News production and construal level: a comparative analysis of the press coverage of China’s Belt and Road Initiative

Steve Guo; Dan Wang

doi:10.1080/17544750.2020.1816556

News production and construal level: a comparative analysis of the press coverage of China’s Belt and Road Initiative

Steve Guo, Dan Wang^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Journalism

Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › peer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This research integrates construal level theory with news production strategies by exploring the joint effects of distance and editorial commitment on news narratives. In content analyzing the coverage of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by four newspapers in China and West, we investigate determinants of choice of principled or personalized accounts in storytelling. The findings showed that editorial commitment was low and power reliance high when the site of event was far away, leading to the use of higher construals in Western news texts than in Chinese newspapers. This study contributes to the unexplored relationship between news production and construal level theory.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	211-230
Number of pages	20
Journal	Chinese Journal of Communication
Volume	14
Issue number	2
Early online date	16 Sept 2020
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/17544750.2020.1816556
Publication status	Published - 3 Apr 2021

Scopus Subject Areas

Communication

User-Defined Keywords

BRI
construal level theory
content analysis
editorial commitment
news production

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10.1080/17544750.2020.1816556

Cite this

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abstract = "This research integrates construal level theory with news production strategies by exploring the joint effects of distance and editorial commitment on news narratives. In content analyzing the coverage of China{\textquoteright}s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by four newspapers in China and West, we investigate determinants of choice of principled or personalized accounts in storytelling. The findings showed that editorial commitment was low and power reliance high when the site of event was far away, leading to the use of higher construals in Western news texts than in Chinese newspapers. This study contributes to the unexplored relationship between news production and construal level theory.",

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PY - 2021/4/3

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N2 - This research integrates construal level theory with news production strategies by exploring the joint effects of distance and editorial commitment on news narratives. In content analyzing the coverage of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by four newspapers in China and West, we investigate determinants of choice of principled or personalized accounts in storytelling. The findings showed that editorial commitment was low and power reliance high when the site of event was far away, leading to the use of higher construals in Western news texts than in Chinese newspapers. This study contributes to the unexplored relationship between news production and construal level theory.

AB - This research integrates construal level theory with news production strategies by exploring the joint effects of distance and editorial commitment on news narratives. In content analyzing the coverage of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by four newspapers in China and West, we investigate determinants of choice of principled or personalized accounts in storytelling. The findings showed that editorial commitment was low and power reliance high when the site of event was far away, leading to the use of higher construals in Western news texts than in Chinese newspapers. This study contributes to the unexplored relationship between news production and construal level theory.

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News production and construal level: a comparative analysis of the press coverage of China’s Belt and Road Initiative

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