One Country, Two Perspectives: A Corpus-Assisted Critical Discourse Analysis of Newspaper Coverage of the Greater Bay Area Scheme in Hong Kong and Mainland China

Despite extensive research on media framing of Hong Kong affairs, there remains a significant gap in the comparative analysis of media representations between Chinese and Hong Kong news discourses amid Hong Kong’s increasing integration with mainland China. This study employs a corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis to examine the discursive construction around the Greater Bay Area (GBA) scheme in the news discourses of South China Morning Post (SCMP) and China Daily (CD). The key emotion semantic analysis reveals that the SCMP predominantly projects negative emotions related to worry, while CD foregrounds positive emotions such as bravery. A word sketch of Hong Kong suggests that SCMP prefersd dynamic verbs highlighting the potential effects of the scheme, whereas CD emphasizes the actions associated with administration and regulation. The study contributes to an understanding of media shaping public perception, with real-world policy implications for cross-border communication strategies.