A Social Semiotic Analysis of Covid-19 Public Service Advertisements in China

Abstract

Covid-PSA (Covid Public Service Advertisement) is considered as a crucial medium for crisis communication between governments and the public. This study aims to contribute to communication and media studies by introducing a social semiotic analysis of the emotions expressed in Chinese Covid-PSAs. Our analysis of 21 PSAs shows that they use both the language and visual images to represent Judgement for educating people to observe the social sanctions and esteems, Appreciation for expressing Chinese attitude and Chinese identity, affect for confidence building and emotional touch. The attitude pattern also manifests employment of different communicative strategies.