The Orientation Of American Media Reporting On China’s News

With more than30years of rapid economic development, China hasbecome one of the most important powers in the world, including thestrength of economy and military, and the influence of political, culture anddiplomacy, etc. As China’s international status upgraded, its governmenthas attached great importance to shape its image in the world, because agood image is conducive to promote international prestige and benefit toadvance national interest. The Guidelines on China’s foreign policy ispolitical influence, economic competitiveness, moderate image, charismaticmoral. However, the rise of China has inevitably made the relationshipsbetween China and other countries in some respects, such as interest,political, economic, social, and diplomatic relations. The attitude of othercountries to China has changed gradually. China gained more criticism,skepticism and prevention, but not praise, flowers and applause. Somecountries in the international community cannot make assurance about thedirection of China’s rise in the future, so they feel anxious about their safety,strategy and development.The western media, especial the American’s, monopolize coverageand release of international news. As the main source of international newsfor people all over the world, the American media exercised a decisiveinfluence on shaping people’s attitude and thought to China. They haveincreasingly paid attention on China. On the one hand, they cannot butmarvel at China’s tremendous achievements and dramatic changes; on theother hand, they concerned about China’s rise and intention of Chinese government, and have doubt China’s political system, military strength,social conflicts, environmental pollution, diplomatic relations with itsneighboring countries, and so on. Based on observation to American mediafor a long time, I found that the media’s coverage on China have not helpedforeign people understand China more comprehensively, but put China in acomparative disadvantage and make China’s international environmentmore complicated.Media is the pivotal communicating channel for news and currentaffairs. They ubiquitously formed people’s political attitudes and ideas, andinfluence the estimation of the people’s judgment to the nature andimportance of specific events. Therefore, it is significant to learn how tounderstand, interpret and evaluate the content and feature of mediacoverage. The role of media playing in Sino-U.S. relations could not beignored, because the choice of media make on the news contents andreporting methods not only determines American’s understanding toChinese society, but also affect their perception of China’s image, what’smore, media coverage also reflects the U.S. government’s positions andpolicies on China. In order to solve the problem of that the research ofmedia’s role in the Sino-U.S. relations was insufficient and biased, theauthor attempts to comprehensively discuss the media’s functions in theconstruction of public opinion and the decision-making process ofAmerican’s China foreign policy in the era of globalization wheninternational communications are more frequent.The relationship between China and the United States ispolitics-oriented. The media coverage is characterized by politics andideology. For these reasons, the research of American media reportingChina’s issue reflects the influence of the media agenda and the relationsbetween government and media. We also can explain and study Sino-U.S.relations and the U.S. foreign policy from politics perspective. Theobjective of this dissertation is to learn how to read, understand andevaluate the American media, to reduce the negative influence of Americandiscourse hegemony to tell China’s stories, and to obtain skills and art tocommunicate with the media by the analysis of American media coverage.China could realize the power of culture in American society and the source of ideas and attitudes of American toward China, and win moreinitiative in the Sino-U.S. relations through studying American media.The news coverage on China’s issue in American media was affectedby many factors. We could not simply use “demonizing China” to evaluateAmerican media, because it was superficial and maybe lead us to demonizeAmerican media. The relationship between American media and foreignpolicy is complex and subtle. So it is difficult to comprehend “who isdetermined by whom” or “whose influence is more than another” betweenAmerican media and government. Who decided media coverage on China’sissue in American? Is the U.S. government? Is Interest groups? Is thepublic opinion? Is the media itself? Who does play a decisive role? Or noone can control it completely?The main purpose of the dissertation was to analyze the tendency andregularity of American media coverage of Chinese issue. I chose2396articles from three mainstream newspapers-the New York Times, theWashington Post and USA Today, on three topics-“China”“the U.S”“relationship”,“China”“military” and “China”“human rights”, and fromJuly1st2010to June30th2012. I analysized the text of all data and learntthe orientation of media reporting China arranging from the content andtheme, the news sources and the attitude to China of media coverage. Theultimate goal of the research was to explore an alternative analysis toSino-US relations through the discussion of the orientation of mediareported China’s problem. At the end of research, I would like to putforward many corresponding countermeasures to China.