Comparative Analysis Of The Coronavirus Pandemic Impact On China's Image In The US And Russia Media Spaces

The development of new technologies created an environment in which information flow had reached unprecedented levels. The global COVID –19 pandemic is not an exception. The reaction of countries to the crisis was immediately covered both in media and social networks. Thus, people were able to compare the measures taken by their governments and assess their effectiveness. SARS-CoV-2 immediately revealed that some countries were not ready for the global outbreak. It crossed with the existing problems in international relations, and as a result, was used in the information war. The Sino-US relations were at the midpoint of the trade deal negotiations, while the overall level of relations escalated by the fact that China became a rising power, which increases global presence. Coupled with the continuation of the US -Russian escalation in contrast to the Russian turn to the East policy it caused different political reactions to the COVID–19. This work aims to analyze how media representation in Russia and the United States framed China’s international image during the first wave of COVID –19 outbreak in the period between January 2020 and May 2020.