A Discourse Analysis of Quotidian Expressions of Nationalism during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Chinese Cyberspace

By conducting discourse analysis on quotidian expressions of nationalism of Chinese netizens and analyzing their “Liking” behavior, this article tries to inductively explore during the COVID-19 pandemic what and how Chinese netizens say about nationalism. This article finds that during the pandemic, Chinese netizens show a confident and rational but confrontational and xenophobic posture in their quotidian discourses. They value reasoning and deliberation in their expressions of nationalist discourses. In the quotidian discourses, they maintain a confident tone when comparing China’s performance with other countries during the pandemic, but show vigilance and even hostile sentiments toward external provocations.