Qiu Weidong: The Operating System of Western Discourse Hegemony in the Digital Age and China's Response
Against the backdrop of deepening economic globalization and the reconstruction of the international communication landscape by digital technology, international discourse power—as a significant manifestation of national strength—has increasingly become a strategic focus for all nations. In the process of accelerating the construction of a Chinese discourse and narrative system to form international discourse power commensurate with our comprehensive national strength and international status, a glaring anomaly exists in the current digital-age international discourse landscape. On one hand, Western hegemonic powers—which adhere to the principle of "capital-as-the-core" and force other nations into dependence on hegemonic systems through global capital expansion, leading to "disaster capitalism" [1]—are nonetheless able to seize dominance over international discourse by relying on "universal values" narratives, subsequently serving their hegemonic will through international public opinion. On the other hand, the practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics—which aims to overcome the paradoxes of capital expansion on a global scale and pursues justice in domestic and global socio-economic development—frequently encounters the predicament of "having the truth but being unable to voice it" or "voicing it but being unable to spread it." Consequently, after successfully resolving the historical problems of "being beaten" and "starving" [2] and breaking the myth that "modernization equals Westernization," China unexpectedly still faces the awkward situation of "being scolded" in the international public opinion arena. This can be called the most inconceivable anomaly in the contemporary international discourse patterns. Addressing this, contemporary Marxists urgently need to conduct a systematic analysis of the manifestations and essence of Western discourse hegemony in the digital era, explore its internal operational system, and subsequently seek effective solutions to break this hegemony.
I. Manifestations and Essence of Western Discourse Hegemony in the Digital Era
As a core component of Western hegemony, discourse hegemony provides critical narrative support for Western dominance in global political, economic, and cultural spheres. Along with the rapid iteration of digital technology and the ubiquitous rollout of digital infrastructure, Western discourse hegemony has, based on its original operational logic, gradually transformed digital technology into a core supporting tool for its power. Western discourse hegemony in the digital era has broken through the single manifestation of traditional discourse manipulation, evolving into a four-dimensional pattern characterized by the generalization of domains, technical empowerment, audience down-reaching, and multidimensional collusion. This deep transformation of manifestation has directly pushed the radius of influence and manipulative efficacy of Western discourse hegemony to unprecedented levels. Viewed from the intersecting perspectives of political economy and global communication theory, Western discourse hegemony in the digital age is by no means an accidental product of the natural evolution of digital technology; rather, it is a composite manifestation of the logic of global capital expansion and Western ideological export demands in the digital era.
1. Domain Generalization: Systemic Expansion from Political Discourse to All-Domain Digital Discourse
The generalization of domains in Western discourse hegemony during the digital era is its core evolutionary path for maintaining the hegemonic order by relying on digital technology to break through traditional discourse boundaries. The essence of this evolution is reflected in the systemic expansion and deep spread of Western discourse penetration from the traditional single political sphere to non-traditional security fields such as the economy, ecology, and technology. After World War II, the West, taking "liberal democracy" ideology as its core, constructed the discourse framework of "the end of history" [3] and implemented unidimensional institutional exports to regions such as Latin America and Africa by means of international financial institutions and transnational media. However, these institutional exports failed to achieve expected governance outcomes. Instead, following events like the "Arab Spring," they triggered problems of governance failure, such as the fragmentation of regimes and disorder in governance systems in certain regions, profoundly exposing the internal tension between their discourse framework and actual governance needs.
More importantly, faced with the dual trend of the sustained decline in the global credibility of Western political discourse and the steady rise in international recognition of the Chinese path, Western hegemonic powers have begun to accelerate the process of domain expansion for discourse hegemony in the digital age. Their core demand lies in maintaining their advantageous position in the global governance system by reconstructing the discourse rules of global digital space. First, in the political sphere, Western hegemonic powers use digital social platforms as carriers to package ideological discourses like "liberal democracy" as "digital universal values." They then use the targeted push mechanisms of algorithmic technology to continuously push discourse content such as "the end of history" and "democratic standard theory" into global digital space. In discourse construction involving non-Western polities, Western hegemonic powers deliberately amplify localized governance difficulties in these countries and simplistically attribute them to systemic defects. Simultaneously, Western hegemonic powers deliberately obscure their own structural contradictions, such as political polarization and social fragmentation, ultimately constructing double standards of discourse in the global digital space. Second, in the economic sphere, Western hegemonic powers frequently use digitalized discourses such as "exchange rate manipulation theory" and "overcapacity theory" as core tools. Through digital media agenda-setting and data reports from transnational think tanks, they exert public opinion pressure on the industrial policies and monetary systems of non-Western economies. This phenomenon confirms the assertion that the discourse of media imperialism often flows back to transform into a relationship of economic dominance, and further demonstrates the deep link between Western discourse hegemony and economic hegemony in the digital era. Third, in the ecological sphere, Western hegemonic powers rely on digital carriers such as digital environmental monitoring platforms and virtual ecological exhibition halls to promote double standards in ecological discourse. On one hand, Western hegemonic powers use digital technical means such as satellite remote sensing and digital model simulations to selectively amplify environmental issues in the industrialization process of non-Western countries, continuously concocting and spreading arguments in digital space such as "industrialization destroys the environment" and "resource consumption threatens the global ecology" targeted at non-Western nations. On the other hand, Western hegemonic powers deliberately avoid their own historical responsibility for carbon emissions accumulated since the Industrial Revolution. On this basis, these countries use digital visualization technology to beautify Western ecological governance achievements, ultimately alienating ecological discourse into a digital tool to restrict the industrial development of non-Western countries.
