Perception of Chinese Audience on Images of Foreign Media

Despite the tightening oversight by Chinese government on media policies, the perception of Chinese audience on foreign media should be taken into account. It is important for foreign media to learn about what the media images of foreign media in the eyes of Chinese audience are and it is necessary to learn how to grasp the perception of Chinese audience to enhance their attention and influence. However, with the globalization and development of international media, there is relatively less research on the communication effects of foreign media in China and the perception of Chinese audiences on international media.

The research is to examine the perception and cognition of media image of foreign media from the perspective of Chinese audience by conducting the survey utilizing quantitative methods. The survey explores into the usage of products and services provided by mass media from various countries among Chinese audience. The key factors that influence the perception or the cognition process of Chinese are also to be discussed.
1. What is the image of foreign media in the perception of Chinese audience? Is there any alienation among Chinese audience?
2. What are the factors including but not limited to political affordance, media use, and nationalismthat influence the perception of Chinese audience on the image of foreign media, and their possble mediated or moderated effects under the backdrop that media freedom have been compromised by populism and nationalism for a consecutive stretch of 11 years?
3. How can foreign media cater to the cognition of Chinese audience to better strengthen the media effects? In other words, how can foreign media can be better infomred by the research?

The purpose of the research is to better understand Chinese audience perception and cognition process towards international media, and secondly, find out appropriate communication means for foreign media to develop itself in the mainland China. The findings is to supply empirical data for the ‘Media Image’ studies, which has practical values. The practical significance of the research lies in that it strengthens media effects of foreign media in China. The theoretical significance lies in that it improves international communication. Firstly, media image is the public figure of some individuals of society (public figures, social organizations, state apparatus, companies, products, brands, etc.) derived from media communication, which equals to public image in a sense. In this meaning, the media just exists as a medium for representing image rather than the body of image (Fernandez, 2004; Danesi, 2009). Secondly, media image is the image of media individuals and media organizations, which can be referred to as the representation or impression of various categories of media organizations in different time and space (Luan, 2007). This research will use the second definition about media image, which is the image of media organization in the audiences. Theoretically, media image is reflected in three dimensions of communication capacity, popularity and credibility. The three dimensions can be analyzed respectively through audience cognition and evaluation on the media content, visual identity and propaganda bias.