Comparative Media Framing and Agenda Setting: Analyzing Chinese and U.S. Coverage of the Bucha Incident in the Russia-Ukraine War

Abstract

Since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022, the mainstream international media have joined the war of public opinion and information, and the truth seems to be getting confused. Countries are forced to rethink the role of the media in international conflicts, which has been seriously underestimated in the past. Against the backdrop of the US-China competition, the Chinese and US media have not only diverged in their values and political concepts, but have also exchanged views on national interests when reporting on Russia and Ukraine. This paper selects the Bucha incident in the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022 as a research text, applies agenda-setting and framing theories to compare the differences in the intensity of coverage, characterization, diction, sources of information, audiences, and narrative techniques between the media of China and the U.S. in their coverage of the incident, as well as to try to explore its causes and effects. The analysis concludes that in the geopolitical context of US-China competition, there are significant differences in the media coverage of the same event between the two countries, and that the media in the two countries cover the event out of their own political needs, and that the differences in the coverage are fundamentally due to the differences in the two countries stances and policies towards the Russia-Ukraine conflict.