"Macau Handover" Report (1999-2009)in People Daily And The National Identity Construction

"Macau Handover" is a great event in China's political life, which has been presented as significantly as it should be done in the mass media. Because this issue naturally has the factors that can enhance people's National Identity, the mass media has also constructed National Identity while constructing the original facts. This paper hierarchically analyzes the strategies used by People Daily to construct people's National Identity through the news event"Macau Handover". The samples in this research are 283 news texts about"Macau Handover"on December 19th to 21st from 1999 to 2009 every year in People Daily. The author analyzes these texts extensively from the micro to the macro perspective, combining with many examples. Semiology is the main research means in this study and statistical method supplements it. The result of this analysis shows that People Daily has seized the favorable opportunities of"Macau Handover"and each anniversary to construct the National Identity successfully, highlighting this subject by agenda setting, and using a variety of news means from the micro-news facts construction view, the midium-news myth construction view and macro-Archetype construction view. Finally, the paper gives a brief analysis of the significance and impacts of the mass media's construction and dissemination of National Identity for the national development.