Chinese technologies have become increasingly contested objects in global public and policy discourse. Technologies associated with Chinese firms—such as Huawei’s 5G infrastructure, TikTok’s platform services, and Chinese AI systems—are no longer discussed merely as commercial products or technical innovations, but also as matters of security, sovereignty, regulation, and geopolitical competition. This presentation introduces an ongoing comparative study of how Chinese technologies are constructed in European and Chinese media coverage from 2016 to 2025. The study conceptualizes media construction as a multidimensional process involving framing, actor, and contextualization. By comparing European and Chinese media coverages over the time period, the study aims to understand how time and different institutional contexts shape the mediated meaning of the same technological object.

About the speaker: 

Hanqin Li is a PhD candidate at the School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University, and a visiting researcher at ASCoR. Her research focuses on political communication and risk communication, with a particular focus on how different risks are discursively constructed and securitized in the global media landscape.