Framing as an Information Control Strategy in Times of Crisis

• Published in: Journal of East Asian studies Vol. 22; no. 2; pp. 255 - 279
• Main Authors: Xia, Shouzhi, Huang, Huang, Zhang, Dong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.07.2022; 동아시아연구원
• Subjects: Authoritarianism; Censorship; China; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Crises; Epidemics; Evaluation; Frame analysis; Government; Information; Information control; Legitimacy; Mass media effects; Mass media industry; Media coverage; News; News media; Pandemics; Political aspects; Propaganda; Public opinion; Sacrifices; Text analysis; Textual analysis; 지역학; China; information control; text analysis; framing; authoritarian regimes
• ISSN: 1598-2408; 2234-6643; 2234-6643
• DOI: 10.1017/jea.2022.5

How can authoritarian regimes effectively control information to maintain regime legitimacy in times of crisis? We argue that media framing constitutes a subtle and sophisticated information control strategy in authoritarian regimes and plays a critical role in steering public opinion and cultivating an image of competent government during a tremendous crisis. Using structural topic models (STM), we conduct a textual analysis of more than 4,600 news reports produced by seven Chinese media outlets during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that Chinese media, instructed by the propaganda authorities, used a heroism frame to feature frontline medics’ sacrifices when saving others in need and resorted to a contrast frame to highlight the poor performance of the United States in the fight against COVID-19. We also show that both state and commercial media outlets used these two frames, though the tone of commercial media coverage was generally more moderate than the state media version.