Research On The "Other Construction" Of China’s National Image

With the deepening of globalization,international competition is increasingly fierce,hence the role of establishing a good national image is increasingly prominent.Under the background of blocked national communication,a group of unofficial "the other"--we media of foreigners in China quietly appeared.Because of their intimate identity and the way they tell Chinese stories that are more acceptable to overseas audiences,they become an important part of the construction of China’s national image overseas.Different from the communication practices of official media,do we media of foreigners in China provide new ideas for spreading China’s national image?In this paper,12 we media of foreigners in China on You Tube platform are taken as research objects and 240 China-related videos uploaded by them are taken as research samples.Frame theory and Image narration constitute the research framework of the conmmunicator level of this paper.In addition,combined with Stuart Hall’s decoding theory to explore the decoding methods of overseas audiences.A comprehensive application of content analysis and text analysis is made to investigate the intercultural communication practices of we media of foreigners in China.This paper mainly focuses on three research questions: First,what kind of national image of China is constructed by we media of foreigners in China on You Tube platform? How is it constructed? Second,How well are China-related videos and the image of China received by overseas audiences? How do they tend to decode? Third,what enlightenment does the communication practices of we media of foreigners in China have on the intercultural communication of our national image?This paper consists of five chapters: the first chapter is the introduction,including the research background and significance,and combing the literature review of national image,we media of foreigners in China and the others.In addition,it also introduces the theoretical basis,research design and innovative ideas of this paper.The second chapter focuses on the intercultural communication group--We media of foreigners in China,in order to lay a foundation for the subsequent research.It finds that profound historical origin,loose social atmosphere,innovative media technology and the rise of Internet celebrity economy are the context of the rise of we media of foreigners in China,and they have the identity characteristics of not the pure other,cultural brokers and intercultural opinion leaders.The third chapter analyzes the China-related videos from the perspective of high level theme frame,middle level narrative frame and low level discourse frame,and summarizes the China’s national image constructed by them as follows: Political image of harmony,economic image of stability and progress,social image containing criticism and praise,cultural image of diverse charm.The fourth chapter focuses on the comment texts of overseas audiences.Under the background of high-frequency words and emotion analysis,Hall’s decoding theory is introduced to explore the decoding ways of overseas audiences for China-related videos,and it is found that overseas audiences hold a positive attitude towards China-related videos.The microscopic decoding analysis results show that overseas audiences are mainly dominated by dominant decoding,accounting for 94.11% of the total comment samples.Negotiation decoding and oppositional decoding accounted for 3.51% and 2.38% respectively,and they tended to interpret the China-related videos and the image of China presented in a positive way.Chapter five,on the basis of critical reflection on the behavior of others in constructing China’s national image,this paper puts forward suggestions to optimize the intercultural communication of China’s national image from four aspects: narrative mode,communication content,communication form and communication channel.