Researches In The National Image Of America In The Eyes Of Chinese Students

The purpose of this study is to investigate the image of the United States and the Americans fromthe perspective of Chinese students, and influencing factors of the national image building.Firstly, I extract32key words and35key words for describing the image of the United States andthe Americans separately from80pre-survey questionnaires and relevant study. Based on these keywords I design the questionnaire. This survey covers400middle school students from the ExperimentalHigh School Attached to Beijing Normal University,200undergraduates and200postgraduates fromthe China Youth University for Political Sciences.800questionnaires are issued and795questionnairesare returned, of which788questionnaires are valid.With the help of SPSS on analyzing the questionnaires, the opinions of Chinese students on theUnited States and Americans can be drawn: Generally, the U.S. has a vast territory, rich in naturalresources, economic and technological advanced. The multicultural citizens give the U.S. society moreof distinctiveness, tolerance and democracy. While some political scandal and hegemonic foreignpolicies also leave bad impressions. At the present stage and near future, students think America is onthe opposite side of China. But image of American people is much better than their country, moststudents feel they are open-minded, friendly and energetic. And the image of the U.S. and Americanpeople are stable in the four groups of students.In this paper, I also compare the direct and indirect ways of information dissemination. Directways mean having direct contact with Americans such as travelling and studing abroad experience.Indirect ways mean listening from friends or learn from newspaper, TV shows, movies and so on. Bothdirect and indirect ways are important to the national image building, but the latter one is more criticalfor is extent and speed. Interpersonal attitudes and perceptions play an important role in the indirectedways.