3.1. The Language of Early COVID-19 Banners
Banners are, in the first instance, created by authorities, who try in this way to influence the behavior of residents. As indicated in the Methods section, we used the criteria of style, presence of dialect words, narrative perspective and word frequency to identify different banner styles. Our analysis allows a distinction of four types of banners, ‘official’, ‘gentle’, ‘humorous’ and ‘confrontational’, which we will introduce below in that order.
3.1.1. Official
‘Official banners’ are identified as the standard form through which the Chinese government addresses the population. These banners take the form of an ‘instruction’, a ‘directive’ as to how to behave or what to do. An example will help to clarify this. Example 1 below shows the rhetorical pattern of a series of “four-character expressions”, a common formal style, with a large historical background, that relies on shared common ground. In this instance it refers to “confidence (in the government)”, “solidarity (among the people)”, (reliance on) “science” and “policy”.
- (1)
Jiāndìng xìnxīn, tóngzhōu gòngjì, kēxué fángzhì, jīngzhǔn shīcè
[strengthen confidence; same-boat mutual-aid; science control; precise policy]
“Confidence, solidarity, scientific control, precision strategy” (People.cn, 5 February 2020)
As the example shows, each phrase consists of four characters, which group together as two words as in Jiāndìng xìnxīn, ‘[strengthen-confidence], that is, we need to strengthen our confidence (in the government and in a cure). The phrase tóngzhōu gòngjì, ‘[same-boat mutual-aid] means we need to work together since we are in the same boat’. Kēxué fángzhì, ‘[science control] indicates that science will help us to prevent the disease and find a cure’, and jīngzhǔn shīcè, ‘[precise policy] means that our policy is accurate and precise’. As can be understood from this example, this is not an everyday way of speaking and is immediately recognized as an expression based on writing in Chinese characters. Instructions can of course be expressed in normal everyday language as is illustrated by Example 2 which addresses the need for help by medical personnel in the virus-stricken province of Hubei.
- (2)
Jiānshǒu chūxīn dān shǐmìng, yǒng fù Húběi kàng yìqíng
[hold-fast first-heart take mission, brave go Hubei fight epidemic]
“Stick to your original aspiration and undertake the mission. Bravely go to Hubei to fight
the virus.” (Weibo, 9 February 2020)
The first part of this instruction Jiānshǒu chūxīn dān shǐmìng, [hold-fast first-heart take mission] is also an encouragement, which can be translated as given in the example “Stick to your original aspiration and undertake the mission”. In this particular context it refers to medical personnel of other provinces who are encouraged by appealing to their character as ‘brave’ and ‘fighters’-yǒng fù Húběi kàng yìqíng ‘[brave go Hubei fight epidemic]-to come to Hubei (Wuhan) to help with the fight against this virus’. This banner is an appeal to steadfastness and courage as in a battle, a way of presenting the situation as in need of help by these members of the population.
The ‘official’ banner type, illustrated by these two examples, represented the smallest number of cases (
n = 63) in our sample, accounting for not more than seventeen percent or one-in-six of the collected banners (
Table 2). Words with a frequency of
n = 5 or higher in these 63 ‘official’ banners occurred 100 times in total. Excluding the high frequency words reported in
Table 2 such as ‘epidemic’
yìqíng, ‘quarantine’
gélí, ‘mask’
kǒuzhào, and ‘virus’
bìngdú with 34 occurrences, the remaining group of 66 words are given in
Table 4.
Remarkable in this list is the relatively frequent use of fángkòng ‘prevention and control’ as in qiánghuà liánfáng liánkòng ‘strengthen joint prevention and control’. The term reflects the need of the government to stress its policy measures directed at ‘prevention’ and its goal of controlling the disease in order to ‘win the battle’ dǎyíng. ‘Prevention’ is, apart from ‘strong; strengthen’ qiáng, qiánghuà illustrated in the example just given, also connected to ‘early’ zǎo, ‘less’ shǎo and ‘diligent’ qín. We will give examples of each of these modifiers below, since they nicely make clear the essence of government intent as expressed in these banners.
