In 2018 the app TikTok was bought by the Chinese technology company ByteDance. Two years later the app had over 800 million users across the world, with over 100 million of them living in America. In 2020 a conflict emerged between America and China when the U.S. government started accusing the app of collecting American user data and sharing it with the Chinese Communist Party. The purpose of our study is to examine how the U.S. and China are framed in articles about TikTok in the American newspaper The New York Times and the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. In our study we examine a total of 20 articles between the 1 August 2020 and the 1 October 2020. We chose 10 news- or debate articles from each newspaper to analyse. Our study is implemented through a qualitative case study and a thematic analysis. The case in our study is the debate around TikTok, which is a small part of the larger conflict that has been going on between the U.S. and China for several years. Our study is based on two theories. The first theory we used in our study is the framing theory and the second theory is the othering theory which is derived from the post colonial theory. Through examining the articles in our study we draw the conclusion that the U.S. is described as the “Self” whilst China is often described as the “Other”. This is framed by showing how the U.S. and its userdata needed to be protected from China and the Chinese government. Throughout our analysis of the newspapers, China is framed as an enemy and a threat to the U.S. national security. In turn the U.S. is framed by being on top of the hierarchy between the countries and as though against China.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-101701 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Källebring, Hanna, Symoens, Olivia |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för medier och journalistik (MJ), Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för medier och journalistik (MJ) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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