The China-South Asia Center for Socio-Cultural Studies under Political Science and Sociology faculty of North South University organized a webinar on Thursday to disseminate a research findings about Social Media Representation of China with regard to COVID-19 in Bangladesh.
The webinar was chaired by Professor Tawfique M Haque, Director, SIPG and Chair, PSS, NSU, and was moderated by Dr. Bulbul Siddiqi, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science and Sociology (PSS) and Director, Confucius Institute, North South University.
The impact of COVID-19 was not limited within China’s health system and economy only; it affected the image of the Chinese culinary and her culture. It has created more Sinophobia than Germophobia across the world.
The findings said, “Social media mediated news, misinformation, disinformation, rumors, viral content related to China and COVID-19 spread every nook and cranny of the world, including Bangladesh.”
Dr. Harisur Rahman, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science and Sociology and Coordinator of CSCSS, presented his findings based on a research titled “Sinophobia or Germophobia? Social Media Representation of China with regard to COVID-19 in Bangladesh.”
The research used Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyze Bangladeshi social media content related to China and COVID-19 that surfaced on Facebook and YouTube between January and June 2020. This paper’s interesting findings include – COVID-19 accelerating forms of Sinophobia, Xenophobia, stigmatization, isolation, prejudice, and racism among social media users.
The presenter also talked about how media mediated texts, images, audio, video are copied and pasted from various unverified sources and framed to persuade the audience. He also claimed that most of the anti-China rhetoric on social media was full of misinformation, manipulation, and rumors.
The discussants were – Professor Robert Wallace Vaagan, Department of Journalism and Media Studies of Oslo Metropolitan University, and Dr. Mark William Busse, Senior Lecturer of the Department of Anthropology, the University of Auckland. They explained how this social media research could be a very new area of study across the globe. Dr. Mark reminded the participants how social media often creates images of the ‘other’, how pandemics are related to social things, including inequality and colonialism.
