The purpose of this BA-study is to analyse articles about blood selling and blood donations in the Chinese daily newspaper People’s Daily between 1985 and 1998.

With publications of popular scientific material, reports from rallies and portraits of blood donating “heroes” etc., the People’s Daily, i.e. the Chinese Com­mu­nist Party, actively addresses the underlying cultural reluctance to give blood by different means. People’s Daily and the CCP resolutely aims to transform negative Confucian and other traditional notions of losing blood into represen­tations of courage, honour, duty, etc. In a broader sense, the citizen’s donations become acts correlated to the social body and the nation’s future.