The Construction Of The Brand Image Of China's High-Speed Rail In Chinese And Western News

The purpose of this study is to promote the globalization of China's high-speed rail(HSR)by exploring the actual brand image of it in both domestic and overseas markets.In recent years,China's HSR has developed rapidly and has become an important part in the Belt and Road Initiative.However,ups and downs have constantly appeared during the globalization of China's HSR.In order to establish a more positive image of China's HSR and facilitate its globalization,it is necessary to explore the actual brand image of it.The theoretical and analytical framework of this thesis is derived from Martin's Appraisal Theory and Biel's Brand Image Model.The research data are selected from world-renowned media,including Reuters,The Financial Times,The Guardian,BBC,and The Economists and China Daily.The author of this thesis selects 88 pieces of reports related to China's HSR and forms a small corpus,with UAM Corpus Tool for text annotation and analysis.There are three research questions in this study.The first two questions: what attitudinal resources have the Chinese and western media used to build the brand image of China's HSR? How are these resources distributed? Then,what China's HSR brand image has been constructed by Chinese and western media?The study finds that western media mainly negatively evaluate China's HSR brand image,while Chinese media mainly hold positive attitude.In terms of the product image,western media believe that China's HSR is fast,technologically advanced,and well served.But they also question the originality of China's HSR technology,worry about the safety issues and expensive ticket prices,and have doubts over its economic implications.In terms of country-of-origin image,western media's evaluation is mainly negative.They believe that China's HSR is poor in business ethics and government has strong political intervention.The Chinese media's attitude is basically positive in the two aspects.In terms of product image,the Chinese media believe that China's HSR is advanced in technology,environmental-friendly,and its service is thoughtful.Besides,it brings about tremendous economic benefits and has made great efforts to improve the safety of HSR.As for HSR prices,they think it is expensive.In terms of its countryof-origin image,the Chinese media believe that the Chinese government is a strong supporter of China's HSR.The political influence of Chinese government is also to achieve a better economic outcome.And they believe that China has been constantly improving the business ethics and social responsibility of the HSR sector.Hopefully,this study can arouse the government's attention to brand image of China's HSR in domestic and western media,and enable journalists to pay more attention to the discourse construction of the aspects related to the brand image in news reports.At the same time,as for the negative brand images,this study is also conducive to raising awareness of relevant departments and come up with tailored solutions.