| The central idea of this research is to point out how the dominant group identifies the protestors in a social movement compared to how the protestors identify themselves by using the Tibet Separatists as a case study. Based on framing theory, this paper conducts a content analysis on the official websites of the Tibet Separatists and the Chinese government, and news coverage of the Tibet Separatists by news outlets including Times of India, New York Times, and People's Daily. Utilizing coding and SPSS, identity frameworks presented by both the Tibet Separatists and the Chinese government are compared to see their differences in terms of official materials and news materials separately. Through the case study, this paper draws two key conclusions: a) in both media discourse and official materials, the frameworks of identity interpretation differ from the challenging group, the Tibet Separatists, to the dominant group, the Chinese government; and b) both dynamic framing processes are interdependent, and actually reflect each other. |
