“Mobs” or “Pro-democracy Protesters”: A Comparative Analysis of US and Chinese News Discourses of Domestic and Foreign Protests

ABSTRACT

This article comparatively analyzes discourses that U.S. newspaper, The New York Times, and Chinese news outlet, The Global Times, constructed about the Hong Kong and Black Lives Matter protests. It finds that as Sino-U.S. relations have deteriorated to the lowest point in this century (Usher 2020), the selected U.S. news coverage of the domestic and international protests appeared to correspond to the tense relations. Nonetheless, the chosen Chinese news media’s negative portrayal of the overseas protesters suggests that in addition to international relations, a country’s racial background and national ideologies might also contribute to how news discourses about domestic and international protests are constructed.

KEYWORDS:

• Comparative
• discourse analysis
• domestic vs. international news coverage
• US–China relations
• HK protest
• BLM protest

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank her advisor Dr. Giovanna Dell’Orto for her faith in this project and her invaluable feedback and suggestions throughout. The author would also like to thank the three anonymous reviewers, Dr. Joachim Savelsberg and Dr. Benjamin Toff for their insightful feedback.

Disclosure Statement

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

Notes

1 All translations from Mandarin to English in this article are the author’s translations.