Paternalism in China Daily ’s coverage of Chinese Muslims (2001–2015)

Zhou

et al. 2020

Preprint

Background Despite the overwhelming feeling of great happiness, joyful excitement and rituals that heralds the arrival of a child, for too many women (especially in developing countries), child bearing is associated with suffering, ill health and even death. The need to consolidate and support women to procreate in tranquillity has inspired international and domestic agencies to harness the resources at their disposal to protect the health of women especially during pregnancy, child birth and the post-partum period. Methods The study applied a systems dynamic model to selected data to establish the influence of the universal two-child policy in China on maternity insurance fund income. The study also established sensitivity analysis of the appropriate rate of contribution to keep the fund active. Results The study revealed that increases in utilisation rate as results of increase in number of births under the universal two-child policy increased the accumulated deficit of the maternity insurance fund income in the Ningxia-Hui Autonomous Region. At the current rate, the entire fund will be depleted by the end of 2021 unless the contribution rate is increased from 0.5% to 0.75%. Conclusions Maternal health is a “sentinel event” requiring an unprecedented global resource mobilisation to safeguard the future of humanity. Thus maternity insurance schemes in China require new methods of fund raising to keep a sustainable maternity insurance fund in the region. Study also reveals that population reform is not done in isolation but require changes in the fundamental social structures to ensure its sustainability.

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bolstering Maternity Insurance to Support Family Health of Ethnic-Minority Women under Universal Two-Child Policy: Empirical Evidence from China’s Ningxia-Hui Autonomous Region

Zhou

et al. 2020

Preprint

A topic modeling-assisted diachronic study of “One Country, Two Systems” represented in Anglo-American newspapers

Wang

2023

JLP

One Country, Two Systems (1C2S) is a framework proposed by China to achieve national unification of territories with different economic and socio-political systems. This study explores the discursive construction of 1C2S in two representative Anglo-American newspapers from January 1984 through March 2020 by taking a topic modeling-assisted critical discourse studies approach. The findings suggest that the foci of coverage change throughout the years, and the reports present an increasingly negative portrayal of 1C2S and growing distrust in its future through the use of a variety of discursive strategies such as predication, intensification, and normalization. In addition to practical concerns of the U.S. and the U.K., these findings are interpreted with regard to the underlying ideological conflicts between socialist China and the two capitalist Western countries. This study also shows the advantage of integrating the topic-modelling approach into discourse studies, especially in terms of diachronic analysis.

Discourse & Communication

Decoding paradoxical identities: The discourse construction of left-behind children in news reports

Liang,

Wang,

Zhang

2024

This paper presents an empirical corpus-based study on the identity of left-behind children in China, employing the discourse-historical approach (DHA) framework. It is the first study to combine Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling and reported speech analysis to examine how China Daily constructs the identity of left-behind children and explore the cultural and rhetorical factors influencing this identity construction. By integrating computational techniques and qualitative analysis methods, this study provides a comprehensive understanding of the intricate nature of identity construction for left-behind children. This interdisciplinary approach strengthens the theoretical foundations of media analysis and offers fresh insights into the dynamics of media discourse. The findings reveal that China Daily portrays left-behind children in a multifaceted and diverse manner, encompassing both positive and negative aspects, while placing emphasis on their vulnerability and passivity. Furthermore, the media employs communication techniques such as identification by sympathy, antithesis, and inaccuracy to establish emotional resonance and foster audience identification, ultimately influencing the audience’s perspectives on these children.