REPRESENTATION OF THE BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT IN THE CPC’S NEWSPAPER GLOBAL TIMES
The study of political discourse in Chinese mass media allows us to trace how ideas important for the ruling political elite are conveyed through news reports. The purpose of our study is to contribute to the existing research and to reveal how discursive practices in the news about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in the United States of America serve the goals of the Chinese political elites. From a theoretical point of view, the USA stands in as the Other, the discussion of which is important for China’s self-identification. The empirical part of the study includes a frame-analysis of 74 Chinese-language articles collected from the electronic version of Global Times, which mention the BLM movement between May and October 2020. Together and often instead of racism, discrimination and failed social policies, BLM news reports focus on human rights violations, a weakening of the vertical of power, and government dysfunction in the United States. Thus, the news about the Other in Chinese mass media is used to respond to criticism coming from the authorities and to highlight the shortcomings of the American political model and the corresponding strengths of the Chinese one.