British Television Media BBC China National Image Report

The study of nation image has always been a heated topic in recent years,which has aroused the attention of scholars in the fields of media,international relations and linguistics. With the emergence of large numbers of news reports,media has become one of the most direct,effective and important method to study,analyse and comprehend the notion of nation image.As a channel,media is of great significance to obtain information for audiences. Being one of the world’s most influential media,with its distinctive features from other public service broadcasting,BBC gets financial support from the British government. Therefore,with its own advantage,BBC is an important platform of getting to know China for the British audiences,as well as the audiences from all over the world.This study is based on the analysis of repots of BBC from January 1st,2008 to December 31 st,2013. With the combination of qualitative and quantitative study method,as well as theories about agenda-setting in the field of media,critical discourse analysis in the field of linguistics,this paper interprets and analyses the characteristics of the reports of BBC on China,drawing some conclusions on the characteristics of BBC reports. The analyses from the perspectives of politics,economy,culture,social issues,ecological civilization,military diplomacy are also included. What should be stressed is that,this paper makes the combination of the qualitative study method and the quantitative study method. Besides the interpretations and analysis of 1785 textual reports selected from the large amounts of reports,this paper also presents some charts and diagrams about some statistical data. They are:the data of BBC’s reports on China from the January 1st,2008 to December 31 st,2013,the data in various fields,the ratio of reporting attitudes,the ratio of sources,the data of frequently-used vocabularies,the data of textual reports on Xinjiang issue,the most frequently-used vocabularies on reports of Xinjiang issues,the data of textual reports on Tibet, the data of videos on Tibet issue, the frequently-used vocabularies on reports of Tibet issue.In conclusion,despite the existence of negative reports of various degrees,the holistic reports keep their objectivity. The negative reports are especially obvious in the reports of issues related to the sovereignty and interests of China. There are negative reports with severe mistakes in the following areas: the BBC acknowledges the "independence" of Taiwan and Tibet,supporting the "independence" of Xinjiang,acknowledging Japan’s sole ownership of Diaoyu Islands. Generally speaking,the image of China presented by BBC is:a rising power,keeping high speed of development with volatility,drawing great attentions to import and export trades,with the fast development of manufacturing industry,an ancient civilization with a long history,with constant emergency of social problems,gaining great military and diplomacy strength,a strong leadership with imperfections in corruption problem of government,suffering from severe environmental problems,having bad records of human rights and democracy.This paper also includes the analyses and interpretations of cases of reports on the issue of Tibet and Xinjiang. On the reports of riots,BBC usually reports from the perspectives of reasons and characters.With the textual reports being the main part,there are also videos as supplement.In the final part,the author comes up with some proposals for the improvement of image-building of China from the three aspects of response,sources and platforms. Firstly,handle the foreign media reports with objectivity and improve the feedback systems. On one hand,we should discern and differentiate the negative reports according to their degrees of negativity. On the other hand,handle the positive reports with optimism,fostering self-confidence of the national media. Secondly,rectify the domestic sources of information,improve the quality of internationalized domestic reports. On one hand,we should strengthen the management of domestic sources of information and the management of sources which are lack of standardization. Moreover,we should improve the management of internationalzied domestic reports and enhance the quality of media. Thirdly,unblock the channels of knowing China and build the stages for communication. On one hand,surveys should be conducted to be informed of the interests of audiences,while documentaries are proved to be highly effective in the presentation of a true China. On the other hand,social platforms should be established for the update of sources. The task of the improvement of image still has a long way to go. It requires the vigorous involvements and communications of both domestic and international parties.