Up in the air: A strategic narrative contest in the U.S.–China Balloon Incident 2023
International Communication Gazette, ISSN: 1748-0493
2024
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Example: if you select the 1-year option for an article published in 2019 and a metric category shows 90%, that means that the article or review is performing better than 90% of the other articles/reviews published in that journal in 2019. If you select the 3-year option for the same article published in 2019 and the metric category shows 90%, that means that the article or review is performing better than 90% of the other articles/reviews published in that journal in 2019, 2018 and 2017.
Citation Benchmarking is provided by Scopus and SciVal and is different from the metrics context provided by PlumX Metrics.
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Article Description
Emerging crises such as the 2023 US–China balloon incident present opportunities for states to leverage murky events to justify their behaviors, rally political support, and promote favorable worldviews through projecting strategic narratives. This study examines narratives deployed by the US and China and evaluates their diffusion in the international media environment. International news coverage of the balloon incident (N = 776) was analyzed by a human-in-the-loop machine-learning narrative analysis. Results show the US set the tone by framing the incident as a matter of surveillance, linking the issue to identity narratives, and forcing China to engage in narrative contests on spying. The US remained dominant in the international narrative sphere although China attempted to project alternative storylines. Implications for other countries are discussed. Findings illuminate the utility of strategic narratives in unpacking strategic interactions in the flow of international political communication, in an absence of major escalations.
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