For ‘early’ zǎo we found expressions such as ‘early detect that you are ill’ zǎo fāxiàn, ‘early report to the authorities’ zǎo bàogào, ‘quarantine yourself early’ zǎo gélí, ‘get treatment early’ zǎo zhìliáo and ‘see a doctor early’ zǎo jiùyī. ‘Less; limit; reduce’ shǎo occurred in expressions such as ‘go out less’ shǎo chūmén, ‘limit coming together with other people’ shǎo jùjí, it is also used in resultative verbs as in ‘reduce contact and infection’ jiǎnshǎo jiēchù chuánrǎn shǎo. ‘Diligent’ qín was used in ‘preventive’ expressions such as ‘diligently wash your hands’ qín xǐshǒu, ‘diligently disinfect’ qín xiāodú and ‘diligently ventilate’ qín tōngfēng. ‘Strong; strengthen’ qiáng, which we already referred to above, we also encountered in expressions such as ‘strengthen protection’ qiáng fánghù and ‘enhance physical fitness’ zēngqiáng tǐzhì.
In regards to negative terms,
chuányáo ‘spreading rumors’ is used in opposition to ‘science’
kēxué when a banner says ‘rely on science’
xìn kēxué and ‘don’t spread rumors’
bù chuányáo. As can be expected and as these examples show, official banners are guiding the population to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Rhetorically, the expressions are serious and authoritative, with carefully chosen words and a commanding tone. They represent, as reported by Han Chengpeng [
5], a long-standing government banner style with standardized, careful and formal language.
3.1.2. Gentle
The ‘gentle’ banners, 75 out of the sample of 367, prompt actions in line with the early COVID-19 policies, intended to persuade the public to follow. In that sense, they are not different from the ‘official’ banners. The difference is that the warning tone is ‘gentle’ by appealing to family values and patriotic sensations as a strategy to catch the attention of the banner readers. As in the previous section, we will first give two examples:
- (3)
Wàichū huílái yào dēngjì, fùlǎo xiāngqīn gǎnxiè nǐ
[out-go back-come must register, elder folks thank you]
“Please announce your presence when you go back to your hometown from other places. Older folks there will be grateful to you for that.” (Weibo, 10 February 2020)
In this example the consequences of the ‘instruction’, ‘register’ if coming back from other places, is followed by gratefulness of a socially respected group ‘older folks’, this way making the message more personal and more humane. The personal sphere is also invoked in Example 4. Where a relation is made between the personal situation and personal behavior, expressed in negative terms as ‘not visiting family members and friends’ and the situation of the country as a whole. If you don’t do the first, you will help the nation:
- (4)
Bù zǒu qīn, bù fǎng yǒu, bù gěi guójiā tiān máfan
[not go relatives, not visit friends, not give country add trouble]
“Don’t visit your relatives and your friends. Don’t make trouble for the country.” (Toutiao, 1 February 2020)
Word frequency data show that, in these ‘gentle’ banners, there were 126 instances of words with a frequency higher than 5. Of these, four words were part of the top frequency words reported in
Table 2, ‘mask’
kǒuzhào,
‘at home
’ zàijiā, ‘epidemic’
yìqíng, and ‘virus’
bìngdú in that order with a total of 37 occurrences, which means that, for the ‘gentle’ banners, we can study the nature of 13 frequency words with a total of 89 occurrences. They are listed in
Table 5. The first impression, we get from these words is that they are very ‘homely’
jiālǐ, expressing ‘coming back’
huílái and ‘going out’
chūmén, ‘getting together’
jùhuì ‘and expressing a relationship with ‘health’
jiànkāng. In the context of the COVID-19 epidemic, the movement words, as can be understood, are all presented as negatives, actions to be avoided.
As we look at frequently used modifiers, which we see as indicators of the ‘core values’ the banner makers have in mind, we find three, respectively ‘less or limit’
shǎo, ‘good’
hǎo and ‘early’
zǎo. It is remarkable that the first two,
shǎo and
hǎo, had a relatively high frequency of 10 and 9, whereas the third,
zǎo, was used much less (
Table 5). Also, two of these modifiers,
shǎo and
zǎo, also occurred in the previous section, which will allow for comparison later. All three will be extensively discussed below.
