Introduction
The technological, economic, and military growth in China means that it has been moved from the category of periphery nations to the elite club by Western media circles. Consequently, the news coverage of China from Western mainstream media has increased over the years. Therefore, when COVID-19 cases were first reported in the Chinese province of Wuhan, Western media was quick to offer unprecedented coverage of the deadliness of the virus and the unorthodox methods that the government was using to combat its spread. To them, the Chinese government was using unnecessary harsh measures such as quarantine and the restriction of movement. They interpreted the government’s actions in the same orientalist perspectives that have come to characterize the media coverage of Asia and the Middle East. They concluded that the government’s actions were unjustified and aimed at hiding the true sources of the virus. However, as fate would have it, the virus finally made its way to Western countries. While the media coverage of the virus changed after this, it was still marked by a bias towards China. This paper will examine the media coverage of COVID-19 in China and the US by Western mainstream media.
In particular, this paper will examine the media coverage of the pandemic before it was declared a pandemic and after. In the paper, the politicization of the COVID-19 coverage in the US and the biased coverage of the pandemic in China will be examined. Consequently, the paper will seek to answer the question: how was the outbreak of COVID-19 and its management in China and the US reported in the mainstream media and the internet? The focus of the paper will be on the reporting by major mainstream media news outlets and will seek to establish whether coverage was aimed at influencing the viewers and readers to form a particular opinion regarding both countries. To answer the identified research question, a literature review of COVID-19 news coverage in China and the US will be done.
Theoretical Underpinning of the Study
Framing Theory
The framing theory focuses on how the media covers an event and how the consumer of the news feed ultimately interprets its meaning. It posits that how something is presented in the news has an impact on how the audience ultimately processes that information (Zhang & Trifiro, 2022). In the media industry, frames work to structure the meaning of information to suit a particular narrative. They influence the perception of the news by the audience and despite denials are a form of second-level agenda-setting by the media meant to influence an audience’s interpretation and perception of certain events. In essence, frames not only tell the audience what to think about but also tell them how to think about the issue. This theory was first proposed by Goffman who concluded that people use their primary framework to interpret what is going on around them (Zhang & Trifiro, 2022). Since then, the theory has been expanded to include framing strategies that the media uses in its influence campaign against its audience. Such strategies include the use of metaphors and spins among others.
History of US Framing of News from China
Over the years, experts have studied the western media coverage of news in China related to international events, AIDS, SARS-2, Sino-US relationship, among others. In their studies, they found a contradiction between how news about China is presented by Chinese media and how western media ultimately presents it to its audiences. This difference was attributed to ideological differences between the West and China (Zhang & Shaw, 2020). However, the rapid spread of the virus has usurped these studies and conclusions as China is specifically blamed for the outbreak of COVID-19. However, China is also at the forefront of providing the world with personal protective equipment and other means necessary to mitigate the spread of the virus. Unlike in the past, Western media coverage of China in relation to the virus no longer contains subtle hints about China’s culpability. Instead, some of the major global media companies have directly blamed China for the spread of the virus despite the lack of evidence to back the claim.
The deterioration of the Sino-US relationship between the administration of President Trump and the continuation of his policies by the current US president, Joseph Biden has not helped the situation. However, unlike his predecessor, Biden has refrained from directly attributing culpability for the outbreak of the pandemic to a lab leak in Wuhan. However, rather than abandon the theory, his administration has adopted a policy of pressuring multilateral institutions such as the World Health Organization (which the US had exited during the Trump years) to somehow conclude that China was somehow responsible for the virus. The conclusions of these organizations are parroted as truths and facts by the US and other western mainstream media organizations (Zhang & Shaw, 2020). The US has also not seen uniform coverage of COVID-19. Instead, mainstream media companies have taken different stances regarding the virus, and politicization of the coverage has been the only common factor between them. Thus, mainstream media companies frame COVID-19 news and coverage in the US to suit their political leanings.
Coverage of COVID-19 News in China and the US
Coverage of the Pandemic in China by Western Mainstream Media
As Covid-19 spread around the world at a rate that had not been seen for decades, it set in motion events that led to hysterical coverage of the news. In China, little information was provided by the government-approved media while the government was also not forthcoming with information. Instead, western media companies who understood little about China became almost the only sources of COVID-19 news in China. This created a situation where the western media could control the narrative on the origin, spread, and effects of Covid-19 in China. Further, given China’s frost relations with the west at the time, coverage of COVID-19 in China took was always sensational and biased and mainly focused on five frames (Zhang & Trifiro, 2022). The first frame was that China was should be investigated for covering up the origins of the pandemic. The second frame related to how China was handling the pandemic as an authoritarian regime. The third frame was in connection with rumors and misinformation on the spread and death toll in China because of the virus. The fourth was the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 had originated in a lab in Wuhan. Finally, the fifth frame was that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was to blame for the virus.
As the death toll because of COVID-19-related illnesses mounted and more people around the world were infected with the virus, politicians and mainstream media narratives pushed for investigating China. The basis of the investigation according to them was that China had not disclosed enough information on the deadliness of the virus to the world. They argued that as the nation that detected the virus, China had a moral and legal responsibility to ensure that the virus did not travel outside Chinese borders and to inform countries about its spread and impact (Zhang & Trifiro, 2022). Further, as it became countries would have to institute lockdowns and stop economic activity, conspiracy theories swirled which led to more demands for an investigation of the Chinese authorities. However, as more information came to light on the spread of the virus, it has since been established that the first person to contract the virus may have contracted it before COVID-19 cases were reported in China. Thus, the narrative that China should be investigated was a western smear campaign and bias against China.
