On Huawei’s Corporate Image Construction In Chinese And American Media From Media Frame Perspective

Applying media frame analysis to journalism is an important research method of communication,linguistics and culturology studies.The corporate image can significantly map the national image,but the previous studies on images through media frame analysis mainly focused on personal or national image with few noticing the corporate image,and most research on corporate image were conducted from an “internal” view.Therefore,this study analyzes news reports related to Huawei in two mainstream media in China and America based on the theory of communication and linguistics,in order to figure out how corporate images are constructed from an “external” view.Collecting relevant reports on Huawei from China Daily and New York Times from March 2018 to February 2019 to set closed corpora,this research analyzes and inducts the media frames built by China Daily and New York Times from the micro-level(text),the middle-level(intertextuality),and the macro-level(themes)to conclude Huawei’s corporate images constructed by Chinese and American media.The results show that significant differences exist in micro-level and macro-level,with some similarities existing in the middle-level: in the micro-level,the proportion of positive vocabulary is higher than that of the negative in China Daily and its high-frequency words and keywords are distributed around products and technology,while the quantity of positive and negative vocabulary in New York Times hold the same percentage,and government-related vocabularies occupy a large part in its high-frequency words and keywords;in the middle-level,both China Daily and New York Times choose authoritative individuals or organizations as sources,but New York Times prefers indirect statements as news forms;in the macro-level,China Daily focuses on “Huawei and collaboration”,“technology and research” and“products and markets”,while New York Times emphasizes “Huawei and national security”,“Huawei’s employees” and “Huawei and competition”.Based on themicro-level,middle-level and macro-level analysis,China Daily is more objective and true in constructing Huawei’s corporate image while New York Times is relatively subjective and one-sided,with the former constructing the frames of“collaborator”,“pioneer” and “innocence” and the latter building the frames of“competitor”,“espionage” and “violator”,and both making the “promoter” frame.This research is of strong theoretical and practical significance.Theoretically,combining the theories in communication and linguistics to study corporate image,this research broadens the application of media frame analysis,and provides a new perspective for corporate image research.Practically,research on how the western media produce news reports benefits Chinese journalists to improve news disseminating ways and increase Chinese international discourse power,while studying corporate image promotes Chinese companies to expand overseas markets and further improve Chinese national image.