China: Diversion, ingratiation and victimisation

This chapter examines governmental communication in China during COVID-19 by analysing the People’s Daily and Global Times, two government mouthpieces in China. Building upon the crisis management and communication model, this chapter identifies three strategies - diversion, ingratiating and victimisation - utilised by the Chinese central authority during the pandemic. The chapter also evaluates the quality of that communication based on principles of Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC). Results show that during the COVID-19 outbreak, the Chinese Government had a mixture of success and failure when communicating to the public. Moreover, by looking into news reports from CAIXIN, a relatively independent news outlet, and combining them with social media posts on Weibo, the chapter examines how the public responded to government actions and messages during the pandemic.