The ‘less’ shǎo examples remind us, first of all, that in 2020 the Chinese New Year started on January 27, that is, in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis. In the ‘gentle’ banners, family relationships are central, and it is no surprise therefore that references to the Chinese New Year did occur, since it was widely perceived as a family distorting happening. One of the examples we found stated, ‘Going out less, staying home more, happy New Year greetings online’, shǎo chūmén, duō jūjiā, wǎngluò bàinián yuè dàjiā. Since in Chinese, this is a statement that rhymes, one could think of a translation such as ‘Going out less, staying home more, online greetings are the core’; this way of course would be missing out on the notion of bàinián‘celebrating the New Year’. Other examples of the use of ‘less’ are, ‘Dinner together less, relatives will not be gone’, shǎo chī yī dùn fàn, qīnqī bù huì sàn. Again, in Chinese this phrase rhymes, so an alternative translation could be ‘Eat together less, family won’t be a mess’. The last example of the three says, ‘Dinner together less, the family relationship will not get weak’, shǎo jù yī dùn cān, qīnqíng bù huì dàn, with roughly the same meaning. This banner too contains a rhyme with cān ‘meal’ in the opening line and dàn ’thin; weak’ in the closing line. Also note the use of bù huì ‘will not’ in the latter two examples, which combine a negative advice ‘eat less together’ with the unlikelihood of a potential other negative event, ‘falling apart of family relationships’ expressed as sàn ‘scatter’ and dàn ‘weak’.
As we found for the ‘less’ examples, the ‘early’ zǎo examples bring forward one type of ‘positive’ behavior in order to avoid another form of ‘negative’ behavior or to receive acclaim by doing so. The first example relates ‘self-protection’ and ‘eating behavior’, the often quoted ‘wild animals’ problem, as in: ‘Everyone should take actions on anti-virus early, and wild animals should not be your meal’, rénrén zuòdào zǎo fángfàn, yěshēng dòngwù mò zuǐchán. Note the rhyme between fàn ‘model’; and chán ‘greedy’. The next two examples relate ‘early reporting’ and ‘risk’ in the first of these two and with ‘social gratification’ in the second. ‘If you report your travel history early, the risk of the epidemic will decrease’, wàidì huílái bàogào zǎo, yìqíng fēngxiǎn jiù biàn xiǎo, and also, ‘Report early if you return home from an epidemic area, villagers and folks will thank you’, yìqū fǎnxiāng zǎo dēngjì, fùlǎo xiāngqīn gǎnxiè nǐ. Both examples also employ rhymes, zǎo and xiǎo in the first and dēngjì and nǐ in the second.
With the ‘good’ hǎo examples, we meet banners that instruct how to behave and therefore come very close to the style of the ‘official’ banners. The form hǎo can be used as the endpoint of a resultative construction, as in dàihǎo kǒuzhào [wear-good mask]. Another example of this usage is ‘Stay at home and avoid visiting, the epidemic situation will gradually get better’ zàijiā xiūxi bié luànpǎo, yìqíng zhújiàn huì zhuǎnhǎo, while noting the rhyme between pǎo ‘to run’ and hǎo in zhuǎnhǎo ‘turn for the better’. In the remaining examples hǎo either occurs in a line or at the end of a line, meaning that either the first part or the second is considered ‘good’ by the writers. We give an example of each. With hǎo in the line, the banner states, ‘Keep the house well ventilated, pay attention to hygiene and avoid visiting,’ jiātíng bǎochí tōngfēng hǎo, jiǎngjiū wèishēng bié luàn pǎo. ‘Ventilating the home’, which is presented as hǎo ‘good’, is followed by two instructions, a positive one about ‘hygiene’ and a prohibition expressed with bié ‘do not’, where the latter intends to prohibit luànpǎo ‘running around’. The banner also has a rhyme, hǎo ‘good’ at the inline position rhymes with pǎo ‘to run’ in the closing line. The second example places hǎo at the end of the line. The banner states, ‘If you want to have low risk, it is better to stay at home,’ yàoxiǎng fēngxiǎn xiǎo, háishì jiālǐ hǎo. The conditional phrase is introduced by ‘want to’, with a rhyme between xiǎo ‘little; low (risk)’ and hǎo ‘good; better’. ‘Risk avoidance’ is related to a person’s home environment, with the connective háishì ‘still is’ projecting the ‘home’ jiālǐ as the best place to avoid being contaminated.
