Discrepancies in the newsworthiness of maritime security in Chinese and US media outlets: a corpus-based discursive news values analysis

This article analyzes and compares the news values constructed in English news reporting from Chinese and US mainstream media concerning maritime security. Using corpus linguistic methods and the discursive news values analysis (DNVA) framework, the study examines keywords, naming strategies, and images to reveal how events are packaged differently in the two societies. Results show Chinese media emphasizes Positivity and Proximity, focusing on common international interests and cooperation, while US media emphasizes Negativity and Eliteness, highlighting national interests and perceived threats. These differences reflect contrasting societal constructions of maritime security: as international joint security with an optimistic perspective in China, and as exclusive national security with a pessimistic perspective in the US.

Cheng Chen, Renping Liu