A Contrastive Critical Analysis Of News Coverage On Chinese Vaccines Against COVID-19 In The New York Times And China Daily

The COVID-19 pandemic was assessed as a health emergency of international concern,and the progress of Chinese vaccines received widespread coverage.However,media outlets often construct different versions of reality to represent the reality based on different ideological and conceptual frameworks.To analyze the characteristics of news discourse construction of American and Chinese media,this study employs a corpus-assisted contrastive discourse analysis of 140 news reports about the Chinese vaccine from The New York Times and China Daily under Fairclough’ s framework.The results indicate that discrepancies in text,discursive practice and social practice jointly contribute to the different reporting styles of the two media.While China Daily focuses on international cooperation and the needs of developing countries,portraying China’s quick response and active actions,The New York Times emphasizes ideological differences by mentioning the Communist Party and labeling China’s vaccine assistance as “vaccine diplomacy”.In terms of interpretation,both media quote extensively from specified sources and use indirect speech to ensure conciseness.Chinese media prefer to quote from authoritative government officials,while the American media belittles the quality of China’s vaccines by quoting from experts in favor of its own views.Both media prefer authorization and rationalization legitimation,yet disparity can still be spotted in the distribution of corresponding subcategories.In terms of social analysis,underlying discrepancies are explored from the situational,institutional and sociocultural aspects.Finally,the interrelationship between text,discursive practice and social practice is discussed under Martin’s time frame for semogenesis,which involves logogenesis,ontogenesis and phylogenesis,after which the differences between American and Chinese media discourse systems are analyzed.This study explores the different attitudes of American and Chinese media towards Chinese vaccines,in the hope of enriching the practice of contrastive critical discourse analysis in news media,shedding light on the relationship between discourse,ideology and power and encouraging international readers to develop critical thinking.