In short, the domain generalization of Western discourse hegemony in the digital era is a systemic process that takes the traditional political sphere as its foundation and then expands deeply into non-traditional security fields such as the economy and ecology. Its core logic is to utilize the cross-domain communication characteristics of digital media and enhance the penetration and influence of its discourse hegemony through multi-domain discourse synergy.
2. Technical Empowerment: Strategic Upgrade from Linguistic Rhetoric to Digital Governance Models
Regarding technical empowerment, the construction logic of Western discourse hegemony in the digital era has shifted from a traditional paradigm dominated by linguistic rhetoric to a dual-track paradigm of linguistic rhetoric and digital governance models. The key driver of this transformation lies in the fact that digital technology provides a "scientific" camouflage for Western discourse hegemony, enabling it to constantly reinforce the concealment and persuasiveness of discourse manipulation through the objective appearance of technical tools, thereby evading scrutiny of its ideological essence by non-Western groups.
At the level of constructing digital governance models, Western hegemonic powers rely on the synergy of big data collection technology and algorithmic analysis capabilities to carry out standardized definitions and quantitative translations of political concepts such as "democracy," "freedom," and "governance efficacy." These are transformed into indexed data that can be scored and ranked, forming digital discourse output tools centered on "index products." This operation is theoretically based on Robert Dahl's "seven elements for measuring democracy," spawning evaluation tools like the "Freedom House" index and "Polity IV." Although these indices use multidimensional variables and complex algorithmic models as external packaging to create an appearance of objective science, their essence is the embedding of the core values of Western hegemonic powers into the underlying logic of indicator weight distribution and data screening. In the indicator-setting phase, this is reflected in the preferential inclusion of evaluation dimensions that align with Western institutional models and value orientations; in the data-processing phase, it is reflected in the selective screening and differentiated treatment of data regarding the practical achievements of non-Western countries and regions. Its essence is to serve the instrumental construction of Western discourse hegemony in the digital era.
Taking global governance indicators as an example, although they construct comprehensive assessment frameworks around core governance dimensions, their underlying design and indicator logic have never escaped the ideological projection of Western governance views. Taking the evaluation of digital democracy-related indices as another example, China’s practical achievements in the construction of a democratic rule of law and social governance are systematically undervalued, while some countries that fell into governance disorder after the "Arab Spring" received higher scores simply because their institutional forms aligned with Western standards. This significant divergence between evaluation results and actual governance efficacy profoundly confirms that "the progressive capitalization process of the media industry is closely related to the development of the capitalist economic system and social institutions." Furthermore, this type of technical discourse production possesses a dual-layered concealment. On one hand, Western hegemonic powers use their own governance views as the sole reference, defining governance practices that fit their model as "excellent," while deliberately devaluing governance innovations from non-Western paths through technical means such as indicator weight tilting and data interpretation bias, thereby forming a global discourse trap of "path exclusivity." On the other hand, Western hegemonic powers use the technical barriers of massive databases and complex algorithms to hide the inherent value bias of the evaluation system. This approach packages the cognitive framework of Western-centrism as "objective standards" in digital space, the result of which will inevitably make it difficult for non-Western groups to perceive the essence of its discourse manipulation.
In summary, under the deep empowerment of digital technology, the core logic of Western discourse penetration in the digital era is reflected in using the "instrumental rationality" of the technical level to conceal the "value rationality" of capitalist ideology. Its fundamental intent is to accelerate the process of Western discourse manipulation shifting from traditional "explicit persuasion" to "implicit domestication." When non-Western groups encounter technical discourses such as digital indices and mathematical models, they easily fall into the illusion of "scientific cognition." Within this illusion, they unconsciously accept Western values, thereby providing implicit support for the penetration of Western discourse hegemony in the digital era.
3. Audience Down-reaching: Full-Chain Digital Penetration from Elite Circles to the General Public
The down-reaching of audiences for Western discourse hegemony in the digital era is an inevitable result of digital technology breaking traditional communication boundaries. The core of this phenomenon is the systemic extension of Western discourse penetration strategies from elite circles to the general public. Essentially, this is a strategic adjustment of Western discourse hegemony logic to adapt to changes in the communication ecosystem in the digital era. Specifically, the characteristics of digital technology—"low-threshold access and high-interaction communication"—provide technical support for Western hegemonic powers to break through traditional penetration boundaries. In this context, Western hegemonic states use various digital communication tools to shift the focus of discourse penetration Toward the general public. Their core intent is to construct a full-chain manipulation system of "cognitive deconstruction—value implantation—behavioral incitement," ultimately achieving deep influence over the general public from ideological cognition to behavioral choices, thereby attaining a full-chain, wide-coverage effect of discourse penetration.
At the cognitive deconstruction level, Western hegemonic powers use network proxy tools and anonymous accounts to target cognitive blind spots of the masses, deliberately manufacturing and widely disseminating false information such as "historical secrets" and "institutional black material." This operation often begins by distorting historical facts through digital means such as fictionalizing plots and piecing together historical fragments, and then relies on precise algorithmic pushes to form closed communication circles, constantly solidifying the cognitive biases of the public. The purpose is to fundamentally dissolve the historical rationality and institutional legitimacy of non-Western societies.
At the level of value implantation, Western hegemonic powers attempt to continue the global economic and political rule of imperialism in a concealed but more deceptive manner. Their core path is to embed Western values such as individualism and consumerism into various digital cultural products, attempting to achieve value domestication of the masses through the implicit dissemination of digital platforms. Specifically, in digital games, Western hegemonic powers use plot settings to weaken the value of collective collaboration and deliberately strengthen a narrative orientation of "individual heroism." On short-video platforms, Western hegemonic powers take the "display of Western lifestyles" as core content, relying on precise algorithmic pushes to enhance the public's psychological identification with consumerism. During the process of consuming digital entertainment, audiences often accept Western values in an unconscious state, thereby gradually weakening their identification with and adherence to local value systems.
