The unequal others: mediation of distant COVID-19 suffering in Chinese television news

Abstract

This study explores how the Chinese media have legitimated the Chinese government’s anti-COVID policy at home by constructing the spectatorship of foreign countries’ suffering during the pandemic. Using the Oriental News of Shanghai Media Group (SMG), a leader in Chinese provincial media, as a case study, the present study reveals that the core countries within the world system have been reported on more often than the semi-peripheral and peripheral countries. News about core countries also precedes news about non-core countries during the parts of broadcasts that concern the global COVID-19 pandemic. China’s specific geopolitical and national political contexts have significantly influenced the mediation of COVID-19 suffering in various countries. While the US is represented as experiencing multiple forms of “chaos” during the pandemic, African countries are represented as “allied others” or “weak others.” News about India, a country with national conditions similar to those of China, reminds Chinese spectators that the Chinese government’s strict controls are correct and effective. The mediation of other countries’ sufferings has produced various degrees of emotional involvement on the part of the Chinese public.