Recontextualizing “new rural elite” in Chinese media

Abstract

Based on China Daily reports from 2003 to 2025, this study uses correspondence analysis, co-occurrence network analysis, and collocation analysis to trace the diachronic recontextualization of new rural elite discourse. The findings identify a three-stage trajectory: conceptual emergence, governance construction, and strategic upgrading. Legitimation shifts from moral evaluation to rationalization, later incorporating authorization. Meanwhile, the referential scope expands from general rural roles to diverse grassroots elites and high-level talent, while the concept’s semantic status rises from concrete social actors to an institutional strategy. The new rural elite is also redefined from an observed object to a thematically prominent policy actor, while its grammatical agency remains discursively contained within state-directed governance frameworks. This process reveals a discourse-governance logic of incorporation, integration, and guidance in China’s rural governance discourse.