Stereotyping in representing the “Chinese Dream” in news reports by CNN and BBC

Abstract This paper examines how the slogan of the “Chinese Dream” is represented in two western news reports on the CNN and the BBC websites. They are among the first news reports which introduce the “Chinese Dream” into the US and the UK, respectively. The analysis of both the verbal news texts and the visuals shows that the reporters use different discursive strategies to manipulate the ideological orientation of the social actors and social actions in discourse. Through the analysis, this study shows how different discursive resources conceptualized in Theo van Leeuwen’s work, Discourse and practice: New tools for critical discourse analysis , are used to stereotype “the other’s” politics and political discourse in BBC and CNN’s news texts, and perpetuate a Eurocentric view on perceiving contemporary Chinese political discourse.