3.1.3. Humorous
We chose the term ‘humorous’ for banners which tried to get the banner message across in a more indirect rhetorical technique with a playful tone, this in contrast to the more direct banners we encountered in the previous two sections. The number of examples in this category also increased somewhat with 104 banners out of the 367 samples, a representation of twenty-eight percent. An example of this rhetorical technique which is an indirect warning against the virus and support for the lockdown is given in Example 5:
- (5)
Nìngyuàn zhǎng diǎn biāo, yě bù wàimiàn piāo
[rather grow bit fat, also not outside wander]
“I would rather add some fat than wander outside.” (Weibo, 31 January 2020)
This message, as a comment on the translation, uses a particular Chinese ‘rather … than …’ (nìngyuàn … yě bù …) construction and also uses a rhyme, with biāo ‘fat’ in the literal translation line and piāo ‘wander’ in the end line. Staying home and little exercise would make people more obese. In this banner, this effect is recognized but presented as still better than wandering outside and by implication getting the virus. Example 6 is another example of this more indirect nature of messaging:
- (6)
Huí jiā chī zhǔshú de jī, dàjídàlì lì shèqū
[return home eat cook-ripe DE chicken, good-luck benefit community]
“At home eat well cooked chicken, everybody in your community will be lucky.”(Weibo pictures, 7 February 2020)
In this message the link is made between zhǔshú ‘well-cooked’ and ‘raw meat’, which is claimed to be a potential origin of the virus and that by doing so you also protect the members of your community. The latter effect was created via a Chinese four-character expression dàjídàlì ‘good luck’, which blessings by doing so that is extended to the whole community.
The word frequencies of this set of banners showed that the first five most frequent words were all part of those listed in
Table 2. These are ‘mask’
kǒuzhào, ‘virus’
bìngdú, ‘going out’
chūmén,
‘at home
’ zàijiā and ‘epidemic’
yìqíng, in that order with a total of 84 occurrences, which represents a majority of 60 percent of words with a frequency higher than 5. This is remarkable since these top frequency words did not outperform other frequently used words in either the ‘official’ or the ‘gentle’ banners and suggests that the ‘humorous’ banner set forms a core part of all banners. When we look at the remaining words with a frequency higher than 5 (
n = 55), these suggest that in the ‘humorous’ banners the family is the orientation point with words such as
guònián ‘New Year’,
jiālǐ, ‘at home’,
quánjiā, ‘whole family’ and
xǐshǒu ‘washing hands’.
In the remaining modifying words
hǎo ‘good’, seen in
Table 6. stands out with a frequency double that of the remaining modifiers
qín, ‘diligent’,
shǎo ‘less’ and
bùyào, ‘don’t’. This selection and their frequencies also suggest that the ‘humorous’ banners project messages with a rhetorical technique that is different from the two sets discussed above. This becomes especially clear when we consider
guāi, ‘be good (obedient)’ which also appears in this list, since this word is typically used by parents when talking to children and telling them to be ‘good’ by listening and being ‘obedient’. As an extension of this usage, on banners we found examples such as, ‘Be good, wear a mask!’
guāi, dàihǎo kǒuzhào! This banner gives the impression that the government, acting as parents, tells the readers to be nice and obedient and do as told, ‘wear a mask’. Similarly, there is the admonishment ‘Be good, avoid going out!’
guāi, biāo chūmén, where
biāo is a colloquial expression for
bùyào ‘do not’, the spoken form
biāo even obtained, through borrowing, its own character, whereas its use suggests that younger people, who too need to wear masks and stay at home, feel more directly involved through this kind of banners. Our third example of
guāi is a very colloquial word which says ‘Be nice and at home, don’t make a mess, don’t disturb the epidemic prevention.’
guāiguāi zàijiā mò xiā chuàn, yìqíng fángkòng bié tiānluàn. The expression
mò xiā chuàn [don’t run about] ‘don’t run around’ is very colloquial and creates a strong contrast with the formal statements we encountered in the banners discussed in the previous two sections. In this context, it is understood as stay at home and don’t go out.
