{"id":5764,"date":"2020-04-28T09:30:54","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T07:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.nccr-onthemove.ch\/?p=5764"},"modified":"2025-03-09T21:05:43","modified_gmt":"2025-03-09T20:05:43","slug":"battle-of-narratives-discursive-responses-to-the-corona-virus-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nccr-onthemove.ch\/blog\/battle-of-narratives-discursive-responses-to-the-corona-virus-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle of Narratives: Discursive Responses to the Coronavirus Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this time of pandemic, there have been heated debates surrounding the Coronavirus (COVID-19), from its high infection rate to the measures mitigating it and the availability of tests. Among these fiercely debated topics, the virus\u2019 origin has prevailed as one of the most contested ones, provoking frustration and assertion of blame on \u201cothers.\u201d This blame game has emerged from top officials to the average person posting on social media. The question therefore arises: What are these discourses and narratives created? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Throughout human history, pandemics have come and gone, from the Black Death (1347-51; 200 million dead), the Smallpox (1520; 56\u00a0million dead) to the Spanish Flu (1918-19; 50\u00a0million dead) (LePan 2020). Each of these pandemics has either left their mark on humans and history, helping a certain group conquer another or helped humanity in creating new scientific knowledge to prepare us for the next super virus. This can be seen in how humans have gained immunity to certain viruses over time, and how society has learned to mitigate or contain superbugs. However, what humans are not immune to are fear and panic. These are the driving forces that lead humans to turn on each other, to assign blame or, in more socio-political terms, creating the enemy.<\/p>\n

Creating the Enemy<\/strong><\/p>\n

In times of uncertainty and shock, it is a human reaction to place blame for something, especially if \u201cit\u201d threatens, as Stanley Cohen referred to it in his theory of moral panic<\/em>, \u201ca condition, episode, person or group that emerges to become or defined as a threat to societal values<\/em> (Cohen, Stanley 2011).\u201d Historically, such groups have been or still are the Jewish people, the Roma people, the African-Americans, and many others (Pettigrew and Tropp 2008). However, in the case of the Coronavirus, the enemy is a virus, which is hard to conceptualize and understand. People tend to find a tangible and visible enemy, which, in the current situation, is being determined between two domineering nations: China and the US.<\/p>\n

Discourse Patterns: Panic and Blame at the Macro Level<\/strong><\/p>\n

Once the global spread of COVID-19 became apparent, many countries reacted to the evolution of the pandemic differently. While European countries went into lockdown to try to mitigate the virus, the US took the opposite approach. On March 16th, President Trump took the step to create an enemy that people could accept via a tweet. In this tweet, he placed the blame on China by dubbing COVID-19 as a foreign virus. Later that day, during a press conference, he asserted that the virus was a \u201cChinese virus.\u201d This comment sparked fierce debates on social media platforms over whether the comment was racist or xenophobic.<\/p>\n

In turn, the Chinese government issued statements on social media and state television<\/a>, attempting to reframe and control the narrative by shifting the blame back to the US. In those statements, they asserted that \u201cthe US brought the virus to China during military exercises<\/em>\u201d. This claim was further highlighted on Twitter by a Chinese government official. Other officials claimed that the virus was created in a military lab, as stated by the Chinese ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai. The battle over controlling the narratives on the origins of the virus is ongoing (Anon 2020).<\/p>\n

Securing Power Instead of Empowering Security Measures<\/strong><\/p>\n

Similar responses to the virus occurred in Hungary. On March 13th, Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n declared to the press<\/a> that the virus made its way into Hungary because of migration and foreigners. He asserted that \u201cour experience is that primarily foreigners brought in the disease and that it is spreading amongst foreigners\u201d and added later: \u201cIt\u2019s no coincidence that the virus first showed up among Iranians<\/em>.\u201d This resulted in the expelling of two Iranian students from Hungary because they had \u201cviolated quarantine and left the hospital without protective gear<\/em>.\u201d That same day Hungary closed its borders. The rationale of the Prime Minister was that \u201cwe are fighting a two-front war, one front is called migration and the other is the coronavirus. There is a logical connection between the two, which is that the virus is spread with the movement of migration<\/em> (AFP 2020; Gall 2020).\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Prime Minister may not accept the reality that the world is globalized and that humans are mobile, he has not ignored the political opportunity that the crisis provides him to consolidate his power. As cases rose in Hungary, on March 21st, Orb\u00e1n placed a bill before Parliament that would extend his emergency powers indefinitely which would allow him to rule by decree and administer punishments for the promotion of what his administration considers fake news (Edr 2020; Zalan 2020). Fake news, in this case, would include anyone who disagrees with Fidesz`s narrative would receive lengthy prison sentences. Unfortunately, this bill was accepted and approved by parliament end of March.<\/p>\n