At the level of behavioral incitement, Western hegemonic powers utilize the interactivity and spreadability of digital social platforms to carry out continuous stigmatization, smearing, and slander against non-Western development models through extreme digital metaphors such as "institutional walls" and "deprivation of rights." Meanwhile, Western hegemonic powers use means such as digital topic creation, manipulation of trending search lists, and coordination of "water army" [4] accounts to deliberately incite antagonistic emotions among young groups in digital space. They also use encrypted social software to secretly transmit offline action instructions, promoting the transformation of "digital discourse" into "real-world action," attempting to use digital mass power to shake the stable foundations of non-Western societies.
The three elements mentioned above are interlinked, constituting a full-chain control system of Western discourse hegemony in the digital age. Its essence lies in the attempt by Western hegemonic states to use digital technology to compete for global cultural hegemony, thereby transforming capital-driven values into the "common-sense perception" of the masses, achieving deep-seated control over non-Western societies. This manifestation further highlights the strong permeability and high peril of Western discourse hegemony in the digital era.
4. Multidimensional Collusion: From Government-Led to the Collaborative Operation of Diverse Digital Subjects
The construction of Western discourse hegemony in the digital age has broken through the single-subject dominated model, forming a digital collusion system characterized by deep linkages between governments, academia, social organizations, and transnational local-technology capital.
At the government level in the digital age, the governments of Western hegemonic states are the core leaders and behind-the-scenes drivers of discourse hegemony, providing the foundation for the synergy of diverse subjects. Looking at the strategic practice of the United States, its National Cyber Strategy released by the Department of Defense in 2018 was the first complete national-level cyber strategy document released in 15 years. This strategy lists maintaining absolute US leadership in the digital realm and promoting Western digital values globally as core objectives, building an all-round system for competing for cyberspace dominance and highlighting the systematic layout of the US regarding hegemony in the digital field. The European Union, meanwhile, uses the "Digital Europe Programme" as its core leverage to advance its digital hegemony agenda; this program is the EU's central funding project for digital transformation, focusing on key digital fields such as high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and semiconductors. The Digital Europe Programme 2025–2027 Work Programme released by the EU in 2025 further refined the strategic path, explicitly binding the "digital sovereignty" agenda to the export of Western values. Through institutionalized measures such as formulating unified digital communication standards that align with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), funding multilingual digital content production, and building European data spaces, it has formed a governance system where technical layout and value penetration advance in synergy, thereby systematically promoting the global diffusion of Western digital governance concepts and technical standards. This top-level design not only defines the core topics and action boundaries of discourse practice for academia, social organizations, and technology capital but also ensures that the behaviors of these diverse subjects serve the overall hegemonic demands of Western countries.
In the academic field of the digital age, Western academia exhibits a significant discursive bias, forming an academic screening mechanism that serves its hegemonic logic. For example, critical research targeting the digital expansion of neoliberalism is marginalized because it deviates from the mainstream Western discursive stance. Such results not only struggle to enter core digital academic journals like the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) but even encounter traffic restrictions and dissemination suppression on digital academic forums. Conversely, research that caters to Western hegemonic logic can be widely disseminated through digital academic platforms, transnational think tank reports, and other channels, thereby forming a "positive" cycle of "academic discourse production—digital platform diffusion—hegemonic logic reinforcement."
At the level of social organizations in the digital age, non-governmental organizations in Western hegemonic states often use "digital public welfare" and "technical empowerment" as discursive cloaks, relying on global digital communication platforms to implement covert discursive penetration. On the one hand, through institutionalized measures such as funding non-Western indigenous digital NGOs and hosting transnational digital governance forums, they package and disseminate Western-dominated digital governance standards as "universal," building an exclusive discursive consensus. On the other hand, some Western social organizations rely on technical evaluation tools such as "digital human rights indices" and "digital freedom indices" to pressure non-Western countries' digital governance practices via rankings. Once a non-Western economy deviates from their preset standards, social organizations in Western hegemonic states link up with digital media to launch public opinion attacks, forming a complete chain of "social organization standard output—digital index pressure—media public opinion criticism." Consequently, "mass communication has now become a pillar of the emerging US empire. 'Made in USA' messages circulate globally, functioning as the nerve center for US national power and expansionism."
At the level of transnational technology capital, tech giants such as Apple, Google, and Meta have formed deep digital synergy with the governments of Western hegemonic states. These tech giants assist Western hegemonic states in accurately judging the cognitive characteristics and receptivity preferences of non-Western audiences by opening user digital behavior data interfaces to governments and sharing algorithmic analysis resources. This collaborative partnership between state power and capital technology has significantly increased the targeting and efficiency of Western discursive manipulation and has become an important technical support for Western hegemonic states to implement discourse hegemony expansion in the digital era. Furthermore, mainstream digital media in Western hegemonic states create cognitive biases through means such as selective presentation of facts and the reconstruction of digital narratives. Meanwhile, the mutual flow of resources—between research data from academic institutions, index reports from social organizations, and platform algorithms from technology capital—further strengthens the systematic nature and penetrative power of digital discourse collusion, ultimately causing Western discourse hegemony in the digital age to form an inescapable "digital closed loop." The essence of this multidimensional collusion is the concrete expression of the centralization of power in the realm of discourse in the digital age; its core purpose is to suppress the dissemination of non-Western discourse through all-dimensional network control, thereby maintaining the dominant position of the West in the global order.
In summary, the aforementioned four-dimensional architecture of Western discourse hegemony in the digital era has become a new manifestation of the global expansion of Western ideology. These manifestations of hegemony are by no means the product of the natural evolution of digital technology, but rather the extension of the capitalist mode of production in the digital age. They are both a manifestation of the demand for the global expansion of capital and a concrete expression of the demand for Western ideological export. Their intent is to achieve control over the global cognitive realm through digital media, maintain the dominant position of Western hegemonic states in the field of global ideology, and ultimately serve the ultimate demand for the infinite valorization of capital.
