Study On The Coverage About The Stilwell Incident In Central Daily News(1942-1946)

In December 1941,a cannon shot shattered the tranquility of the Pacific coast,and the United States officially declared war on Japan.The outbreak of the Pacific War gave the Nationalist government hope for a joint war and actively sought an alliance with the United States and Britain to form an international anti-fascist front.U.S.President Roosevelt called Chiang Kai-shek and proposed the establishment of the Supreme Allied Command in the China Theater and assigned Lieutenant Joseph Stilwell as the Chief of General Staff,Supreme Commander of the China Theater,to assist Chiang Kai-shek in commanding the China-Burma-India Theater.However,in the process of seeking cooperation,the conflict with Chiang Kai-shek was eventually intensified for many reasons,which in turn affected the Sino-American relations and the changing situation in the world at that time.Starting with the Stilwell affair,this paper takes the reports of the Central Daily News,the only official newspaper of the Kuomintang at the time,as the object of study,divides the reports into two stages: Stilwell’s presence in China and his departure from China,and uses statistical analysis and frame analysis to construct the categories of reports and analyze the structure at three levels: high,medium,and low,in turn.It further explores how the official media reported major diplomatic events,examines what characteristics characterize the presentation of their media texts,how the national government’s attitudes and positions in the face of major diplomatic events were expressed through different propaganda strategies,and the specific factors that caused the changes in the reporting frames.The first chapter of this paper introduces the background and problems of the selected topic,summarizes the shortcomings of current research,and elaborates on the research ideas and methods.Chapter 2 reviews the establishment of the Central Daily News and the Central Daily News during the war period.Chapter 3 presents a descriptive analysis of the reports related to the Stilwell incident in the Central Daily News,based on which a structural analysis of the high,middle and low levels of the reports is conducted using the framework theory to further explore the expression techniques of the reports.Chapter 4 further summarizes the contents analyzed in Chapter 3,summarizes the characteristics of the reports at two different stages,and explores their reporting strategies.Chapter 5 follows the previous combing and summarizes the factors affecting the reporting framework in the context of the historical era,and Chapter 6 concludes the whole paper.The study finds that during Stilwell’s stay in China,the Central Daily News focused on the China-Burma-India war,characterized by more positive propaganda on the China-Burma-India battlefield,focusing on the movements of the British and American allies,and promoting friendship with the Great Nations;the choice of reports made clever use of multiple sources to implicitly express the official position.The reports during the period away from China centered on comprehensive social topics,and was characterized mostly by a firm control of the dominant discourse to move public opinion in a favorable direction,with a strong focus on attitudes toward the U.S.Far East issue and changes in policy toward China.The changes in its reporting framework were closely related to the management and control of the media by the Nationalist government.The special wartime background made it necessary for the reports to take the interests of the party and the state as the highest principle,and to achieve the purpose of foreign propaganda in a highly conglomerate press system in response to the will of the ruler Chiang Kai-shek.The study of the reporting characteristics of the media texts by using the reports related to the Stilwell incident in the Central Daily News not only enables us to understand the techniques and strategies of the official media in reporting major diplomatic events,but also provides great insights and references for a profound understanding of international relations and a clear ideological and reporting position.