Patriotic Health Movements in China: A comparison between three different political administrations using propaganda and visual culture to face public health issues

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and compare examples of health propaganda spanning different historical periods, also representing the propagandistic expression of three different Chinese political administrations . The research provides a comparative analysis, focusing on specific events, of posters related to Patriotic Health Campaigns started in the 1950s, with particular attention to the Four Pests Campaign ; then comparing similarities and analogies found in health campaigns during the SARS epidemic in 2003, under the direction of Hu Jintao ; and finally, examining more recent times to explore the media campaigns of Xi Jinping's administration during the COVID-19 pandemic . In this regard, the guiding question of the research is as follows: what are the recurring elements in health propaganda campaigns, two of which belong to the new millennium, in comparison to Maoist campaigns? The following research work is structured as an analysis of visual communication that emphasizes recurring patterns, as well as elements observed among the different cases and the various semiotic elements that emerge. Propagandistic images will be studied starting from their illustrations and drawings, slogans, metalinguistic elements and themes; moving on to the conditions in which the case occurs; passing to interpretation of people’s perceptions . Finally, after having analyzed several posters for each period, we will conduct a comparison between them. Investigating norms and evaluating differences, the study also considers political changes in the health sector, attempting to explore the motivations behind the use of similar styles in different historical moments and the reason for adopting codes from the past in a more modern era . To answer this question, the research design puts specific attention to the semiotic elements of the materials, such as symbols, colors, and slogans, considering how they are used and interpreted in the social and cultural context, pursuing a multimodal analysis . As human communication occurs through different modalities, the research design includes qualitative content analysis of visual and textual materials, referring to the context in which the phenomenon took place and perceptions of Chinese people. To ensure the reliability of the findings, this thesis combines data from multiple sources, including articles, academic papers, essays, and online sources.