II. The Operating System of Western Discourse Hegemony in the Digital Era
As a practical form of spiritual power, the power of discourse is essentially the realistic influence formed by a specific group through discursive practice. In this process, the power of discourse—loaded with the interests of a specific group—can only be generated when the discursive content presented via material carriers gains the recognition of the audience. Therefore, this process is an organic combination of soft power, hard power, and "recognition power." Examining it according to this logic, one finds that the core of the operation of Western discourse hegemony in the digital age lies in using digital technology as a link to deeply couple cultural packaging, technical monopoly, and cognitive discipline, thereby building a discourse operation system that serves the global expansion of capital.
1. Systematic Packaging of Social Culture: Forming a Discourse System Adapted to the Digital Age
Discourse "means a process in which a social group communicates its meaning within society based on certain conventions, thereby establishing its social status and being recognized by other groups." In this sense, the generation of discourse power is essentially a dynamic process in which a specific social group, through the construction of social-cultural meaning, transforms its own interests into a general social consensus and, on this basis, establishes cultural leadership and social dominance. Proceeding from this logic, Western hegemonic states in the digital age are precisely using the deep empowerment of digital technology to upgrade the presentation of their social culture from "theoretical narrative" to "digital concretization." This discourse transformation strategy not only lays a legitimate theoretical foundation for the systematic operation of Western discourse hegemony in the digital age but also, by weakening the explicit characteristics of ideological penetration, effectively reduces the defensiveness and resistance of non-Western societies toward external discourse, ultimately making Western hegemonic penetration more covert and deceptive.
First, Western hegemonic nations use the abstract packaging of "universal values" and the empowerment of digital communication to shape a "naturally rational" theoretical perception. From the perspective of historical materialism, whether the spiritual values of a social culture meet the objective requirements of human existence and development is the fundamental prerequisite for determining the rationality and legitimacy of discourse power. However, Western hegemonic states in the digital age—through forms such as precision algorithmic pushes and the construction of digital content matrices—continuously package capitalist derivative values such as "individualism" and "freedom of contract" into a social-cultural system that "conforms to human nature." The purpose of this operation is to replace Marx’s scientific conclusion that "the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual; in its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations," thereby providing social-cultural theoretical support for the rationality and legitimacy of their discourse hegemony. In the process of digital communication, when wage labor is packaged as a "free choice" market behavior, the alienated relationship between capital and labor is naturalized into the appearance of an "equal transaction." When the specific logic of capital expansion is disguised as "universal values," its exploitative essence is systematically obscured within the mist of digital discourse. Ultimately, these abstracted and absolutized concepts of value constitute the spiritual value and theoretical cornerstone of Western discourse hegemony in the digital age, and they also serve as ideological tools for the global expansion of capital power.
Second, Western hegemonic states rely on cross-disciplinary theoretical collusion and the support of digital academic platforms to build a logically self-consistent theoretical system for Western digital discourse hegemony. Whether the theoretical starting point of a social culture can form a systematic and logically self-consistent theoretical system directly determines the logical rigor and explanatory stability of discourse power. After establishing the theoretical starting point of "natural rights" [5], Western hegemonic states have built a theoretical system adapted to the digital age through cross-disciplinary collusion. For example, Western philosophy and social sciences use philosophical speculation to solidify the ethical foundation of free will, use neoclassical economic models to demonstrate market "Pareto optimality," and then rely on social organization theory to build a framework for representative democracy, finally forming a layer-by-layer closed-loop theoretical system in fields such as law and political science. Entering the digital age, Western hegemonic states further take digital academic platforms like the SSCI as support, continuously reinforcing core viewpoints such as "market optimality" and "representative democracy" through algorithmic recommendations. In digital platform communication, when economics classifies capital accumulation as the "natural result of factor endowments," when political science beautifies interest group gambling as "democratic vitality," and when sociology attributes class stratification to "differences in individual ability," the original division of labor among disciplines degenerates into a discursive barrier obscuring the essence of capital. This practice of bestowing a "rationalized" and "scientific" exterior upon capitalism is exactly the ideological operation criticized by Marx and Engels in The German Ideology: "giving its ideas the form of universality, and representing them as the only rational, universally valid ones." Its core purpose is to provide solid theoretical support for Western discourse hegemony in the digital era.
Finally, relying on the surface presentation of "scientificity" and digital life-oriented communication, Western hegemonic states promote the transformation of their own social culture into an everyday discourse system. For any discourse to truly take root, it must transform abstract theory into everyday expressions that the audience can perceive, accept, and disseminate. Although the Western transformation of discourse in the digital age superficially conforms to this general law, its practical process hides a carefully designed logic of manipulation, achieving a subtle transition from the general laws of discourse dissemination to the specific operation of discourse hegemony. Specifically, Western hegemonic states first perform a "de-historicization" of their own culture, severing the intrinsic link between culture and specific social relations, and then use digital media to carry out a "de-politicized" rhetorical construction. For example, the expression "injustice in resource distribution," which has a clear political-economic orientation, is reconstructed into the neutralized "development gap" and high-frequency core discourse symbols like "efficiency first" are implanted through digital communication forms such as short video pushes and social platform topic operations. In the realm of historical perception, the violent history of "colonial plunder" is beautified as the "spread of civilization," and then widely disseminated through carriers such as documentaries and short posts on social platforms, with algorithmic recommendations used to amplify the narrative of "Western civilization leading development." This operating link allows the theoretical propositions of Western hegemonic states to bypass the stage of rational demonstration, achieving a deep penetration from abstract theory to digital everyday discourse, and finally completing the "localization" of discourse hegemony into daily life.
