Since January 2013, Xi Jinping has launched a sustained high profile anti-corruption campaign that has targeted Tigers (senior officials) and Flies (rank and file cadres). The thesis uses both...Show moreSince January 2013, Xi Jinping has launched a sustained high profile anti-corruption campaign that has targeted Tigers (senior officials) and Flies (rank and file cadres). The thesis uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to look at the ways in which corruption is defined and explained in state media discourse. As the anti-corruption drive is aimed at Party members, the media on corruption is directly involved in the process of delegitimation of a portion of its members. Within this process, the Party launched a public relations campaign in order to counter the impact of the exposure of corruption cases at all levels of the Party and the government body, in order to re-legitimise the political authority of the Party. The thesis analyses a total of 145 corruption articles on Xinhua News from the years 2013-2016. It shows how the Party legitimises itself in four stages: the first and second, legitimating Xi Jinping as the moral authority and the CDIC as the “enforcer” of legitimate behaviour; the third stage, delegitimizing a portion of the Party as immoral through interlacing corruption narratives with discourses on moral values and public welfare; and the fourth, legitimation of the Party and the political system, through a comparison with corruption in other countries.Show less
