Wo shi Zhali ma? The representation of the Charlie Hebdo case in Chinese press commentaries and editorials

The terrorist attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on 7th January 2015 received extensive media coverage in Europe, creating a discussion that mainly revolved around the issues of terrorism and press freedom. The Chinese media also paid attention to the event, and this study, based on analysis of a corpus of news commentaries published in the aftermath of the attack, highlights the discursive features of the positions on the Charlie Hebdo case of two Chinese language papers, the party-run Huanqiu Shibao and the market-oriented Xinjingbao. A qualitative and quantitative approach has been used to identify relevant themes and to measure the frequency of related terms. The research question is whether news commentaries expressed a plurality of views on a controversial subject such as freedom of speech in China. The results show that the case has generally been used to reinforce the official discourse on both terrorism and press freedom. However, while Huanqiu Shibao’s news commentaries failed to perform the genre’s purpose to voice independent opinions, some Xinjingbao’s articles were able to present original viewpoints. This can be considered a sign that some debate is possible in China even on highly controversial topics, and that the writers of commentaries, who often are freelancers, play a key role in widening the discussion in the country’s media sphere.