Analysis Of The Image Of China And The Improvement Of The Influence Of CRI In Bulgaria

With the development of economy,China's influence in the world has become greater.Consciously or unconsciously,China has become a major power on the international stage.It has become an important task of China's diplomacy and international communication to create a good and realistic national image internationally.China Radio International(CRI),which belongs to the China Media Group,is one of the national teams and main forces in China's international communications and is playing an irreplaceable role in creating China's international image.Its multilingual broadcasting program has enabled China's international communication to penetrate into local people.The author engaged in CRI's broadcasting to Bulgaria for long time and was working in Bulgaria as a cultural diplomat for many years.She is fluent in Bulgarian language.This thesis is the result of her research on China's national image and comprehensive influence in Bulgaria,and especially the role of CRI in this regard.The author designed and conducted a sample survey on China's national image in Bulgaria.Based on the analysis of the survey results and referring to some relevant survey results conducted by other international organizations,she made a research on China's national image,its comprehensive influence and the CRI's influence in Bulgaria.Based on her research,she gave some corresponding suggestions on how to further improve CRI's broadcasting in Bulgaria.The main body of the thesis is composed of five parts:Introduction,China's national image in the eyes of the Bulgarian people,General situation of CRI's broadcasting to Bulgaria,Analysis of CRI's broadcasting to Bulgaria and Conclusion.The key chapters of this thesis are the image of China in the eyes of Bulgarians and analysis of CRI's broadcasting to Bulgaria.The research methods of these two chapters are quantitative analysis of survey data.The author has conducted field surveys in cooperation with the Chinese embassy in Bulgaria,online surveys in cooperation with Google Bulgaria,and questionnaires through email.The subjects of surveys focus on the understanding of Bulgarian people to the China's national image and the Chinese economic and cultural elements.The influence and the effect of CRI's broadcasting in Bulgaria were investigated as well.The objective data were collected,analyzed and researched with quantitative and comparative methods.Due to the influence of uncontrollable factor of the world wide epidemic of COVID-19,the field survey had to be cancelled halfway,but online and mail surveys still recovered 292 valid answers.The respondents came from different social groups of Bulgaria and their responses provided a first-hand date for this research.In addition,the author also analyzed the results of surveys on Chinese influence in Bulgaria conducted by the American Pew Center,Gallup International,and the Bulgarian non-governmental think tank "(?)".Based on above studies and analysis,the author gets some conclusions on China's image in the eyes of Bulgarian people.In the part of analysis on the effects of CRI's broadcasting to Bulgarian audience,the author makes a quantitative analysis on the data in last six months of CRI's broadcasting to Bulgaria and page views of CRI news in Bulgaria's mainstream news sites.This is a multi-dimension analysis which covered a wide range of contents from value of news,topic setting to the ways of story-telling.This research focuses on the effects of CRI's communication in Bulgaria by comparing the communication effects between CRI and some other international mainstream media in Bulgaria.Based on this research,the author gives her conclusion on the effects of CRI's broadcasting to Bulgarian audience and the role of CRI in the structure of China's national image in Bulgaria.In addition,the author studied some related research articles and information on China's influence in the region of Central and Eastern Europe in recent years.With the study the author made a systematical research on the development and innovation of form and means of CRI's broadcasting to Bulgarian audience in 46 years history since CRI launched Bulgarian Broadcasting.With this research,the author is trying to give her thoughts and suggestions on the general image of China in the eyes of Bulgarian people,the popularity and influence of Chinese media in Bulgaria and the effects,achievements and deficiencies of CRI's Bulgarian broadcasting.From the results of these researches,we can find that in the eyes of most Bulgarians,China is already a global power,especially in terms of economic influence on Bulgaria.Chinese products and made-in-China products have basically penetrated into the daily lives of ordinary Bulgarians.The majority of Bulgarians recognize China's status as a strong economic power in the world.However,in the other side,we should recognize that in terms of culture,media and other aspects of soft power,most ordinary Bulgarians,different from those who have some contacts or relations with China,know very little about Chinese cultural elements and have a low level of understanding of China's foreign policy.This reflects indirectly that as an important component of soft power,the ability of international communication of Chinese media is still relatively weak,and the China's influence and voice in Bulgaria needs to be further improved.