Frames, Discursive Practices, and Bilateral Relations: The Gui Minhai Case in Chinese and Swedish Media

Abstract: As one of the most important sites in which and through which discourse is articulated and disseminated, newspapers play particularly extensive roles in furthering understandings of human rights cases involving citizens of dual nationality and foreign policy. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and the practice of journalistic framing, this study examined the effects of intertextuality on the depiction of the Gui Minhai case in Swedish and Chinese daily news. It did so by comparing how four daily newspapers employed specific discursive strategies in their depiction of the case, and how larger political frameworks, in which media operates, explain these strategies and in particular the impact of foreign policy institutions. The Sweden-China bilateral relationship and human rights discourse in the countries of origin of the newspapers were important factors in explaining the selective nature of the reporting. The frequency of political journalistic frames was about the same in all newspapers, and the comparative analysis of government statements show that they echoed elite consensus. The analysis about the intertextual properties in the discourses of conflicts between Sweden and China over Gui Minhai show the meanings about human rights, foreign policy and morality, especially those about Sweden, are related to the particular events and the interactions between rhetoric, discourse and voices circulating in the texts. For instance, Sweden is constructed as an actor with different, even conflicting, identities in both newspaper discourses.