A Contrastive Study On Cultural Differences In Coverages Between China And Britain

With the advancing of global economic integration,the rapid development of political campaign news has become a mainstream content of newspapers and TV news.In recent years,research on political campaign news reports at home and abroad has increased day by day.After a long wait,the US presidential election has finally fallen into dust after a long wait at 2: 00 a.m.on November 9,2016 in the United States.Donald Trump,the Republican presidential candidate in the United States,has soared to beat the Democratic candidate,former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,to win the presidential election and became the 45 th president of the United States.During the process of presidential election,the coverage by the world's news media became a hot topic of public debate.But there are still many differences,among which there are many differences in media system and journalists' writing styles,and there are also many cultural differences at the same time.The concept of high and low context culture was first put forward by American anthropologist Edward T.Hall,which is mainly used for explaining the diversity of world culture according to the difference of high and low context.Basing on that,Hall divided different cultures into high context culture and low context culture.Cultural Dimension Theory was proposed by Dutch psychologist Geert Hofstede.He considered that different countries have different cultures and culture is a psychological process that people possess in one environment,which successfully distinguish a group of people from others.Through his research,he divided the differences between cultures into five basic cultural value dimensions,namely,Power Distance,Uncertainty Avoidance,Individualism and Collectivism,Masculinity and Femininity and Long-term and Short-term Orientation.Author refers to Edward T.Hall's cultural context model and Geert Hofstede's culture dimensions to form a theatrical framework and selects three representative newspapers: People's Daily,the Financial Times,and the Times,dated from May,2016 to March,2017.Analyses are mainly focused on the first two newspapers,while the other one is added as the supplement.Meanwhile,researches were accordingly made on the disparities in 2016 American presidential election coverage between Chinese and the British newspapers,that is:(1)What are the differences amongPeople's Daily,the Financial Times and the Times in reporting the American Presidential Election in 2006 based on Hall's cultural context model?(2)What are the differences among People's Daily,the Financial Times and the Times in reporting the American Presidential Election in 2006 based on Hofstede's cultural dimensions?On the basis of case analysis and descriptive analysis,this paper draws the following conclusions on the differences between Chinese and British political campaign news reports: Firstly,the difference between high context and low context,People's Daily used the prudent words and took reasonable attitudes in conveying information to the public.In contrast,both the Financial Times and the Times have made their attitudes clear in delivering effective messages to the public.Secondly,the influence of the power distance index is reflected in: the news of People's Daily emphasizes the system and authority of the state,and the reports of the Financial Times and the Times will challenge or even criticize the officials and the government.Thirdly,the influence of uncertainty avoidance index in People's Daily emphasizes the leading role of political authority in people's life.On the contrary,the Financial Times and Times believe that the government should provide the environment for the development of social freedom.Then,as far as the relationship between the individual and the group,People's Daily pays full attention to the common development of the world and calls for social harmony.The Financial Times and the Times are more concerned with the personal interests and developments.Next,as for gender orientation,People's Daily's report portrays China as a positive,tolerant and humble country.The Financial Times and the Times,on the other hand,emphasize the satisfaction of rights and interests from a public perspective.Finally,from the perspective of time horizon,People's Daily's report not only based on the election news itself,but also tends to analyze and predict the international situation after the election campaign,on the contrary,The Financial Times and the Times focus on facts and data on campaign news.Through the analysis and comparison between China and Britain in the 2016 American presidential news reports,we can draw the conclusion that,the cultural differences between China and Britain lead to some differences in language expression.Accordingly,this study provides the public better understanding for each other's cultural expressions and cultural connotations from the perspective of cross-culture.And this paper is a simple research on my individual,I sincerely hope that it can provide a little bit advice and reference.