2. Capitalized Monopoly of Communication Carriers: Building a Communication System Adapted to the Digital Age
Western hegemonic states, led by the United States, still possess strong international discourse power today, not because of the advanced nature of their systems or models, but by virtue of the "first-mover advantage" formed during global capital accumulation. They centrally possess and control the core carriers of international discourse dissemination, thereby establishing a digital communication system adapted to the interests of capitalism, and continuously consolidating their discourse hegemony in both spiritual and material dimensions.
First, Western hegemonic states achieve the capitalized concentration of digital media by virtue of their economic advantages.
“No emergence or development of science and technology can escape the social interests formed by social life in the process of coercive reproduction; the same is true of internet communication technology.” Relying on their substantial economic strength, Western hegemonic states have formed a monopolistic accumulation of resources in the field of digital communication, constructing a dual hegemony of “content supply and platform control.” At the level of content supply, as early as the 1970s, 80% of the international news used by media worldwide was provided by the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. To this day, these agencies remain the primary information sources for global digital news. This means that content produced by Western hegemonic states can achieve instantaneous global distribution through various digital platforms, thereby becoming the “agenda-setters” of international public opinion. At the level of platform control, digital platforms dominated by the capital of Western hegemonic states have formed an oligopolistic pattern. From social networks to video streaming, the core entry points for traffic are all controlled by a few Western media enterprises. This centralized trend in the ownership of media carriers ensures that the channels of international discourse communication in the digital era are firmly held in the hands of Western hegemonic states.
Secondly, Western hegemonic states utilize linguistic advantages to deeply embed themselves within digital communication carriers. The Rubik’s Cube of future world politics will be controlled by those who possess information power; they will use their network control and information dissemination rights, along with the powerful cultural and linguistic advantage of English, to achieve goals that violence and money cannot conquer. This linguistic advantage is not a simple cultural phenomenon, but an important material carrier of Western discourse hegemony in the digital era. On the global internet, 90% of information is presented in English, and 80% of that originates from the United States. This data reflects the monopolistic status of English in the core links of digital carriers. For example, the underlying architectures of mainstream global communication platforms such as Google, Meta, and YouTube are all based on English semantic logic. This implies that Western discourse-hegemonic states prioritizes the pushing of English information, while non-English content must undergo secondary processing—such as translation and semantic adaptation—before it can be disseminated internationally. This greatly weakens the discursive efficacy of non-Western countries and regions at the source. Consequently, by binding language to digital carriers, Western hegemonic states can easily control international digital public opinion, forcing non-Western discourse into a dilemma of “passive response” or even “aphasia” [6].
Finally, Western hegemonic states rely on their generational advantages to form monopolistic control over global digital media carriers. Although media forms have shown a certain democratic trend within the overall development of informatization, the power to control and manipulate media has always remained in the hands of developed capitalist countries. The core mechanism for achieving this lies in Western hegemonic states using “technical security” as a cloak of legitimacy. Through “small yard, high fence” [7] technical barriers and exclusive blocs like the “Five Eyes Alliance” and the “Chip 4 Alliance,” they restrict key technologies—such as digital platform architectures, AI algorithm models, and cross-border data protocols—within the Western camp. Thus, the digital carriers widely used by developing countries, such as Meta platforms and Google Search, are all deeply dependent on Western-led technical architectures. This directly leads developing countries into a structural dependence at the technical level. The result is that developing countries find it difficult to independently research and develop core digital carriers and lack the ability to participate in the iteration of cutting-edge technologies; they can only passively follow the digital communication frameworks formulated by the West, losing the autonomous right to digital discourse at the technical source.
3. The Concealed Shaping of Audience Identity: Constructing an Identity System Adapted to the Digital Era
Marx noted: “The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth—i.e., the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice.” [8] However, the operating system of Western discourse hegemony in the digital era specifically deprives audiences of the power to “test truth through practice” [9] via digital technical means. This deprivation becomes a key link in the effective operation of its discourse hegemony system, ultimately achieving digital manipulation of the audience’s identity system.
First is digital cognitive indexing in the field of education. Cognitive indexing in the digital era is no longer limited to traditional financial cooperation between universities and enterprises; rather, it constructs a closed loop of “standard monopoly and path dependence” through digital academic carriers. On the one hand, Western hegemonic states rely on carriers such as SSCI journal digital platforms and multinational think tank databases to embed the demands of capital expansion into academic evaluation systems. For example, in the field of digital economy research, Western academic platforms use keyword weight settings and peer-review preference guidance to ensure that topics aligning with the logic of capital—such as the “free market” and “private property rights”—gain an advantage in publication. Correspondingly, issues of concern to non-Western societies, such as “digital sovereignty” and “data justice,” are marginalized. On the other hand, the world’s major academic databases (such as Web of Science and JSTOR) are primarily operated by Western enterprises. Non-Western scholars can only obtain recognition and dissemination opportunities for their results by following digital academic norms set by the West. This means that as young scholars use these academic tools, they unconsciously form a path dependence on Western discourse paradigms, and their cognitive patterns gradually become solidified into a mindset where “Western standards equal academic correctness.”
