The Covid-19 pandemic significantly impacted news media, disseminating public health information and combating misinformation. However, media representations also contributed to the construction of 'othering,' frequently assigning blame to out-groups. Previous research has noted differences in how national and international events are portrayed, particularly the contrast between positive self-representation and negative other-representation. This study addresses the gap in research by comparing the representation of the Covid-19 pandemic in domestic and international news by China Daily (CD) and The New York Times (NYT), two major newspapers with distinct cultural and political backgrounds. The study aims to analyze what news values are constructed in these reports and how the pandemic is highlighted or downplayed, employing a three-pronged corpus linguistic approach combining keywords, collocations, and concordances.

Existing literature reveals that news coverage is influenced by sociocultural and political factors, leading to different emphases in representing similar events. Studies have shown that Chinese media often highlight positive aspects while acknowledging the pandemic's impact, emphasizing China's role in international cooperation while maintaining a nationalist stance. Conversely, Western media, especially US media, have been characterized by portraying the virus as a foreign threat, highlighting the economic impacts, politicizing the pandemic, and focusing on affected individuals. Comparative studies highlight the different emphases: Chinese media focus on positive domestic responses, while American media emphasize political conflicts. The discourse strategy of positive self-representation and negative other-representation has been noted in Covid-19 reporting across different countries, but comparative research on media from different cultural and political backgrounds remains limited. This study addresses this gap using a corpus linguistic framework.

The study employed a corpus of 2572 news reports (1360 from CD and 1212 from NYT) published between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2021, focusing on headlines and leads. Data collection used a constructed week sampling method, randomly selecting one day per week over a 15-week period to account for potential cyclical variations in news content. Reports were categorized into two subcorpora: those focusing on the pandemic in the newspaper's home country and those reporting on the pandemic in other countries. The corpus linguistic software Wmatrix was used for analysis, utilizing keyword analysis (log-likelihood statistic for significance), collocation analysis (also using the log-likelihood statistic), and concordance analysis. The top 100 keywords from each subcorpus were retained for qualitative analysis, focusing on identifying news values (Consonance, Eliteness, Impact, Negativity, Personalization, Positivity, Proximity, Superlativeness, Timeliness, Unexpectedness) based on contextual usage. American readers were considered the target audience for NYT and Chinese readers proficient in English for CD. Keywords were grouped into news value categories based on contextual verification and concordance lines; those without clear links to a news value or without showing differences between subcorpora were excluded. The study ultimately retained 118 keywords from the CD corpus and 111 from the NYT corpus. Collocation analysis helped identify frequently co-occurring words to further refine the analysis of news values.

The analysis revealed differences and similarities in the news values emphasized by CD and NYT in both domestic and international coverage. Both newspapers highlighted Proximity, Eliteness, Personalization, Negativity, and Impact in domestic news, indicating a tendency to represent the pandemic as proximate, negative, impactful, involving elites, and affecting ordinary citizens. However, both also portrayed the domestic pandemic as less negative and impactful than the international one. In terms of Eliteness, CD emphasized government institutions more than politicians in domestic coverage, while NYT’s US coverage focused on political figures (reflecting the politicization of Covid-19 news in US media). CD's domestic coverage significantly highlighted Positivity, often through war metaphors emphasizing efforts to control the pandemic and boost morale. This contrasts with NYT's domestic news, which did not emphasize Positivity. CD's international news highlighted Superlativeness (emphasizing severity through intensifying language), a feature less prominent in NYT’s reporting. Both newspapers emphasized Eliteness, Negativity, and Impact in international news, depicting the pandemic as negatively impacting society and involving elites; however, neither emphasized Positivity or Personalization. Specifically, CD's international coverage revealed a stronger tendency toward negative other-representation than NYT's.

The findings demonstrate convergence and divergence in how US and Chinese media covered Covid-19, highlighting the influence of media systems, culture, and political context. Both CD and NYT portrayed the pandemic in their respective countries as less negative than in other countries, aligning with previous research on crisis coverage. However, differences emerged in Positivity and Superlativeness, with CD presenting a more positive self-image and a more negative portrayal of other countries. The study also reveals that while both CD and NYT emphasized Eliteness in international news, their focus differed (CD on government institutions, NYT on political figures). The consistent use of war metaphors in CD's coverage of the pandemic in China points towards the Chinese government's use of framing to present a positive image of the domestic response and simultaneously downplay the seriousness of the domestic situation. The high level of politicization in NYT's coverage, particularly focusing on Trump's actions and statements, again highlights the role of political factors in shaping news narratives.

This study offers valuable insights into media representations of Covid-19, highlighting both convergence and divergence between US and Chinese media. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the corpus linguistic approach in analyzing news values, enabling efficient analysis of large datasets. Future research should expand the analysis to include full-text analysis, a wider range of newspapers, and additional corpus techniques to further validate the findings and explore the nuances of Covid-19 media coverage across different cultural and political contexts.

The study has some limitations. First, the analysis focused on headlines and leads, potentially missing news values present in the full text of the articles. Second, the analysis is limited to two newspapers and three corpus techniques, hindering generalizability. Future research should address these limitations by incorporating full-text analysis, a broader range of newspapers, and more sophisticated corpus techniques.