(Re)producing Nationalism: How China’s Global Times reproduces and reframes content from Indian media to stoke nationalism

This study examined the reports on the Weibo page of Global Times’s during the China India border conflict from May 5th to November 6th, 2020. Since the conflict broke out, the relationship between China and India has soured, though multiple rounds of various level talks continue to take place. To consolidate the support of the citizens, the Communist Party of China has relied on its media, especially such popular social media platforms as Weibo (Shen & Breslin 2010; Weatherley 2014). While there are various forms of nationalism in China, “popular nationalism” seems to have taken center stage during the border row which is evident from news coverage in the Chinese media (Zhao, 1998). This study examines how Global Times, a popular daily used Weibo posts to provoked Weibo news consumers’ anti-India sentiments and thus articulating a popular version of nationalism. Previous studies have shown news organizations have taken a clear stand to rally behind the government when faced with difficult situations especially those involving conflict with other countries (Zhao, 1998; Shen, 2004). Apart from promoting government propaganda and criticizing foreign media reports, they reframe the negative articles about China to have a positive valence (Zheng, 2019; Lee, 2003). While nationalism in China has attracted a lot of scholarly work, little attention has been paid to “popular nationalism” reinforced through the media. In particular, the reproduction of news content from foreign media needs a closer scrutiny to comprehend the (re)production of nationalism through news. This study analysed news content on the Weibo pages of the Global Times which were posted during the China-India border conflict in June 2020. A mixed methods content analysis analyzed more than 300 Global Times’ Weibo posts during the border conflict period and found that 60% of the reproduced articles by the Global Times were sourced from the Indian media. These articles used frames of nationalism and (re)presented India as an aggressor in their reporting. Meanwhile, to further facilitate nationalism, Global Times posted several articles about India which were not directly related to the border conflict but highlighted the stereotypes of India, for example the status of women as well as poverty related issues. The analysis shows that reproduced and reframed content from India elicited a high response from news consumers.