Portrayal of China in Online News Headlines: A Framing and Syntactic Analysis

ABSTRACT

Arguably the first thing that a reader notices of a news item, the headline serves the semantic function of providing pertinent information and the pragmatic function of appealing to target addressees. Moreover, it often embodies the stance of the news writer or the news agency on a particular issue and could program the reader’s perception and interpretation of the ensuing news story in a pre-determined direction. In view of the distinctive significance of headlines in news discourse, in this paper, we analyze how the headlines of The Economist, an elite newsmagazine, frame China in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. The sample of headlines was examined for their structural components, syntactic features, as well as linguistic characteristics, and compared with a selection of the outlet’s headlines on COVID responses of certain other countries. Through identifying the framing patterns adopted in the headlines and unpacking the ideological overtones encoded therein, this systematic analysis has illuminated the role and effects of the tactful employment of language in constructing country image and striking a balance between purported impartiality and ideological dispositions. Its findings and implications are expected to contribute to scholarship on media framing and inform the practice of journalistic writing.

KEYWORDS:

• News headline
• media framing
• country image
• COVID-19
• China
• The Economist

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The magazine publishes both a weekly print edition and an online edition that is updated daily. This study focuses on the latter (https://www.economist.com/) for its more convenient accessibility, more timely reflection of news events, and the tendency of most news consumers to opt for online news these days.

2 The Media Bias Chart (https://adfontesmedia.com/) is considered a good source for media rating as it purports to use a rigorous, reproducible methodology and a politically balanced team of analysts to rate news sources and their contents.