A Critical Study of “Representing Other”: The Case of Media SARS Coverage on Vietnam and China

Critical school thinking line in the “concept of representing the other” incurs certain degree of reductionism and essentialism. In some cases, it can be misused and even be viewed as an “apologist” proposition for those who exercise suppressive power to create false positive image of their home countries, such as the fallacy of the western media demonising China. By comparing the frames, themes and tones used to communicate China and Vietnam’s image by the mainstream western-led English press in five countries (i.e., U.S., U.K., Canada, Singapore, Australia) during the SARS crisis in 2003, this study re-examines one of the essential aspects of global journalistic dilemma in covering and depicting the “other.” Through a combination of empirical data and contextual analysis, the study attempts to show how and why the ‘other’ receives international media treatment differently. Both internal forces and external factors, interplaying and often competing, have constituted the dynamic process of national images construction as a whole. These are important issues that are constantly unnoticed and untouched by contemporary established cultural studies.