definition Of

The paper based on the content of the Facebook group Immigrants in EU and The Daily Mail publications discusses the issue of discursive construction of an immigrant image in media discourse. Using the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the authors claim that the image of an immigrant can be viewed as a discursive construct, and the main discursive strategies involved in its construction include the reference strategy and the prediction strategy. As a result of the analysis, the so called CDA-categories (topic blocks) underlying the formation of the immigrant figure, are identified and illustrated by the relevant examples, the need for further study of the social media discourse as part of critical discourse analysis is justified. The relevance of such study is due to the growing research interest in discursive construction of the immigrant figure in the media discourse, since it underpins the definition of discourse as a form of social practice, not only reflecting processes in the society, but also exerting a reciprocal effect on them. The use of both verbal and non-verbal means in the media texts under study reflects the intention of the authors of the messages to use all possible communication channels when constructing an immigrant’s image. The results show that the dichotomy of “friends and foes” is being formed and maintained by the British newspaper The Daily Mail, while the members of the Immigrants in EU group try to mitigate the conflict between immigrants and indigenous people.

scholarly journals LEGAL DISCOURSE IN THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST PARADIGM (construction of interethnic relations)

2016 ◽  
pp. 117-123
Author(s):  
T. V. Dubrovskaya
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Social Constructionism ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Legal Discourse ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Interethnic Relations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Object Of Study

The paper presents some results of the research that is aimed at revealing the mechanisms of discursive construction of international and interethnic relations in different types of discourse. The object of study in this fragment is the legal discourse, which is viewed within the paradigm of social constructionism. The author consolidates studies of law as discursive practice and outlines an appropriate methodological perspective, which presupposes the interpretation of legal discourse in social and axiological context, participation of society in legal-discursive practices, and the essential role of legal discourse in power relations. To perform the analysis of the ‘Strategy of State national policy of the Russian Federation’, the author applies the categories of social actor, implicature, specifying and vagueness, which are typically exploited in Critical Discourse Analysis. The results demonstrate that the document in question categorises the participants in interethnic relations and constructs a few pairs of interacting parties. The state is represented as a key actor in interethnic relations. The document also operates the discursively opposite mechanisms of specifying and vagueness to problematise certain aspects of the relations. Axiologically laden abstract categories and implicature also construct interethnic relations.

scholarly journals Constructing the Soviet Man’s Image in Modern Liberal Sociology Discourse (Levada-Centre Texts Cases)

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-53
Author(s):  
Mihail Beznosov ◽  
A. Golikov
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
The Political ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Modern Russian

The article examines the practice of discursive construction of the image of the Soviet (including the Soviet person) in the discourse of modern Russian sociology. As a specific empirical case, the authors choose the texts of the Levada Center (hereinafter - LC), which are analyzed using critical discourse analysis in N. Fairklough's variations, based on the study of mythologemes and discourse of the Soviet based on the developments of R. Barthes and P. Bourdieu. The discourse of the Soviet (man) is analyzed as a discourse of implicitly liberal sociology, which, while denying explicit ideology, reproduces non-scientific (in particular, mythological, ideological, worldview) structures. It is emphasized that such an implicit ideological and worldview bias, not necessarily defined as an intentional orientation, has a significant impact on both the programming of research and the objectivity of their results, and the discursive practices of their description and interpretation. Typical practices and structures of the discoursivization of the image of the Soviet (man) in the texts of the LC are presented and analyzed. A special emphasis is made on the political connotations of the nominations, discourses and denotations proposed by the authors of the LC texts. A conclusion is formulated about the limitations of the objectivity of the political and discursive representation of the image of the Soviet (person) in modern (in particular, liberal) sociology on the example of LC texts.

scholarly journals A CLOSER LOOK ON CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND EDUCATIONAL STUDIES

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kadritanjung
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Media Communication ◽  
The Media ◽  
Research Equipment ◽  
Educational Studies

.ABSTRACT. The humanities and social science had greatly influence in developing the critical linguistic (CL).They used it as a research equipment and tried to develop to be Critical Discourse Anaysis .Many expers introduced type of CDA to Academia. The historical descriptive methodology is the way of the Scholars to observe their research. This paper presents a perspective in reviewing CDA and its devolopment.The question arises after that. Can we take this into Academia ?Indeed the appearance of CDA is considered to have a positive impact for researchers because of more interesting methodology and perpective 1)Analyze relationship between superstructures and social issues. 2)Analyze the media communication used. 3) The application of CDA in academia.Key words: critical linguistic(CL),(CDA),Educational studies.

scholarly journals Analysis of Critical Discussion in The Article "Different Fate: THR Civil Servants In This Week, THR of Livers Postponed and Installed" (Kompas, 11 Mei 2020)

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 19-26
Author(s):  
Muhammad Misbahul Huda
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Library Research ◽  
Circular Letter ◽  
Cultural Praxis ◽  
The Government

Abstract: The focus of this research is (a) describing the dimensions of the text, (b) describing discursive practices, (c) describing socio-cultural praxis, and assumptions of social irregularities through obstacles and how to overcome these obstacles, based on Kompas 11 May 2020 Edition. with the title "Difference in Fate: THR PNS Liquided This Week, THR Labor Delayed and Installed. This type of research uses library research, while data collection uses documentation, and Norman Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis (AWK) as a tool for analysis. Based on the research, the following results were obtained: (a) the dimensions of the text. The text in the Kompas report seems to speak of a clear caste difference between civil servants and workers. (b) dimensions of discursive practice. Besides the existence of Covid-19, Circular Letter about the THR of workers that can be postponed or paid in installments and the news about the THR PNS immediately disbursed, explicitly indicates that there are social irregularities that occur. (c) socio-cultural praxis dimensions. With this news, it triggers the reaction of the workers / laborers to launch a demonstration, either through the leadership of workers throughout Indonesia or even there will be a demonstration going down. While the assumptions of social irregularities can be seen in the inequality and discrimination of workers / laborers caused by the government. The government seems to favor the civil servants and company owners. This can be prevented by ensuring that the THR of workers is controlled up to the hands of the workers, and that the Circular Letter will instead be used as a weapon for company owners so that they do not meet the workers' THR, this requires the supervision of the government.

scholarly journals If You Are the One and SBS: the cultural economy of difference

2020 ◽  
Vol 175 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-19
Author(s):  
Wanning Sun ◽  
Jing Han
Keyword(s):  
Soft Power ◽  
Cultural Economy ◽  
Chinese Media ◽  
Industry Studies ◽  
The Media ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Broadcasting Service ◽  
The One ◽  
Fear And Anxiety ◽  
Popular Television

If You Are the One ( IYATO) is China’s most popular television dating show. Since Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) bought it 6 years ago, the show has attracted a cult following among English-speaking viewers. SBS subsequently purchased several other Chinese reality shows, and the Seven Network launched its own version of IYATO. But none of these programmes have proven to be as enduringly popular as IYATO. Taking an industry studies approach, this article draws on the inside knowledge of one of the authors, and on interviews with several other SBS employees, to shed light on the media industry’s thinking behind importing cultural products from China, particularly against the backdrop of fear and anxiety about China’s influence. We also ask why IYATO has endeared itself to Australia’s English-speaking viewers in ways that the majority of Chinese media content has not, despite the Chinese government’s myriad soft power initiatives.

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