The discursive technique of making the other: A study on the U.S. news media reports of COVID-19 in China

Abstract

Adopting a mixed methodology of multimodal critical discourse analysis and archaeology of knowledge, this study deconstructs the way the U.S. mainstream newspapers (re)produce Sinophobic and anti-Chinese discourses via texts and images, and how such discourses, understood as history of the present (Foucault, 2002), reiterate ideas such as the “Yellow Peril.” The analysis shows that U.S. media disseminate and perpetuate Western prejudice against China and stereotypes of Chinese people as the other mainly through three textual devices: (1) repetition, which manufactures fear towards China and Chinese people by activating negative cultural associations with the colors red and yellow; (2) naming, which attributes a property of “Chinese nationality” to COVID-19, via possessive-case forms; and (3) exclusion, which distorts China’s lockdown measures by selectively amplifying some individuals’ experiences. Overall, China’s alterity is constructed in opposition to the U.S. as self. Deconstructing the politico-anthropological and conceptual borders constructed by such textual devices contributes to reducing Western bias against China and Chinese.