The relatively high frequency of hǎo ‘good’ did not show special construction types, rather it did further illustrate the rhetorical technique directed at changing traditional behavior patterns, some of which are deeply rooted in Chinese culture as we will see shortly. We encountered forms such as dàihǎo [wear-good], zuì hǎo de [most good DE], hǎo línjū [good neighbor], hǎohàn [good man], all normal combinations of hǎo ‘good’ as modifier. More interesting therefore is the kind of behavior that is encouraged or discouraged. Apart from ‘wearing a mask’, addressed at younger people who are told to listen to their mother, we found ‘staying at home’ as the best protection, not going for a walk, when you ‘have a fever’, and ‘throwing red envelopes out of the window’ instead of bringing them in person. This latter example shows the potential impact of traditional culture for the spread of the virus and we will illustrate that one in full form, ‘Do not enter the building to greet for New Year this time. Toss out the lucky money from the window.’ jīnnián bàinián bù jìn lóu, hóngbāo zhuāng hǎo rēng xià lóu. In Chinese culture, it is customary that older people (parents, grandparents) give red envelopes to younger people as a sign of good behavior and blessing for the New Year. The banner discourages New Year visits and handing out red envelopes, rather the youngsters can receive them in this new encouraged way “throw them out of the window’. Of course, we have no knowledge as to the extent to which this was actually done, we were all ‘locked down’ still.
Uses of shǎo ‘less’ did show the by now well-known issues of ‘wearing a mask’ and ‘not going out’, the interesting point in these cases is the use of dialect words or expressions, showing local influences in banner construction. In the banner ‘Wear a mask when you go out, don’t visit around.’ chūmén dài kǒuzhào, shǎo qùqiè còu rènào, the interesting point is the original dialect expression qiècòu rènào ’join the fun’, going out and feel part of the crowd, an effect expressed by rènào ‘hot and noisy’. ‘Going out and join the crowd’ is one of China’s leisure time traditions that does not match well with ‘staying at home’ and is the issue that the banner addresses. The rhyme was between kǒuzhào ‘mask’ and rènào ‘lively’. In the next ‘staying home’ example the rhyme is created through adding of hāhā ‘haha’ in the end line in order to make it rhyme with jūjiā ‘staying home’ in the in line. ‘Go out less, stay in more, after 14 days have real fun!’ shǎo chūmén duō jūjiā, 14 tiān hòu lèhāhā! To make the translation rhyme one could think of ‘Go out less, stay in more, 14 days make fun galore!’ The point of interest remains the use of such funny or everyday language in this banner. The last example too addresses ‘staying at home’ but the word used for ‘staying at home’ is a dialect expression, ‘Stay home more, go outside less!’ duō zài wūtóu dūn, shǎo qù wàimiàn guàng. The combination zài wūtóu dūn is understood by all Chinese readers, but also recognized as not standard and that gives this banner a nice local flavor, which would be appreciated by local dialect speakers.
Our last frequently used perspective word qín ‘diligent’ is focused on ‘washing your hands’ and ‘ventilate the house’. All three examples we give here are rhymes. The rhyme of the second example is created by adding bàibàibáibai which can easily be recognized by English speakers as ‘byebye’, which indeed it is. Byebye has become a common greeting among younger people replacing the Chinese zàijiàn ‘goodbye’. Here are the three examples with qín ‘diligent’, ‘Wash your hands frequently every day, the virus goes away’ rìcháng qín xǐshǒu, bìngdú ràozhe zǒu, ‘If you don’t wear a mask, the virus will love you, change the mask frequently, the virus says goodbye’ Kǒuzhào nǐ bù dài, bìngdú bǎ nǐ ài; kǒuzhào huàn dé qín, bìngdú shuō bàibàibáibai, and ‘Ventilate and wash your hands frequently, and the coronavirus will slip away’ tōngfēng huànqì qín xǐshǒu, guānzhuàng bìngdú jiù liūzǒu, where guānzhuàng bìngdú is the Chinese name for the ‘coronavirus’.
