Building a global community of health for all: A positive discourse analysis of COVID-19 discourse

Abstract

‘A global community of health for all’ has become a dominant concept in China’s global health governance system. Although this concept has been investigated by several studies in different domains, little attention has been given to its discursive legitimation in China’s media communication from a linguistic perspective. To fill this gap, the present study employs positive discourse analysis to investigate how the aforementioned concept is legitimised via the predominant discourses associated with COVID-19 in state-run Chinese English-language newspapers. The findings show that the Chinese news media attempted to formulate the positive discourses, including cooperation as a win-win solution, people’s lives and well-being as the priority and science as the spirit, though the discourses may not resonate with some countries. The findings shed light on the use of language by the media in promoting official ideologies, projecting China’s national image and improving China’s international relations amid a global health crisis.

Media representations of China amid COVID-19: a corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis

“…This prosody has echoes China's value of ‘people first and lives first’, announced by China's president, Xi Jinping, at the 2021 Global Health Summit (Xi, 2021). Similarly, Chan and Yu (2023) indicate that the value of ‘people first and lives first’ has reflected a dominant concept of China's global health governance system – ‘building a global community of health for all’ amid COVID-19.…”

“…Yu and Tay (2022) also indicate that words in this semantic field are the most frequent in the remarks given by China's foreign ministry spokespersons. The cooperative spirit has echoed China's dominant diplomatic concept, ‘building a community with a shared future for mankind’, and its vision in global health governance, ‘building a global community of health for all’ (Chan and Yu, 2023; Yu, 2022a; Yu and Tay, 2022), which are emphasised by the frequent collocates BUILD and COMMUNITY in Examples 14, 15, and 18.…”

“…Regarding the ideological aspect, the media representations of China's national image amid COVID-19 have echoed China's dominant diplomatic concept, ‘building a community with a shared future for mankind’, and its vision in global health governance, ‘building a global community of health for all’, highlighting global solidarity and humanitarianism (Chan and Yu, 2023; Yu, 2022a; Yu and Tay, 2022). Despite their differences from the traditional model of nation-state governance that emphasises competition and a zero-sum mentality, China's success in putting the pandemic under control has proven these concepts to be useful.…”

“…Regarding researchers’ ideological agendas and specific sociopolitical concepts in this study, we were guided by China's dominant diplomatic concept, ‘building a community with a shared future for mankind’, and its vision in global health governance, ‘building a global community of health for all’ (Chan and Yu, 2023; Yu, 2022a; Yu and Tay, 2022).…”

Media representations of China’s inclusive education: A corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis

“…Official media, particularly state-controlled media, is seen as an effective tool for disseminating ideology and shaping overseas perceptions [ 8 , 9 ]. For instance, China utilises English media to communicate its contributions to disaster relief, medical aid, and peacekeeping during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 10 ]. By taking this approach, it presents itself as a responsible power and a valuable partner to the international community, demonstrating its willingness to make positive contributions to global stability and development [ 11 , 12 ].…”