Political Ideologies and Surveillance Culture in Biosecuritisation During COVID-19

Lyu, Shuohong (2024) Political Ideologies and Surveillance Culture in Biosecuritisation During COVID-19. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

Preview

PDF Download (2MB) | Preview

Abstract

Due to the global impact of COVID-19, many governments adopted digital tools to manage the pandemic. These technologies signal a great trend within biosecuritisation, in which public health threats are presented as security risks and justify new forms of intervention. This thesis investigates the cultural and political dynamics of biosecuritisation by examining how biosecuritised actions, such as digital contact-tracers, vaccine passports, and lockdown were promoted during the pandemic.

Using China and the UK as case studies for authoritarian and liberal-democratic governance, this study examines official discourse surrounding China’s Health Code System (HCS) and the UK’s NHS COVID-19 app (NCA). Drawing on an integrated Pragmatic Discourse Analysis (PDA) with Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) enhanced by a Discourse Historical Approach (DHA) framework, the thesis aims to investigate argumentation strategies, relations of power and ideological assumptions embedded in government communication.

The findings indicate that the two countries both conceptualised surveillance technology as protecting public health and collective responsibility, yet their methods of legitimation were different. In the UK, surveillance was minimised in terms of voluntariness, privacy rights and trust, and such language reflected liberal concerns with state overreach and limiting the app’s potential role in pandemic governance. In contrast, centralised authority, collectivist belief and a normalised surveillance culture developed in China provided the conditions for implementation to be both forced and extensively infrastructural integrated, though this approach also resulted in trust gaps and human rights abuses later on.

Overall, this research shows that political ideology and surveillance culture mediate the communication, normalisation, and contestation of biosecuritisation and its impact on digital tool design and its social impact during public health emergencies.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Politics, Philosophy and Area Studies
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	26 Feb 2026 13:44
Last Modified:	26 Feb 2026 13:44
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/102080
DOI:

Downloads

Actions (login required)

View Item