COVID 19-The Foreign Virus: Media Bias, Ideology and Dominance in Chinese and American Newspaper Articles

Abstract

This study examined media bias, media ideologies and dominance in two newspaper articles on COVID 19 that were published by the American Washington Post newspaper and the Chinese People’s Daily newspaper. The study revealed that media bias is practiced through gatekeeping bias, coverage bias and statement bias. Ideology bias is practiced through the selection of topics to cover and the tone for reporting on these topics. Dominance is practiced through the foregrounding and backgrounding of information and ideas. This contrastive study also revealed that the topics that were foregrounded in American newspaper were backgrounded or filtered by the Chinese newspaper and the topics that were backgrounded by the American newspaper were foregrounded by the Chinese newspaper. This paper also revealed that foregrounding is not necessarily carried out explicitly; it can also be carried implicitly by foregrounding the opposite. This depends on readers’ interpretation and familiarity of events.