A Contrastive Analysis Of The Image Of Confucius Institutes In Canadian And Pakistani News Reports

As globalization continues to progress,the importance of culture in improving a country’s overall competitiveness has become more and more apparent.The Confucius Institute is an important platform for China to reach out to the world,and provides an effective way to spread Chinese culture overseas.However,while the scale and influence of Confucius Institutes are gradually expanding worldwide,they also face constant doubts and various development difficulties internationally,and the development environment and conditions of Confucius Institutes in different countries are also quite different.Focusing on Canada and Pakistan,this study provides an in-depth understanding of the acceptance and development of Confucius Institutes in different target countries by analyzing and comparing English media reports in Canada and Pakistan.The study selected reports on Confucius Institutes from six Englishlanguage media in the two countries from the year the first Confucius Institute was established to July 2022.Through the data-driven text analysis method,this paper examines the reporting characteristics of the media in the two countries and their attitudes towards Confucius Institutes from the three aspects of reporting frequency,hot spots and attitudes to analyse the image of Confucius Institutes constructed by them,and then analyses the reasons for the differences between the images of Confucius Institutes in the two countries from the economic,political and cultural perspectives.The study found that Canadian media paid less attention to the development of Confucius Institutes,and the increase in the number of reports was related to the occurrence of political hot issues,such as the human rights controversy and the Huawei incident,and most of them were negative reports.Pakistan’s attention to Confucius Institutes shows an increasing trend,and its reports are mostly neutral and positive.In general,the image of Confucius Institutes in both countries is positive,and both countries associate the image of Confucius Institutes with the national image of China.Especially in the aspects of cultural exchange and Chinese language teaching,the two countries share the same positive image of Confucius Institutes,such as the platform that actively promotes cultural exchange and world integration,the language institution that provides high-quality Chinese language teaching,the cultural symbol with Chinese characteristics of traditional culture,and the builder of Chinese cultural soft power.There are also some differences in the image of Confucius Institutes presented by the media in the two countries.The image of Confucius Institutes presented by the Pakistani media is relatively comprehensive and objective,emphasizing the educational image of Confucius Institutes.However,the image of Confucius Institutes presented by the Canadian media is relatively onesided and subjective,highlighting the academic and political image of Confucius Institutes,and tending to put them under a threat frame,deliberately reinforcing the negative image of Confucius Institutes to create public opinion disputes.As a result,Canadian media reports often describe Confucius Institutes as totalitarian organizations that threaten academic freedom and oppress minority groups,foreign money-seeking institutions,secret spy agencies of the Chinese government,and“propaganda” tools of Chinese cultural invasion.These negative images will undoubtedly hinder the development of Confucius Institutes.By comparing the images of Confucius Institutes presented by the media in Canada and Pakistan and analyzing the motives behind them,we find that the differences in political,economic and cultural aspects,as well as the different cultural and educational needs of China in the two countries,lead to the differences in the images of Confucius Institutes in the two countries.Therefore,in the future development of Confucius Institutes,we should pay attention to the differences between different countries and regions,respect the traditions of other countries,and actively explore effective models conducive to the image construction of Confucius Institutes in different countries.This study provides a certain reference for the better development of Confucius Institutes and the cross-cultural communication of Chinese culture.