The tendency of certain political leaders to place blame and to find or create a scapegoat in times of crisis is not unusual. These cases illustrate well how moral panic occurs alongside the weaponization of anti-immigrant discourse to promote narratives of national belonging during times of uncertainty. This is what Michael Billig refers to as \u201cBanal Nationalism,\u201d whilst others, like Ruth Wodak, would refer to these types of discourses as the \u201cPolitics of Fear\u201d or \u201cthe populist discourses of the far-right\u201d (Billig 2010; Mudde 2019; Wodak 2013, 2015). Such discourses focus on national identity, seeing the world along national- and border-lines or, through the politics of \u201cothering,\u201d or who is part of the \u201cin-group\u201d and who is in the \u201cout-group.\u201d Both Trump and Orb\u00e1n are perfect examples of these phenomena.<\/p>\n

Pandemics are a Challenge to Human Solidarity<\/strong><\/p>\n

Regardless of age, class, nationality or creed, one can see that pandemics can bring the worst out of people, but these exceptional situations also highlight the \u201careas of improvement\u201d for each country, whether it be in foreign policy, the nations\u2019 healthcare system or their perspectives on immigration. As a global society, we can either let this virus get the better of us quicker by blaming others and hoarding resources; or work together to find solutions to prevent the virus from spreading.<\/p>\n

Leslie Ader<\/a> is a doctoral student and researcher in migration and mobility at the University of Neuch\u00e2tel associated to the nccr \u2013 on the move in the project on Historical Perspective on Mobility in Welfare States<\/a> and focuses on History of Welfare States, Discourse, Claims-Making, and Welfare Policies. <\/em><\/p>\n

References<\/p>\n

\u2013 AFP (2020). Hungary\u2019s Orb\u00e1n Blames Foreigners, Migration for Coronavirus Spread<\/a>. France 24 (retrieved March 13, 2020).
\n\u2013 Anon (2020). Chinese Ambassador Addresses Conspiracy Theories That Coronavirus Originated in a U.S. Lab<\/em>. Washington D.C.: Axios Studio.
\n\u2013 Anon (2020). New Coronavirus\u00a0<\/a>(retrieved March 26, 2020).
\n\u2013 Billig, Michael (2010). Banal Nationalism<\/em>. United Kingdom: SAGE Publications Ltd.
\n\u2013 Chiu, Allyson (2020). Trump Calls Coronavirus \u201cthe Chinese Virus\u201d. Washington D.C.: Washington Post.
\n\u2013 Cohen, Stanley (2011). Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers<\/em>. (3rd ed). New York: Routledge.
\n\u2013 Crowley, Michael, Edward Wong, and Lara Jakes (2020). Coronavirus Drives the U.S. and China Deeper Into Global Power Struggle. The New York Times.
\n\u2013 Edr, Marton (2020). Hungary\u2019s Orb\u00e1n Seeks Indefinite Emergency Powers in Virus Bill<\/a> (retrieved March 25, 2020).
\n\u2013 Gall, Lydia (2020). Hungary Weaponizes Coronavirus to Stoke Xenophobia<\/a>. Human Rights Watch (retrieved March 19, 2020).
\n\u2013 Kafkadesk (2020). Hungary\u2019s Troubled National Identity and the Fight against Coronavirus<\/a> (retrieved March 25, 2020).
\n\u2013 LePan, Nicolas (2020). A Visual History of Pandemics<\/a>. World Economic Forum (retrieved March 15, 2020).
\n\u2013 Mayberry, Kate, Ramy Allahoum, and Usaid Siddiqui (2020.) US-China Spar over Coronavirus Origin<\/a> (retrieved March 25, 2020).
\n\u2013 Mudde, Cas (2019). The Ideology of the Extreme Right<\/a>. ResearchGate (retrieved March 4, 2019).
\n\u2013 Pettigrew, Thomas, and Linda Tropp (2008). Allport\u2019s Intergroup Contact Hypothesis: Its History and Influence. In: On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years after Allport<\/em>, 262\u201377.
\n\u2013 Schneider, Eric (2020). The Politics of Coronavirus<\/em>. New York: Polymatter.
\n\u2013 Wodak, Ruth (2013). Right-Wing Populism in Europe: Politics and Discourse<\/em>. A&C Black.
\n\u2013 Wodak, Ruth (2015). The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean<\/em>. SAGE.
\n\u2013 Zalan, Eszter (2020). Hungary\u2019s Orb\u00e1n Seeks Indefinite Power in Virus Bill<\/a>. EUobserver (retrieved March 23, 2020).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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