Second is digital cognitive infiltration in the cultural field. Western cultural infiltration in the digital era has broken through the one-way communication of traditional film and television media, upgrading to an immersive operating system of “digital content production, algorithmic precision pushing, and virtual scene experience.” In digital cinema (such as the Iron Man series), Western hegemonic states use digital special effects to reinforce core narratives of “technology saving the world” and “private capital dominating public security.” Building on this, Western hegemonic states rely on the algorithmic recommendation mechanisms of mainstream media platforms to precisely push such content to non-Western youth groups based on user profiling, thereby achieving precise targeted communication. Meanwhile, in virtual social scenes, Western hegemonic states construct “model homes for the Western lifestyle,” deeply embedding Western core values such as “liberalism,” “individualism,” and “consumerism” into the narrative and interaction logic of virtual social settings. This value transformation is not a one-dimensional output in the traditional sense; rather, it relies on the strong interactivity, immersive experience, and sense of situational presence unique to virtual socialization. This greatly lowers the threshold for dissemination and resistance to acceptance, allowing non-Western audiences to imperceptibly accept Western value orientations during daily experiences like virtual identity construction and social interaction, thereby achieving a concealed and highly efficient ideological infiltration. The purpose of this infiltration is not to conquer territory or control economic life, but to conquer and control the hearts and minds of people. The empowerment of digital technology makes the Western society's “conquest of the soul” more concealed and penetrating, further strengthening the effect of Western cultural infiltration.
Finally, there is digital cognitive guidance in the social sphere. Audiences in the digital era often understand reality and shape their own behavior through the virtual pictures constructed by the media; that is, “we are told what the world looks like before we see it.” Relying on this law of communication and with the help of algorithmic pushing technology, Western hegemonic states implement precise and systematic manipulation of global social cognition. One method is conducting targeted cognitive screening through information cocoons [10]. Based on the analysis of user digital behavior data, Western hegemonic states precisely push digital news and short videos that conform to the logic of capital—such as the “efficiency of the free market” and the “superiority of private ownership”—while suppressing heterogeneous discourses such as the “digital divide” or “critiques of capital monopoly” through traffic restriction or blocking, continuously solidifying the cognitive bias of the audience. A second method is the manipulation of digital public opinion to create a false consensus. On mainstream digital platforms like X and Facebook, Western hegemonic states amplify Western discourse through “trending topic placement” and “coordinated bot accounts,” packaging localized opinions as a “global majority consensus.” Thus, when non-Western audiences are in a pseudo-environment [11] constructed by algorithms, they gradually come to default to Western capitalist discourse as “objective fact.” Consequently, the logic of capital degenerates from a “systemic existence” of a specific historical stage into “digital common sense” that permeates daily cognitive processing, ultimately achieving deep digital manipulation of the non-Western social identity system.
In summary, Western discourse hegemony in the digital era has formed a systematic operating system with digital technology as the core link, whose evolution always resonates with the global expansion of capital. This system takes the packaging of Western interests in “universalist” theory as its logical premise, relies on monopolistic control of digital communication carriers, and then penetrates deeply into the cognitive field of the audience through digital cognitive indexing mechanisms. The essence of this progressive operating system is a new type of carrier for ideological colonization by Western hegemonic states in the digital era. Its core purpose is to achieve control over the global cognitive domain via digital media, ultimately serving the ultimate demand for the infinite expansion of capital. This discourse hegemony not only consolidates the hegemonic position of the West in the global communication system but also fundamentally distorts the development-related cognitive frameworks of non-Western societies, becoming a deep structural shackle that maintains the global unequal order and hinders the autonomous, sustainable development of developing countries. To respond to and break this discourse hegemony system, China urgently needs to carry out systematic construction across the dimensions of theoretical autonomy, technological sovereignty, and communication innovation.
III. The Chinese Response to Western Discourse Hegemony in the Digital Era
On the basis of profoundly revealing the operating system of Western discourse hegemony in the digital era, contemporary China must strive to proceed from the three underlying logics regarding the operation of the right to speak—the discourse system, the communication system, and the identity system. China must form a discourse system where “reason can be explained,” break through the communication barriers where “what is said cannot be spread,” and solve the identity dilemma where “what is spread does not resonate,” thereby providing a systematic solution for breaking through Western discourse hegemony.
1. Theoretical Breakthrough: Constructing an Independent Knowledge System of Philosophy and Social Sciences to Enhance the Right to Speak
General Secretary Xi Jinping has clearly pointed out: “The foundation supporting a discourse system is the system of philosophy and social sciences. Without our own system of philosophy and social sciences, we have no right to speak.” Accelerating the construction of philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics is, in the final analysis, the construction of China’s independent knowledge system. In this regard, China in the digital era needs to use digital technology as a support to build an independent discourse system that integrates the “digital inheritance of cultural genes, the digital extraction of practical experience, and the digital dissemination of value positions.” Based on China's unique history and culture, it should use the “Two Combinations” [12] to scientifically and rationally interpret China's current historical practices, finally achieving a discourse confidence where “reason can be spoken.”
First, rely on digital carriers to promote the digital transformation of Chinese civilization’s genes to achieve subjective autonomy. Subjective autonomy is the logical starting point for constructing an independent knowledge system of Chinese philosophy and social sciences. As General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: “History follows its own laws, but people are not completely passive in its course.” This means that workers in philosophy and social sciences must use digital tools as a support to continuously promote the creative transformation and innovative development of fine traditional Chinese culture. On the one hand, full use should be made of international digital communication platforms to transform core concepts of fine traditional Chinese culture—such as “the people as the foundation of the state” (民为邦本) and “Great Unity under Heaven” (天下大同)—into interactive and communicable digital content forms, thereby aiding the international dissemination of Chinese culture. On the other hand, in digital discourse expression, we must adhere to the autonomous consciousness that “we Chinese must think with our own heads,” uphold a research orientation that highlights the Chinese path, Chinese governance, and Chinese logic, and rely on interdisciplinary digital collaborative platforms to promote the deep collision, integration, and innovation of various disciplines in digital space, thereby constructing a digital discourse system with Chinese characteristics, Chinese style, and Chinese spirit.
