Analyzing portrayals of the desired national identity of the Tibetan ethnicity in China's propaganda

China’s national identity construction in Tibet is considered failed given the public riots in 2008. This study examined its propaganda toward Tibet in the post-1989 period to discover possible problems in the national identity construction over the Tibetan ethnicity. Step by step inquiries were conducted as follows: 1) identifying the patterns of the nation-ethnicity frames in the propaganda; 2) examining whether the propaganda featured multiculturalism as claimed by China; and 3) assessing if Tibetans were portrayed as in-group members. 3,534 news stories randomly sampled from two mainstream newspapers in Tibet were content analyzed. Results show that during the post-1989 period, the image of China as a nation kept depowering Tibetans in governance. The claimed multiculturalism appeared to be narrowly-defined, limiting to economic development issues. In addition, in-group portrayals of Tibetans on the national level were significantly different from those on the ethnic level. Implications of findings were discussed.