Logo: to the web site of the Swedish Defence University

Information influence in its most manipulative form can be equated with an attack that threatens democratic values. In order to be able to identify, respond to, and counteract such an attack, it can be argued that it is fundamental to increase the understanding of information influence as a phenomenon.

The Chinese President Xi Jinping has formulated an aim to make China democratic by2049. Despite this ambition, actions taken by Xi indicate the opposite direction. This thesis is motivated by the above paradox and attempts to provide insight to the matter by, based on the theoretical framework of strategic narratives, analyzing, by combining textual and narrative analysis, what patterns can be discerned in how democracy is portrayed in Chinese English-language state media. This study uses Global Times as empirical base. From the identified narrative patterns one can distinguish three strategic narratives; 1) The narrative where Western democracy is described as dysfunctional, 2) The narrative where democracy is described as a tool in the pursuit of more power, 3) The narrative whereChina's definition of democracy is described as superior and one Neutral, non-strategic, narrative.

The analysis further demonstrates how these strategic narratives can be understood as information influence, produced to create mistrust between actors with the purpose to shape the receiver's perception about democracy. The thesis concludes that Global Times uses certain strategic narratives in combination to exert information influence. The overall strategy, as previous research already identified, is that China shapes its own definition of democracy by discrediting the Western and the generally accepted variant of the concept of democracy, while emphasizing its own. This study has sought not just to contribute with empirical evidence that they are doing this but to also describe how the systematic of the procedure appears – which the identified narrative patterns describe.