The handling of the pandemic by Chinese authorities also came under sharp criticism by western media representatives, policymakers, and politicians. In the initial stages of the pandemic, China locked down the entire province of Wuhan, mandated regular tests for the virus, and quarantined those who contracted the virus. Instead of lauding the steps taken to contain the virus, western media criticized the steps as dictatorial and an example of how the Chinese government cares little about the human rights of its population (Zhang & Trifiro, 2022). However, as the pandemic finally reached the west, the measures that had been criticized as dictatorial were adopted by virtually all governments in the world. Interestingly, the western media framed the adoption of these measures as steps to reduce virus transmission. The framing of the mitigating measures in China and the west is another example of the bias towards China in western mainstream media circles.
The silence by the Chinese government on the number of people who died as a result of the virus or were infected created a fertile ground for speculation and conjecture by western media companies. In their campaign, they used various tools including unverified satellite data which they used to conclude that millions of people had died in Wuhan as a result of the virus (Zhang & Trifiro, 2022). As demand for more information on the virus in Wuhan grew, the Chinese government finally complied but their numbers were met with rebuff because they did not align with the narrative peddled in the West. Until now, western media companies do everything in their power to cast doubt on any statistics on COVID-19 put out by the Chinese government but take their government’s statistics at face value.
The lack of a definitive COVID-19 origin sparked speculation on its origin and sooner China became a global scapegoat. Politicians including the United States president at the time expressly indicated that the virus was a creation of the Chinese government. The prevailing theory at the time was that an accident had occurred at the Wuhan Institute of Virology that led to the virus leaking out (Zhang & Trifiro, 2022). Another theory was that an infected animal in the Wuhan market was the cause of the virus. It did not matter to some western media companies that there was little or no evidence to substantiate their claims, they reported the news as if it had been independently verified and confirmed by the Chinese government. Later, multiple studies on the virus established that there had been no modification finally putting the conspiracy theories about the virus’ origin to rest.
Due to a wrong perception that the Chinese Communist Party is inherently evil and seeks global domination, mainstream media blamed the COVID-19 outbreak on the CCP. The motive for their evil actions was speculated as the collapse of the west so that China could dominate the world (Zhang & Trifiro, 2022). However, this news was just conjecture, misinformation, and a continuation of negative framing by western media companies keen to portray China in a bad light in front of their audiences.
Coverage of Covid-19 News in the US
Under normal circumstances, news on COVID-19 would have received uniform coverage across all media platforms in the US. However, the politicization and politicization of society due to a toxic political environment saw coverage of news framed to satisfy the major political bases. Despite COVID-19 claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the US and infecting millions of people, coverage of the pandemic was widely used by the two major political sides as political tools to gain an advantage over the others (Hart et al., 2020). For example, during the administration of President Trump, coverage of the pandemic tended to be framed as an ineptitude of his administration. The framing was despite efforts by the government to stabilize the economy and stimulate pharmaceutical companies to produce a vaccine within the shortest time possible. Although some friendly media companies tried to show some of his successes, they were drowned by a sea of news on COVID-19 strategy failures.
Another aspect of the Trump presidency that characterized his presidency and his response to the virus was the public distrust of healthcare officials and heads of government agencies entrusted with responding to the virus. For example, in a survey conducted in early May 2020, 83 percent of Republicans indicated their lack of trust in the director of the CDC and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Hart et al., 2020). This distrust was no coincidence, it was a result of negative coverage in the media that was affiliated and sympathetic to the Trump administration such as Fox News. These public figures were seen as sympathetic to China especially on the conspiracy theory that the virus had spread from China. Interestingly, a complete reversal of what was happening in the Trump presidency is not happening in the Biden administration. News coverage of the pandemic has virtually disappeared together with the apocalyptic framing of the pandemic. Instead, the media has adopted a new frame that focuses more on peripheral issues such as the success of vaccines rather than the impact of the virus and the number of dead and infected.
Conclusion and Discussion
The media coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in China and the US showed how western media uses different framing strategies to influence what and how people think about the issue. In China, western media companies adopted a hostile and biased media frame that focused on at least five topics. In the US, the media’s coverage of the pandemic was non-uniform and the preferred frame depended on political leanings. Generally, the media frame adopted by western companies focused on blaming China for the pandemic and holding the country accountable. In the US, the frame focuses on the competence of the administration in power with Trump’s being framed as incompetent while Biden’s administration is framed as organized and focused on ending the suffering caused by the pandemic.
Reference List
Hart, P.S., Chinn, S. & Soroka, S., 2020. Politicization and polarization in covid-19 news coverage. Science Communication, 42(5), pp.679–697.
Zhang, X. & Shaw, G., 2020. The UK media coverage of China’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak. Global Media and China, 6(1), pp.40–61.
Zhang, Y. & Trifiro, B., 2022. Who Portrayed It as “The Chinese Virus”? An Analysis of the Multiplatform Partisan Framing in U.S. News Coverage About China in the COVID-19 Pandemic. International Journal of Communication, (16), pp.1027–1050.