A Comparative Study Of Reports On China-Related Poverty Alleviation Among British,US And South African Newspapers

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,the central government has shifted the focus of its work to poor areas across the country,taking improving the quality of life of poor people as the key to building a well-off society in an all-round way,and the battle against poverty has been officially launched nationwide.China’s poverty alleviation has become a feat,a miracle and a Chinese story that China’s international communication should tell well for its large strength,wide scale and deep influence.Therefore,the spontaneous dissemination of China’s poverty alleviation in overseas media also has important research significance.This study selects the major world newspaper database in LexisNexis database as the data source,and takes "China","Chinese‘,"poverty alleviation","poverty elimination" and "targeted poverty alleviation" as the key words to retrieve a total of 271 reports on "poverty alleviation" in China from September 1,2019 to September 30,2020.After further screening,171 poverty alleviation reports related to China were finally obtained.Guided by the Framing Theory,using the mixed research methods of content analysis and critical discourse analysis,this paper treated each piece of news report as a unit of analysis,extracted such variables as reporting length,theme,media outlet source,source country and report attitude,conducted content analysis with SPSS software,and summarized the regular framework of China related poverty alleviation reports from the state media of the UK,Us,and South Africa to study the differences in their reporting frameworks.The study found out that the media in Britain,the United States and South Africa paid attention to China’s poverty alleviation both in similar and different ways.Commonalities included:(1)reporting volume trend.The reporting trends of countries were basically the same.Related reports were frequently carried out during the periods of political activities in China;(2)Reporting framework.The reporting framework is mainly economic and political.The improvement of economic conditions in Chinese rural areas and government speeches about poverty alleviation became the most frequently themes in the report;(3)Frame source.The information sources of the framework are mainly government official statements and official media reports,in which the media reports mostly cited the reports of Xinhua news agency and China Daily;(4)Frame attitude.The framework attitude was neutral and positive on the whole.Especially when the world trade organization was concerned about poverty alleviation in Africa,it often took China’s battle against poverty as an example to affirm China’s cause of poverty alleviation.Differences included:(1)frame attitude.On the contrary,the most positive attitude towards the theme of poverty alleviation in Xinjiang was the most negative one,especially in the framework of the report on the theme of poverty alleviation in the United States;(2)Number of reports.China related poverty alleviation reports came from a wide range of sources and involve many countries,but countries around the world paid different attention to China’s poverty alleviation.In terms of the number of related reports,the UK and US were at the top list among the world.For example,the BBC in the UK quoted the relevant reports from Xinhua News Agency in turn,translate the whole article,and carried out secondary dissemination.On the contrary,the number of relevant reports in Asia from September 2019 to September 2020 is very small;(3)Report theme.When reporting relevant news,American media were more concerned about people’s livelihood topics,and even specially enough to individual regions of China,accusing the Chinese government of ignoring the human rights of poor people in its poverty alleviation work;(4)Number of words in the report.The average length of reports formed by countries on poverty alleviation in China was mostly less than 2000,while that of South Africa exceeded 3000.In addition,this study found out that China related poverty alleviation information in the three countries was mostly reported in national economic special issues.The reason was that poverty is a global economic issue.In addition,China’s poverty alleviation news tended to be publicized through international communication channels.Although from the perspective of sources,Chinese mainstream media reports and government statements were forwarded by foreign media,foreign mainstream media outlets in the three countries tended to attribute the above media behaviors to government publicity and raise doubts about China.News perceived to be propaganda publications hard to resonate with foreign audiences.Therefore,the voices cheering for China’s poverty alleviation on the international stage came from local economic special issues with insufficient influence.Through content analysis,this study found that the number of reports in the UK accounted for the largest proportion in all countries,the reporting attitude of the American media in China related poverty alleviation news was the most negative,and the South African national media used a large amount of space to report on China’s poverty alleviation,detailing China’s achievements from reform and opening up to poverty alleviation.The critical discourse analysis of reports from the UK,the United States and South Africa media outlets showed that the British media mostly adopt the economic framework on China related poverty alleviation issues,but with a political color;most of the US media reports on poverty alleviation in China were conflict frameworks,trying to trigger contradictions among the local Chinese people and the government;South African media reports on poverty alleviation in China reflected the human framework,and common prosperity was the overall tone of reporting.Approaching the end of the thesis,further discussions were made regarding the theoretical and application values of the present study.