A Study Of The National Image Constructed By China Daily (1981-2013)

Taking mainly a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, thispaper compares the features of image constructed by the representative Chineseinternational communication medium China Daily in two periods of time with2010as the separating line. While using content analysis and discourse analysis, the authoranalyzes the news reports and opinion articles of China within1981-2009, a period oftime that is cut into four parts by three revamping occasions of the Paper, finding thatthe obvious characteristic of reporting China in a give-priority-to-positivenessremains the same through all four editions. More importantly,2010edition of thePaper shares this feature, thus making the positive image of China typical from1981to2013.The paper then discusses the reasons of the image constructing, confirming thatthe Party s principles and the political requirements in China s ideology concerningreporting China to the outside world are the fundamental factors that determine thePaper s national image constructing results. As for the obvious changes of the ratiopositive and negative reports hold within the time period, the author believes it is areflection of the progress China has made in information disclosure and nationalconfidence stemming from an all-round progress under reform and opening up policy,and of the tensions between political requirements and professional pursuits, and thatbetween cultivating the audience s desirable cognition of China and meeting theirneeds in information consumption.The author then goes on to the problems in China Daily s practice inconstructing and communicating China, which show neglect of the internationalaudience s psychology and thus risk the communication effects. These problems ar e:the unbalanced structure in overall reporting caused by overwhelmingly positiveimage of China; the obvious differences between constructed images of China and theinternational community; the problem in reporting skills. Four countermeasures thusprovided to solve the problems: to report more neutrally; to report in a more interesting manner; to eliminate the propaganda style in meeting reports; and to reportmore targetedly.In the end, the author points out, the development in every aspect of the nationremaining the fundamental factor in determining national image, as the overall mediaenvironment has developed fast, and the international flow of individuals andorganizations is more often, the approaches of national image construction have beenexpanded, which merit further researches.