‘Our Service’: Normalizing CCTV’s institutionalized practices through Chunyun discourse

Abstract

As the largest annual human migration on the planet, China’s Spring Festival travel rush (Chunyun) is a focal point for discussions about a wide range of sociopolitical topics, because it is a condensation of many fundamental relations in Chinese society. This research is based on a collection of news reports broadcast during the 40-day Chunyun period of 2012, 2013, and 2014 on the News Simulcast program of the China Central Television network. The Critical Discourse Analysis theories of ‘Ideological Square’ and ‘macrostructure’ are used as a framework within which to analyze these news reports and to identify the underlying motives which shape the linguistic features of this form of discourse. The main findings of this research are as follows: (1) Chunyun news reports aired on China Central Television’s News Simulcast program are shaped by China’s official ideology to become a unified story – ‘Our Service’ – about the many essential services provided by public servants and (2) the reason why China Central Television shapes Chunyun news reporting in this way is to normalize its institutionalized practices within the sociopolitical context of China.