Second, use digital technology to extract original theoretical results from Chinese-path modernization to achieve content autonomy. In essence, knowledge in philosophy and social sciences is a reflection of social existence. Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process. This means that philosophy and social science workers should take current practical work as their starting point. On the one hand, technologies such as big data analysis and algorithmic modeling can be used to conduct quantitative research on practices such as the battle against poverty, common prosperity, and whole-process people’s democracy. For example, through geographic information systems...
Visualizing the regional collaborative outcomes of poverty alleviation through Geographic Information Systems (GIS) or extracting public feedback from grassroots practices of whole-process people's democracy via public opinion analysis algorithms transforms concrete practices into demonstrable and communicable digital theoretical materials. On the other hand, relying on digital tools such as landmark concept databases and theoretical map-plotting systems, we can extract the digital connotations of landmark concepts like "new quality productive forces" and the "new form of human civilization" [13] from the practical experience of Chinese-path modernization. This serves to break the digital discourse monopoly held by the West over concepts such as "modernization" and "democracy."
Finally, by relying on digital technological means and grounding ourselves in a people-centered value position, we must persist in value autonomy. The essence of value autonomy in the digital age is to use digital technology to accurately respond to the people's cultural needs and demonstrate the "people-oriented" character of Chinese theory. Facing the upgrade in the masses' demands from "material satisfaction" to "spiritual enrichment," philosophy and social science workers must use digital tools to build a bridge between theory and the public. This involves capturing the public's real-world concerns regarding cultural heritage, social governance, and fairness and justice in real-time through digital questionnaires, social media public opinion analysis, and AI demand forecasting. It also requires strengthening value resonance through digital communication, transforming the people-centered development philosophy into tangible, empathetic, and communicable content. We must consistently use the standard of "whether the people support, distract, are happy with, or agree to it" [14] as the fundamental measure for the digital communication of theory. This criterion not only highlights the people-oriented color of the autonomous knowledge system of Chinese philosophy and social sciences but also constructs a digital discourse advantage at the value level that is distinct from Western capital logic, thereby fortifying the value foundation for dismantling Western digital discourse hegemony.
2. Technological Breakthrough: Utilizing New Quality Productive Forces to Enhance China’s International Discourse Power in the New Era
Under the historical backdrop where the "changes unseen in a century" [15] intersect with the digital revolution, enhancing China's international discourse power requires both constructing a theoretical system that is "reasonable and articulable" and building a technological foundation that ensures what is "articulated can be disseminated." Although China currently possesses a preliminary material foundation and practical conditions, the monopoly of media technology held by developed Western countries remains a key factor restricting the enhancement of China’s international discourse power. Therefore, while seizing the historical opportunities of the new round of scientific and technological revolution, we must fully utilize new quality productive forces to improve the material support for the dissemination of Chinese discourse, thereby breaking the media technology monopoly of Western digital hegemony.
First, achieve strategic support for the digital communication system through breakthroughs in core technologies. Technological autonomy is the prerequisite for breaking through Western digital discourse hegemony because "without an advantage in core technology, there can be no strength in politics." Therefore, we must "grasp the 'ox's nose' [16] of autonomous innovation in key digital core technologies, give play to the advantages of our country's socialist system, the new-type whole-of-nation system, and the ultra-large-scale market, improve basic R&D capabilities in digital technology, win the battle for key core technologies, and achieve high-level self-reliance and self-strengthening as soon as possible." Given the characteristics of the digital era, the communication system can be advanced in three ways: first, focus on "chokepoint" [17] areas for concentrated research, achieving breakthroughs in high-end chips, AI recommendation algorithms, and cross-border data transmission protocols to ensure the secure transmission of Chinese discourse in digital carriers; second, construct an "integrated innovation mechanism" spanning "basic research—technological development—communication scenario application," converting technological breakthroughs into communication efficiency; third, use autonomous technology to build a security barrier for communication, developing anti-tampering and anti-attack digital communication technologies to prevent Western countries from suppressing Chinese discourse through technical means, thereby building a solid "technological moat" for the digital communication system.
Second, foster the competitiveness of the digital communication system through industrial collaborative innovation. The generation and maintenance of Western discourse hegemony in the digital era is, in essence, a three-dimensional synergy of "technology + capital + industry." This means China needs to continuously strengthen the core competitiveness of its autonomous communication system through industrial synergy. On one hand, by optimizing the layout of industrial digitalization, we should cultivate leading digital media enterprises with international competitiveness and create industrial clusters characterized by "technology driving—content innovation—global channel expansion." On the other hand, by innovating industrial profit models of "Cultural IP + Digital Technology," we can promote Chinese stories as international digital communication products. For example, Ne Zha [18] achieved a win-win for cultural and commercial value by deeply integrating Eastern aesthetics with digital special effects. Furthermore, relying on our industrial advantages, we should actively participate in the formulation of global digital media communication standards and promote the internationalization of digital communication standards to gradually break the Western monopoly over digital communication rules.
Finally, construct an equal and open global communication landscape by optimizing the public attributes of digital media. The essence of media is a public carrier that connects society, transmits information, and promotes consensus; its core value lies in guaranteeing the public's equal right to access information and express discourse. However, Western hegemonic states have alienated digital media into tools for capital profit-seeking and carriers of discourse hegemony, resulting in a severe imbalance in the global communication landscape. In this context, China must use new quality productive forces as support to actively promote the construction of public attributes in the digital communication system and create an inclusive ecosystem for international digital communication. On one hand, we must break through the Western logic of "technology = capital tool" and construct a "technology for the public good" digital communication foundation. On the other hand, relying on the "Digital Silk Road," we should cooperate with developing countries to build cross-border fiber optics, satellite communication networks, and regional digital content platforms. This measure, while gradually breaking the Western-led centralized communication system, empowers developing countries with the right to participate equally in the production and dissemination of global digital discourse, thereby promoting the transformation of the international communication order from an unequal "center-periphery" structure toward a fair and reasonable direction, ultimately disintegrating the basis for Western discourse hegemony at the ecological level of communication.
