| In recent years, the image of China depicted by foreign media, the mainstream U.S. news media in particular, has become a hot issue in academic world. Since late 1980s, the image of China is often distorted in negative coverage by the U.S. news media. Hence Chinese scholar Li Xiguang put forward the theory of "demonizing China" in mid-1990s. Since the 21st century, especially in recent two years, China and the U.S. are conducting practical cooperation in dealing with international affairs and bilateral relations are heating up. How is the U.S. news media depicting China now?Taking China coverage in a prime-time news program of CNN through the whole year 2006 as the sample date, this thesis conducts content analysis in both quantitative and qualitative ways. The finding of the content analysis is that a changed image with stable overall attitude, i.e. the image of China in the mainstream U.S. news media has really changed in some aspects compared with that one at the end of last century, but the overall attitude of the U.S. news media toward China has not changed by far. A majority of reports are negative ones and the U.S. news media still holds skeptical, precautious, resentful and critical attitude against development of China. This thesis continues to dig into reasons for the changed image but with stable attitude by making analysis on various factors including U.S. China policy adjustment and nature of the mainstream U.S. news media. A conclusion is eventually made that with development of China-U.S. relationship, the image of China in the U.S. news media will continue to change, but the overall attitude of the U.S. news media toward China in China reporting will remain unchangeable in the near future. A modest proposal on how to improve the image of China in the U.S. news media most effectively is made at the end of the thesis.
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