Mainland And Hong Kong English Media Reports In 2012 Cppcc Agenda-setting Comparative Study

As a bridge connecting the government and the public, mass media plays animportant role in political communication. With the improvement of overall nationalstrength and international standing of China, every move in Chinese political circlesattracts the world’s attention, which requires English media in China pay moreattention to the political news reporting during external communication.The important political activity Chinese Two Conferences (the National People’sCongress and the Chinese Political Consultative Conference) held at the beginning ofa year in Beijing concerning the vital interests of the general public as well as thepolicy and decision of CPC (Communist Party of China) is the focus of mass media.However, the media ecological environment determines the media system, whichendows the media with different functions. Under the principle of "one country, twosystems", the functions of English media in Chinese Mainland differ from the mediain Hong Kong and affect their coverage of Chinese Two Conferences.Applying the theory of agenda setting and the method of content analysis, thedissertation compares the coverage of2012Chinese Two Conferences by China Dailyof Chinese Mainland and South China Morning Post of Hong Kong to find theircharacteristics in agenda setting and the differences of political news reporting. Fromthe angle of agenda construction and agenda processing, the dissertation finds that thepolitical news reporting of China Daily is government-oriented while South ChinaMorning Post is audience-oriented. The dissertation also aims to give suggestions forthe political news reporting of English media in China to improve the externalcommunication effects.