3. Communication Innovation: Implementing Precise International Communication Strategies to Enhance International Recognition of Chinese Discourse
Based on grasping the mechanism of discourse power generation, constructing an autonomous knowledge system and empowering the upgrade of the communication system through new quality productive forces provides an internal structural guarantee for the effective dissemination of Chinese discourse. To leap from structural guarantee to actual recognition, the key lies in implementing a precise communication strategy. Specifically, relying on digital technology and following the logic of "who speaks, what is said, and how it is said," we must optimize the subjects of communication, refine the content, and innovate the methods to ensure China's voice spreads widely, quickly, and accurately, thereby effectively breaking through the Western monopoly on the "digital cognitive field."
First, accelerate the formation of multi-subject synergy empowered by digital technology to construct a digital communication network for Chinese discourse resonance. Currently, China must "promote the restructuring of the international communication landscape, deepen the reform and innovation of the international communication mechanisms of mainstream media, and accelerate the construction of a multi-channel, three-dimensional external communication pattern." This means digital platforms must be used to break the boundaries of communication subjects and build a multi-layered resonance system. First, upgrade the digital communication capabilities of official entities. Multi-modal data charts and real-life Vlogs can be used to visualize core issues such as the achievements of the Belt and Road Initiative; AI multi-language real-time translation can achieve instantaneous and accurate transmission of official discourse to various linguistic regions, further consolidating the digital foundation of authoritative official discourse. Second, deepen the digital participation effectiveness of non-governmental organizations. For instance, in response to false narratives from Western NGOs, industry associations and other organizations can rapidly release empirical materials such as workers' payroll records and environmental testing reports via digital platforms, linking with overseas grassroots accounts to form a "chain of evidence" that effectively eliminates cognitive bias in Western society. Third, activate the digital voice of folk subjects. By building a "Digital Co-creation Platform for Chinese Stories," we can attract digital enterprises, international students, and overseas Chinese to participate in content production, using algorithms for precise recommendation to reach target audiences, ultimately forming a digital communication matrix characterized by multi-subject synergy and comprehensive coverage.
Second, use digital technology to precisely match audience needs and build personalized recognition based on user profiling. To enhance the recognition of Chinese discourse in the digital age, we must fully consider the differentiated needs of audiences in different countries and regions. We must "work hard on constructing an external communication discourse system, work hard on making it acceptable and easy to understand, so that more foreign audiences can hear it, take it in, and understand it, continuously improving the effectiveness of external communication." In other words, digital technology is the key support for breaking through the "information cocoons" [19] that block Chinese discourse. First, construct refined digital audience profiles. Relying on cross-border digital survey tools, we can systematically collect the core concerns of audiences in different regions—such as the demand for modernization paths in developing countries, concerns about climate change in European and American countries, and poverty reduction aspirations in Latin America. The data-driven segmentation of user profiles provides the foundation for the content of Chinese discourse. Second, utilize algorithmic precise content delivery. For different profiled groups, customized content is delivered via autonomously developed recommendation algorithms. For example, short videos of China's county-level digital economic transformation can be pushed to developing countries; live-streamed explanations of Chinese new energy technologies under the "Dual Carbon" goals can be sent to European and American audiences; and digital reports combining Chinese poverty reduction experience with local Latin American practices can be targeted to that region. In short, by achieving a precise fit between communication content and audience needs, we can avoid cognitive biases and misunderstandings caused by cultural differences and continuously enhance the international acceptance and emotional resonance of Chinese discourse.
Finally, seize the initiative in international agenda-setting in the digital age to occupy the high ground of discourse. In the context of digital technology's deep penetration into international communication, the core essence of seizing the initiative in agenda-setting lies in using digital technology to break the long-standing Western monopoly over agendas. This demand dictates that China should construct a two-dimensional discourse strategy of "critical deconstruction and constructive reconstruction." In the dimension of critical deconstruction, empirical digitalization should be the core to debunk false propositions concerning China. For example, regarding various fallacies and false statements about China, we should systematically build a multi-dimensional "fact database," using data visualization to transform core facts into easily communicable digital forms like dynamic charts and comparison videos, and use the precise delivery mechanisms of international social media to break through the "information cocoons" of truth obscured by Western algorithms. In the dimension of constructive reconstruction, digital carriers should be used to innovate the presentation of "civilizational dialogue" agendas. Chinese concepts and practices, such as the Global Development Initiative and digital governance solutions, can be transformed into concrete digital products like "Digital Poverty Reduction Case Studies" and "Ecological Governance VR Panoramas," reaching audiences through multi-language algorithmic recommendations. The essence of this strategy is a digital transcendence of the traditional "logic of self-justification." It can effectively dissolve the existential basis of Western digital discourse hegemony while promoting the construction of an international discourse recognition system in the digital age, helping Chinese discourse upgrade from "local knowledge" to a "digital narrative" with universal consensus, and finally realizing a paradigm shift from "passive response" to "active leading."
In summary, China's strategy for promoting the transformation of international discourse toward a landscape of pluralistic co-governance and fairness is primarily reflected in three areas: constructing an autonomous philosophy and social science knowledge system to provide a "reasonable" theoretical foundation; developing new quality productive forces to build "communicable" material support; and implementing precise international communication strategies to create a "resonant" practical path. The synergistic advancement of these three elements will help contemporary China break through the enclosure and suppression of Western discourse and lay a solid foundation for the global dissemination and recognition of the new form of human civilization.
Affiliation: School of Marxism, East China University of Science and Technology
Source: Marxism Studies (马克思主义研究), Issue 1, 2026
Editor: Huihui