Analyzing Empathetic Discourse in China’s State-Run Youth Media: A Socio-Cognitive Approach

New media empathetic discourses harness the power of digital platforms to achieve empathetic effects, driven by both social cognition and individual psychology. This study focuses on the empathetic discourse on the “Night Thoughts” column of China Youth Daily, a state-run media aiming to foster youth development. Adopting a socio-cognitive approach with positive discourse analysis, this research examines 208 articles published up to December 31, 2023. It identifies three strategies in building the empathetic discourse: relevant mental representation, close discourse order and naturalized social order. Additionally, a “socio-cognitive” model of empathetic discourse is proposed to provide a theoretical reference for future research.