3.1.4. Confrontational
Confrontational banners confront readers with the effect of disobedience, it is therefore the reason for which we call these banners confrontational. The language used in confrontational banners has also influenced our title of the paper: “if the virus doesn’t scare you, the banners will”. We found 125 banners out of the 367 collected that matched this criterium, a proportion of thirty-four percent. The choice of words in these banners tends to be colloquial, aggressive and therefore confrontational. An example is a typical confrontational banner, ‘bad behavior’ like ‘not wearing a mask’ is confronted with its alternative ‘being on a ventilator’:
- (7)
Kǒuzhào háishì hūxījī, nín lǎo kànzhe èr xuǎn yī
[mask or breath-tube, you look-ZHE two choose one]
“A mask or a breathing tube, it’s your call.” (Weibo pictures, 28 January 2020)
The example presents the readers with a choice, do as we tell you or find yourself in the hospital on a ventilator, which one do you prefer? Readers are confronted with a simple choice, ‘mask’ or ‘ICU’. Example 8 extends these personal choices to the level of ‘filial piety’, one of the core values in Chinese culture:
- (8)
Dàibìng huíxiāng bùxiào érláng, chuánrǎn diēniáng sàngjìn tiānliáng
[bring illness back home non-filial child, infecting dad-mom loose-full heaven-good]
“Returning home with your disease will not make your parents pleased, infecting mom and dad proves you have no conscience.” (Weibo pictures, 10 February 2020)
For sick persons, the choice is not only one for oneself, but one has to face the social implications of disobedience, which in this case means destroying your parents’ life by going home for the New Year festival no matter what and living in shame forever thereafter. These examples make clear that banner messages do not beat about the bush but are direct and confrontational.
Word frequencies further show that the confrontational banners use a different set of words. Top frequency words listed in
Table 2 occupied 30 percent of all occurrences, quite a difference with the frequency words in the ‘humorous’ section where they formed the majority. The remaining frequency words are listed in
Table 7. Negative words, that is, words that in the context of the COVID-19 virus epidemic have a negative connotation, are strongly represented in this list. These include words like ‘wild animal’, ‘getting together’ and related words like ‘dining’, ‘to gather’ and ‘crowding’. It also makes clear that the virus is ‘the enemy’, and ‘carrying the disease’ is like living in ‘hell’. Death or moral judgements are often used to discourage the public going out or gathering. Bad behaviors like hiding personal infection history, visiting friends and relatives or going out without wearing a mask would lead to terrible consequences such as death or failure of morality. There are few positive frequency words in confrontational banners, which can also reveal the harsh style of the banners.
3.2. Banner Comments
The 84 comments we collected are dated between 25 January and 10 February 2020. The first half of these were collected at the end of January with a concentration on January 29 and 30, when 44 percent of the data were collected. The remaining half of the comments were collected in the beginning of February. The comments contained a total of 11,530 characters. The messages varied in length between 12 and 652 words, with an average of 137 words, meaning that the majority of the messages were not that long. In the following, we will detail the sample further as to Internet source, number of words and where appropriate author and support. As to the latter, it is important to know who the writer is and the extent of support for his or her opinion.
3.2.1. Sources and Words
We will start with an overview of the number of contributions among the various Internet sources. As
Table 8 shows,
WeChat stands out with twenty-four comments and a total of more than five thousand characters.
WeiBo is second with nineteen contributions and almost fifteen hundred characters. In comparison,
Zhihu, the question-and-answer site, provided more than one thousand characters for four contributions as did the category other, which grouped six sources and contained almost two thousand characters. In the next section we will discuss the content of the collected messages and relate them to the date of the comments.
The most frequent word in the data, not surprisingly, was the term
biāoyǔ for ‘banner’ with a total of 183 occurrences. We excluded this general term for the frequency wordlist presented in
Table 9, since this obviously was the topic of conversation and does not help in understanding the discourse content, our major point of interest. The words in
Table 9 are ordered according to descending frequency. The first impression we get from this list is that in the left-hand column the attention is on the ‘epidemic’, on ‘prevention’ and ‘publicity’ but also on ‘hard core banners’, ‘rural communities’ as well as ‘work’ as in
fángyì gōngzuò ‘epidemic prevention work’ and ‘workers’
gōngzuò rényuán. We will see shortly that the most attention by readers is on these issues.
The right-hand column illustrates topics such as the ‘virus’, ‘pneumonia’, ‘purpose’, ‘achieve’ and ‘win’, suggesting that the government policy towards the epidemic is well-known by the commentators. Banner words like ‘grassroots’, ‘ruthless’ and ‘rough’ suggest that there is a conflict between urban and rural areas. To what extent this is played out we will see in the next section.
3.2.2. The ‘Hard-Core’ Banner Debate
On 26 January a Mr Tián posted a ‘hard-core’ yìnghé banner comment on Weibo:
“I think this kind of hard-core propaganda slogans are needed. Some places are more traditional. Adults and old people don’t listen to it, and don’t listen to young generation’s suggestions at all. The recent epidemic situation is tense, so you should avoid traveling and stay at home. New year greetings are harmful, and special methods should be used during special times.”
