Strategic Public Health Narratives in the Coronavirus Pandemic. Propaganda and Counter-propaganda Cover Image

Narațiuni strategice de sănătate publică în pandemia de coronavirus. Propagandă și contra-propagandă
Strategic Public Health Narratives in the Coronavirus Pandemic. Propaganda and Counter-propaganda

Author(s): Lucian Dumitrescu
Subject(s): Security and defense, Politics and communication, Sociology of Politics
Published by: EDITURA INSTITUTULUI DE ȘTIINȚE POLITICE ȘI RELAȚII INTERNAȚIONALE ”Ion I. C. Brătianu”
Keywords: strategic narratives; securitization; COVID-19; the United Stated; China;

Summary/Abstract: The article works from the assumption that security is an intersubjective process, which means that every security threat has a socially constructed dimension. The article investigates the public health strategic narrative through which Beijing has built China’s medical exceptionalism during the COVID-19 pandemic. The texts displays both the inclusive and exclusive practices that has been used to that end. However, the emphasis is placed on those exclusive practices that have brought their contribution to both a soft and hard securitization of the US. For China’s medical exceptionalism has been used as a cover up for its political exceptionalism, the article examines how a strategic narrative built in the US delegitimizes the “Chinese model” of coping with the coronavirus pandemic. To that end, there have been used mostly exclusive practices, that is security representations that have brought their contribtion to a soft and hard securitization of China. The article demonstrates that the exclusive practices that Beijing has resorted to in order to promote a “Chinese model” are tantamount to the exclusive practices through which Washington D.C. has delegitimzed China’s medical exceptionalism. Thus, the article deals with the process of propaganda in the mirror.

  • Issue Year: XVII/2020
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 30-49
  • Page Count: 20
  • Language: Romanian