Department of Informatics and Media Master’s Programme in Social Sciences, Digital Media and Society specialization Two-year Master’s Thesis Framing analysis of China’s COVID-19 pandemic coverage by the BBC and the People’s Daily Zheng Yang June 2020 Abstract Framing is an important concept for journalism. When a reporter covers a certain issue, the news frame is a key factor to influence what the news article looks like. At the beginning of 2020, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic burst out in China (Wuhan). Some mainstream western media, such as the BBC and the CNN, reported the related news about China’s pandemic situation. Simultaneously, Chinese media, such as the People’s Daily and the CCTV, also reported the pandemic issue frequently. According to the description of the Western media and the Chinese media, I found that their reporting perspective seemed different which directly influenced people’s judgement towards China’s pandemic situation especially Wuhan’s pandemic situation. In this thesis, I have researched the news articles of the BBC and the People’s Daily from January 2020 to March 2020, and I have collected 30 news articles of the People’s Daily and 30 news articles of the BBC. I used the framing theory as the theoretical support and content analysis as the method to identify the frames of the news articles. With the statistics of the research results, the episodic frame, thematic frame, critical frame and skeptical frame were identified in the news coverage of the BBC. The episodic frame, thematic frame, propaganda frame and positive frame were identified in the coverage of the People’s Daily. Simultaneously, I found that both the BBC and People’s Daily preferrd to collect information of news from the authority and government instead of the general public. Key words: framing, frames, BBC, People’s Daily. 2 Acknowledgement First of all, I want to thank all my teachers and classmates in Uppsala University in the past two years. From all of them, I learned a lot about how to conduct a research, how to write essays and articles in a more logical way and how to handle problems by myself. Then, I really appreciate my thesis supervisor – Kristin Karlsson. She is such an intelligent, patient and friendly professor. She always gave me exact suggestions which I needed and also guided me to finish my thesis in a logical way. And she also encouraged me for many times when I was troubled by problems. I have to acknowledge that I have learned a lot about handling problems and writing thesis from this great teacher. I appreciate her help and hard work. Simultaneously, I also thank another supervisor – Boas Hallgrimsson. He is not only a supervisor, but also a good friend to me. He gave me suggestions on some course assignments as well as the thesis during the past two years. I will always remember that he encouraged me to be creative on thesis and also on music (music is our common interest). Then, I want to appreciate my director – Ylva Ekstrom. During the past two years in Uppsala, I sent many emails to her and asked for help when I met some tough problems in my daily life. I appreciate all these things. In particular, I appreciate my examiner – PG Holmlöv. He is a great professor, when I first submitted the thesis, he gave me a series of pertinent suggestions which helped me to improve my thesis. Finally, I thank my parents and my girlfriend. They offer me supports all the way, and 3 encourage me all the way. 4 Table of contents Abstract-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2 Acknowledgment--------------------------------------------------------------------------3 List of tables--------------------------------------------------------------------------------7 List of figures-------------------------------------------------------------------------------9 1.Introduction -----------------------------------------------------------------------------10 1.1 Background----------------------------------------------------------------------------10 1.2 Research purpose and questions---------------------------------------------------12 2.Context of the BBC and the People’s Daily and related terms----------------13 2.1 BBC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------13 2.1.1 Background of the BBC---------------------------------------------------------13 2.1.2 Relevant research about the coverage from the BBC --------------------14 2.2 People’s Daily--------------------------------------------------------------------------22 2.2.1 Background of the People’s Daily --------------------------------------------22 2.2.2 Relevant research of the coverage of the People’s Daily -----------------24 2.3 Twitter and Weibo-------------------------------------------------------------------26 2.3.1 Twitter-------------------------------------------------------------------------------27 2.3.2 Weibo--------------------------------------------------------------------------------28 5 3. Theoretical framework---------------------------------------------------------30 3.1 Framing theory----------------------------------------------------------------------30 3.1.1 Framing and frames--------------------------------------------------------------30 3.1.2 How frames work------------------------------------------------------------------31 3.1.3 Episodic frame and thematic frame--------------------------------------------33 3.2 Combination of theory and method----------------------------------------------35 4. Methodology--------------------------------------------------------------36 4.1 Research design------------------------------------------------------------36 4.2 Content analysis------------------------------------------------------------37 4.3 Sampling--------------------------------------------------------------------37 4.4 Data collection--------------------------------------------------------------46 4.5 Ethical consideration----------------------------------------------------------54 5. Result and analysis-------------------------------------------------------55 6. conclusion -----------------------------------------------------------------94 6.1 Discussion-------------------------------------------------------------------94 6.2 Self-reflection and limitation-----------------------------------------------98 6.3 further research------------------------------------------------------------100 7. References-----------------------------------------------------------------101 6 List of tables Table 1. Clusters from the CNN text Table 2 Clusters from the BBC text Table 3 Statistics for the amount of the BBC’s coverage of China (2008-2013) Table 4 Statistics about themes of the BBC's coverage of China (2008-2013) Table 5 Statistics on BBC’s reporting attitude to China Table 6 Source statistics of sample reports Table 7 Chinese and American news frames of the Chinese Embassy Bombing event Table 8 Statistics of the 10 news articles from the BBC in the initial period Table 9 Statistics of the 10 news articles from the BBC in the middle period Table 10 Statistics of the 10 news articles from the BBC in the final period Table 11 Statistics of the 10 news articles from the BBC in the final period Table 12 Statistics of the 10 news articles from the People’s Daily in the middle period Table 13 Statistics of the 10 news articles from the People’s Daily in the final period Table 14 Statistics of the predominantly interviewed target of the BBC’s coverage (initial period) Table 15 Statistics of the predominantly interviewed target of the BBC’s coverage (initial period) Table 16 Statistics of the predominantly interviewed target of the BBC’s coverage (final period) Table 17 Statistics of the predominantly interviewed target of the People’s Daily coverage (initial period) 7 Table18 Statistics of the predominantly interviewed target of the People’s Daily coverage (middle period) Table 19 Statistics of the predominantly interviewed target of the People’s Daily coverage (final period) Table 20 Statistics of the predominantly interviewed target (BBC) Table 21 Statistics of the predominantly interviewed target (People’s Daily) Table 22 Other frames in the news coverage of the BBC (initial period) Table 23 Other frames in the news coverage of the BBC (middle period) Table 24 Other frames in the news coverage of the BBC (final period) Table 25 Statistics of all the frames identified from 30 coverage of the BBC Table 26 Other frames in the news coverage of the People’s Daily (initial period) Table 27 Other frames in the news coverage of the People’s Daily (middle period) Table 28 Other frames in the news coverage of the People’s Daily (final period) Table 29 Statistics of all the frames identified from 30 coverage of the BBC 8 List of figures Figure 1: A chronicle of COVID-19 in China. Figure 2: China’s latest COVID-19 cases statistics (up to April 7, 24:00). Figure 3: Information about the name -COVID-19. Figure 4: The first day of Wuhan’s closure. Figure 5: Communities in Wuhan are under strict management. Figure 6: Zero new suspected cases in Hubei province. 9 1. Introduction 1.1 Background At the end of 2019, the coronavirus pandemic burst out in Wuhan, which is a capital city of Hubei Province and a central city in the middle of China. The coronavirus was spreading quickly in Hubei Province, and then in other cities of China and due to the seriousness of the pandemic situation, the city was shut down on January 23rd, 2020 and reopened on April 8th, 2020. That means the city was