He obtained almost nine hundred reads and thirteen likes. A few days later, discussion on the ‘hard-core’ banners had already increased and on January 29 a Kuaishou user contributed, “The (hard-core) banners in the countryside hit the nail on the head!”
This post attracted 1.7 million reads and more than 71 thousand likes. From that moment the ‘hard-core’ banners draw the attention of Chinese state media. The People’s Daily, the largest newspaper group in China, posted a WeChat commentary article on that day with the title, Read these banners and you will understand why we need to rely on our people, saying further, “These ‘provincial’ banners are as rough as landslides, but very “hardcore”, they achieve the purpose of Early COVID-19.”
Since then, over a hundred state media including CCTV (China Central Television), Headline News, People’s Court News forwarded this article or made similar comments, which made the number of comments soar. An example is a contribution from the Weibo site of the People’s Court News, which said:
“These “earth flavor” banners
“Relentless” like a mudslide
But very “hardcore”
Achieved the purpose of epidemic prevention propaganda
Let us raise awareness of prevention and wear masks
Reduce going out
Together to win this fight against the epidemic!”
This banner was appreciated, read more than twenty-two thousand times, got forty-five likes and was passed on eighteen times. Some of the words used, ‘earth flavor’, ‘relentless’, ‘mudslide’, ‘hardcore’, ‘epidemic prevention’, and ‘propaganda’ keep on returning in other comments. The Chinese words are respectively
tǔwèir,
wúqíng,
níshíliú,
yìnghé,
fángyì and
xuānchuán, of which
níshíliú had a frequency of nine and just did not make it to the list presented in
Table 9. The other words all had the position of top frequency words in that table.
On January 30, a less supportive comment was posted on the Weibo site of the Dongfeng (East Wind) Express, which said, ‘Propaganda slogans are too hard-core’, ‘Look at these slogans and banners, and you will understand why you have to rely on the people’:
“The situation of prevention and control of pneumonia caused by the new coronavirus is severe. In some areas, local staff have put up anti-epidemic propaganda. Slogans and banners call on residents to do a good job in epidemic prevention in the form of grounding. These ‘earth-flavored’ slogans and banners are as “relentless” as mudslides, but very “hardcore”. Let us raise awareness of prevention together, wear masks to reduce going out, and win the fight against the epidemic with one heart!”
This less supportive comment was liked two-thousand times and reposted more than five hundred times, confirming that there was a sense of disagreement among the readers. A straightforward oppositional attitude we found in a posting on Weibo from January 30 said:
“Concise and timely slogans can indeed simplify complex truths and make it easier to spread. But we must also realize that this kind of “hard-core slogan” of “barbaric growth” is neither civilized nor scientific. It often carries a destructive meaning, implicitly a certain threat of violence, and even exudes a stale feudal superstition.”
The author continues with emphasis on culture and science and strongly opposes hard-core banner style. It was read more than three hundred times, but did not receive any likes or reposting, clearly showing limited support. This tendency toward a favorite attitude toward ‘down to earth’ banners is confirmed by the data, 62 banners of the 84 or three-fourths of the comments were supportive, whereas two percent were undecided, leaving a minority of close to one-fourth of the respondents to express negative or strongly negative opinions.
3.2.3. Banner Style and Official Media
As reported, state media started to pay attention to the COVID-19 banners and their style. This involvement and positive feedback affected the banner-making process. Banner makers adjusted the banner language style and started to publish more humorous banners. Various provinces of the state media (such as Jilin Youth League) called for Early COVID-19 banners online, encouraging netizens, who are not regular banner makers, to participate in the designing of banners, which characteristically are “easy to understand”, “vivid” and “impressive”. Thereafter state media such as Shenzhen News collected and released new style banners like Examples 9 and 10 below, which use a relaxed language style rarely seen before:
- (9)
yī mǐ jùlí, nǐ wǒ dōu ānxīn
[one-meter distance, you me both safe]
“One-meter distance makes you and me safe” (Shenzhen News, 11 February 2020)
- (10)
nìngyuàn kùzi zuò pò, yě bù chūqù rěhuò
[rather trousers sit-broken, YE not out-go court-disaster]
“Would rather sit at home until your pants wear out, do not go out to make trouble.”
(Shenzhen News, 11 February 2020)
We will discuss the implications of this development in the next section.