Framing the Chinese Government during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Comparative Analysis of BBC and CNN's Digital Video News Coverage

Zhuang Jiang and Juliana Abdul Wahab

Studies in Media and Communication, 2026, vol. 14, issue 2, 135-149

Abstract: This study examines how BBC and CNN portrayed the Chinese government in COVID-19 digital video news. Using quantitative content analysis, 724 videos published between June 2019 and June 2020 (BBC = 189; CNN = 535) were coded for tone (positive/neutral/negative) and five generic news frames (responsibility, conflict, human interest, economic consequences, morality). Two trained coders double-coded 20% of the sample (Cohen's κ = 0.85). Results show that both outlets overwhelmingly relied on the responsibility frame (BBC- 91.5%; CNN- 90.4%). BBC used human-interest framing more frequently (41.1%) than CNN (6.5%), whereas CNN employed economic consequences framing more often (9.5%). Tone was predominantly neutral in both outlets (BBC- 69.84%; CNN- 73.46%), with moderate negative coverage and minimal positive portrayals. A chi-square test indicated no significant difference in tone distribution between BBC and CNN (χ²(2, N = 724) = 2.290, p = .318). The findings suggest convergent accountability-centered framing of China's pandemic response in Western digital video news.

Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://redfame.com/journal/index.php/smc/article/download/8157/7158 (application/pdf)
https://redfame.com/journal/index.php/smc/article/view/8157 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rfa:smcjnl:v:14:y:2026:i:2:p:135-149

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Studies in Media and Communication from Redfame publishing Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Redfame publishing ().