A Corpus-Based Study of Representation of obesity in China Daily and the Associated Press: Critical Discourse Analysis Approach

Abstract

Obesity is a persistently newsworthy topic for the press and in recent years levels of coverage have increased. In this study, we examine the ways in which obesity has been framed by the press over a five-year period (2017-2021), focusing both on similar and different areas of the two media. The study takes a corpus-based approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), examining obesity-related discourses in two corpora: one containing articles about obesity from China Daily and the other from the Associated Press. Discourses are identified through word frequency, concordance lines and keywords analysis - techniques in corpus linguistics which highlights words that occur with a statistically marked frequency in one corpus compared to another. The analysis found that the word risk and negative adjectives were frequently used in the media on both sides to describe obesity to increase awareness and awareness of obesity. But there are still differences China Daily is more concerned with obesity in teens, women and the elderly, and has more coverage than the Associated Press. Compared with the Associated Press, China Daily pays more attention to the responsibility of the state and society when providing solutions to obesity, but the Associated Press mainly deals with legislation. The media in both countries need to pay more attention to the role of individuals in tackling obesity, and the Associated Press should pay more attention to health equity and pay more attention to vulnerable groups in future reports.