Hero and Villain on a Foreign Land: A Textual Analysis on U.S. Newspaper Coverage of China’s Uighur Unrest

Abstract

Abstract. This study aims at understanding U.S. media coverage of China's relationship with its mostly Muslim minority group Uighur during the period of several deadly attacks conducted by members from Uighur ethnic group. The study looks into 52 news stories and 3 opinion pieces in the New York Times and the Washington Post in a six-month period. Drawn from the theories of news framing and news narratives, the analysis found that the news discourse about China's Uighur unrest presented a clear-cut vision of a repressive government and a prisoned intellectual Ilham Tohti. This image conjures two major mythical elements: the repressive villain and the persecuted hero. By attributing the ultimate blame unanimously to government control and policy, the articles employed a resentment frame to portray China's ethnic relationships and downplayed the severity of actual attacks.