The Shaping and Emotional Analysis of China’s Image by the Reports of German Mainstream Media under the COVID-19 Epidemic —Take Der Spiegel for Example
Most of the research on China’s image has focused on the reports of British and American
countries before, and less attention has been paid to the image constructed by non-English media.
At such a special juncture as the COVID-19 epidemic, it is of immense reference value for China’s
international communication to discuss the emotional attitude of mainstream media’s reports related
China and the national image reflected by Germany, which is the leader of the EU. This paper mainly
adopts the content-analysis and case-analysis method combining quantitative and qualitative analysis,
taking the reports related China of the German Der Spiegel from 2020 to 2021 as the research object
from the perspective of synchronic and diachronic. The study finds that in the early stage of the
epidemic, Der Spiegel has an absolute advantage in the amount of reports related China, and some
titles included words like “Chinese virus”. Based on the analysis of specific issues, Der Spiegel is awfully
concerned about the development of economic activities between the world’s largest economy, United
States and China. Additionally, it mostly shows a neutral attitude of not standing in line while dealing
with the Hong Kong issue. From the perspective of frame structure and word characteristics, Germany
also feels that China’s power can no longer be ignored; whereas, it also implies the meaning of China’s
threat in a bid to awaken the crisis consciousness of Germans. Therefore, it will be conducive to better
promote and improve the current situation of international communication of China’s image if applying
emotional experiential stories full of human warmth in the form of “small narratives” based on small
points.