ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 develops a framework to analyze the multimodal construction of China’s national image in a promotional film. The analysis gives us a nuanced understanding of the multifaceted image China intends to present to the world, which includes economic achievements, sustainable development, social fairness, racial harmony, democratic development, cultural prosperity, and so on. Moreover, it shows how the attributes are constructed through the deployment of complex filmic devices, such as the selection of characters and the design of their actions in the mise-en-scène, the selection of events and sceneries, cinematography (e.g., shot distance), and editing techniques (e.g., fast cuts and match cuts). It also discusses how the promotional film has become a new register of national discourse and an important means for branding China’s image in the world. The Field, Tenor, and Mode of the register are explicated, which provides new understandings of China’s public diplomacy and nation branding in the twenty-first century. The analytical tools developed in this chapter and the method of social semiotic analysis can generate methodological implications for related areas that adopt a qualitative paradigm such as political studies, cultural studies, and international relations studies
