"Tibetan Issue" In The Context Of Social Memory

The "Tibetan issue" has profound political, economic, cultural and religious reasons, but we cannot ignore some other reasons for the issue. After the Tibet riot which occurred in14th, May2008, there have been different reflections both in Chinese and Westerns, especially people’s attitude towards the event and the Dalai Lama. All of these show us that some other reasons must be existed behind the problem. That’s just exactly what my thesis to deal with. The thesis attempts to explain that the memory conflicts about the Dalai Lama between the Chinese and the Western society lead to their different understandings on the "Tibetan issue" and ideological tension, through the use of social memory theory. The thesis chooses reports about "3.14" Tibet riot of China’s and Western’s mainstream newspapers as research object, uses content analysis method to analyze their reflections both in China and Western after the event, and then verify that social memory conflicts between Chinese and western society leads to different understanding of Tibetan problem.