{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,17]],"date-time":"2026-09-17T15:46:36Z","timestamp":1789659996222,"version":"4.0.1"},"reference-count":47,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"6","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,18]],"date-time":"2025-06-18T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1750204800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Tianjin Education Commission Research Project","award":["2024SK022"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2024SK022"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS One"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Despite the growing body of research on media representations of China during the COVID-19 outbreak, limited scholarly attention has been devoted to Western news coverage of specific events involving China. Based on a self-built corpus of reports from English-speaking news sources on \u201cChina\u2019s Humannitarian Aid to Europe (2019-2024)\u201d, this study aims to contribute to the scholarship by examining how Western news media represents China\u2019s humanitarian aid to Europe, using quantitative and qualitative methods. The study employs corpus-based Critical Metaphor Analysis to analyze how China is linguistically represented through discursive strategies. Guided by the conceptual metaphor THE NATION AS PERSON, the analysis reveals a series of secondary metaphors\u2014including CHINA AS PERSON, EUROPE AS PERSON, and AMERICA AS PERSON. In particular, CHINA AS PERSON is associated with multifaceted images such as \u201ca politician,\u201d \u201can upstart,\u201d \u201ca vendor,\u201d \u201can aggressor,\u201d and \u201ca dictator,\u201d which collectively serve to undermine China\u2019s efforts and reframe humanitarian aid as a diplomatic maneuver. This highlights the effectiveness of corpus-assisted CMA in in analyzing media representations of national images amid a global health crisis.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0326214","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,18]],"date-time":"2025-06-18T17:37:52Z","timestamp":1750268272000},"page":"e0326214","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["On China\u2019s image constructed from western news coverage of China\u2019s humanitarian aid"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"20","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0005-0224-1910","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Lei","family":"Sun","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,18]]},"reference":[{"key":"pone.0326214.ref001","author":"World Health Organization 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