Framing responsibility of the Covid-19 pandemic by selected Chinese and American media

Abstract

News frames indirectly shape the attribution of responsibility for public health issues. The media overuse episodic frames to individualise responsibility for health crises, while overusing thematic frames to highlight societal responsibility. Both are the imbalances in responsibility attribution for health crises. Imbalanced attribution of responsibility for health issues discourages people from understanding and adopting individual health behaviours or conceals societal responsibility in health crises, thus resulting in more risks to society and worsening health crises, as recently exemplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Differences in the media systems, political systems, and cultures of China and the United States construct and shape different framing of responsibility for COVID-19 issues in Chinese and American media. What remains unknown is the framing strategies adopted by Chinese and American media to frame responsibility for COVID-19. This study mainly used quantitative content analysis of COVID-19 coverage in People’s Daily (PD, n = 550) and The New York Times (NYT, n = 586) to examine the Chinese and American media’s framing responsibility for COVID-19. Framing theory and theories of comparative media research guided the study. The study found that PD predominantly adopted governance, cooperation, and reassurance frames to propagate the Chinese government’s responsibility and positive role, whereas NYT preferred governance and conflict frames to highlight the Trump administration’s responsibility during the COVID-19 crisis. Both of them constructed imbalanced attributions of responsibility for COVID-19. PD essentially acted as a propaganda machine to safeguard official political interests during the pandemic, which depends on the ruling party-controlled media system and collectivist cultures. Based on the liberal media system, NYT essentially acted as a watchdog to monitor the government and to cater to audience needs. This study expands the analytical dimensions of framing responsibility and confirms that media framing responsibility is inseparable from their media systems, political systems, and cultures. The framing responsibility mechanisms of a propaganda machine and a watchdog are summarised in this study, thereby advancing the knowledge corpus of framing theory. This study also suggests that news organisations should consider adopting a balanced episodic and thematic framing strategy to frame individual and societal responsibility in potential health crises.