In this thesis, I analysed and interpreted 9 articles of the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the CCP, that most immediately followed the 5 July Urumqi events in 2009. When analysing, I...Show moreIn this thesis, I analysed and interpreted 9 articles of the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the CCP, that most immediately followed the 5 July Urumqi events in 2009. When analysing, I focused on how the authors of the newspaper frame the Uyghur ethnic group. I expected that this newspaper would frame this ethnic group in a negative way and that the riots would be described as terroristic and a danger to the unity of the PRC. However, Most of my expectations of the analysis turned out to be untrue. The People’s Daily did not frame the Uyghur ethnic group in a negative way, as it did not even mention the existence of this group. It did frame the organizers, planners, and ‘bandits’ of these events in a negative way, but the articles never relate them to the Uyghur ethnic group. Also, the articles never related the events to terrorism directly. While they stated that the events threatened the unity of the Chinese multi-ethnic nation, the term terrorism was only indirectly linked with the 5 July events. This denial of the existence of a Uyghur collective identity can be interpreted as a matter of power, as the Uyghur separatists can not take part in the discourse created by these articles without being associated with the malicious forces from abroad. However, the articles frame the Uyghur ethnic group indirectly within the nationalist discourse of ethnic unity. I argue that the articles of the People’s Daily, by repeating the importance of maintaining ethnic unity and opposing ethnic discrimination, reflect the CCP policy of ronghe. Ronghe means the assimilation of the minorities to the majority, the Han. By not blaming the Uyghur ethnic group, but some far away vague forces and organizations, the CCP tries to maintain the Chinese multi-ethnic nation, including the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.Show less
