China's "discourse power" strategy: taking China's Twitter publicity as a case

To strengthen china's external publicity, Xi Jinping has mobilized massive resources to secure China's interests and reinforce its reputation both at home and abroad. This dissertation inquiries into why and how China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the outbreak of COVID-19 pande...

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Main Author: Zheng, Jiayu
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/68738/
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author Zheng, Jiayu
author_facet Zheng, Jiayu
author_sort Zheng, Jiayu
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description To strengthen china's external publicity, Xi Jinping has mobilized massive resources to secure China's interests and reinforce its reputation both at home and abroad. This dissertation inquiries into why and how China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic era has been actively engaged in conducting online publicity by means of disseminating good images of China on Twitter. The analysis part illuminates the features of linguistic tendency in publicizing, narrative style and Xi's idea of "discourse power" strategy for "telling China's stories well (jianghao zhongguo gushi, 讲好中国故事)". In response to the need to enhance China’s discourse power, various propaganda approaches have been adopted and the impacts of China have been increased on some levels. Two spokespersons of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Hua Chunying and Zhao Lijian) as well as two Chinese state-owned mainstream media (CGTN and China Daily) play major roles in the construction of Twitter publicity fronts which serves China's diplomatic purposes. Three systemic analysis methods, which are interpersonal systemic analysis, modality systemic analysis and evidentiality analysis, are adopted to deconstruct and reclassify the text content of Hua and Zhao’s Tweets, and to observe and deduce the characteristics of "discourse power" strategy. Though a number of exploratory approaches to influencing foreign targeted audiences have been taken, China failed to achieve the desired effects; the COVID-19 publicity has further exacerbated the mutual political misunderstanding between China and the United States.
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spelling nottingham-687382022-07-28T04:40:10Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/68738/ China's "discourse power" strategy: taking China's Twitter publicity as a case Zheng, Jiayu To strengthen china's external publicity, Xi Jinping has mobilized massive resources to secure China's interests and reinforce its reputation both at home and abroad. This dissertation inquiries into why and how China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic era has been actively engaged in conducting online publicity by means of disseminating good images of China on Twitter. The analysis part illuminates the features of linguistic tendency in publicizing, narrative style and Xi's idea of "discourse power" strategy for "telling China's stories well (jianghao zhongguo gushi, 讲好中国故事)". In response to the need to enhance China’s discourse power, various propaganda approaches have been adopted and the impacts of China have been increased on some levels. Two spokespersons of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Hua Chunying and Zhao Lijian) as well as two Chinese state-owned mainstream media (CGTN and China Daily) play major roles in the construction of Twitter publicity fronts which serves China's diplomatic purposes. Three systemic analysis methods, which are interpersonal systemic analysis, modality systemic analysis and evidentiality analysis, are adopted to deconstruct and reclassify the text content of Hua and Zhao’s Tweets, and to observe and deduce the characteristics of "discourse power" strategy. Though a number of exploratory approaches to influencing foreign targeted audiences have been taken, China failed to achieve the desired effects; the COVID-19 publicity has further exacerbated the mutual political misunderstanding between China and the United States. 2022-07-28 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en cc_by https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/68738/1/Jiayu%20Zheng_20202885_Mres%20Politics%20and%20international%20relations.pdf Zheng, Jiayu (2022) China's "discourse power" strategy: taking China's Twitter publicity as a case. MRes thesis, University of Nottingham. Social media Influence; Social networks; China Public relations; Discourse analysis
spellingShingle Social media
Influence; Social networks; China
Public relations; Discourse analysis
Zheng, Jiayu
China's "discourse power" strategy: taking China's Twitter publicity as a case
title China's "discourse power" strategy: taking China's Twitter publicity as a case
title_full China's "discourse power" strategy: taking China's Twitter publicity as a case
title_fullStr China's "discourse power" strategy: taking China's Twitter publicity as a case
title_full_unstemmed China's "discourse power" strategy: taking China's Twitter publicity as a case
title_short China's "discourse power" strategy: taking China's Twitter publicity as a case
title_sort china's "discourse power" strategy: taking china's twitter publicity as a case
topic Social media
Influence; Social networks; China
Public relations; Discourse analysis
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/68738/