Abstract
This study examined the Global Times's reports during the early stages of the China-US trade war to understand the role of Chinese media's propaganda in the surge of nationalism. Specific attention was paid to the tailoring and reproduction of foreign news by the Global Times as a form of providing international media reports about the China-US trade war. A content analysis was conducted on the news published between January 2018 and June 2018 from the section that reprinted foreign media reports, called "Focusing on China." The concept of re-framing was proposed to describe the reproduction of political news by the state-controlled media that transcribe and reproduce overseas coverage in the Chinese context. The research concluded that the Global Times selected news from world-renowned agencies located in the US for re-framing. The Global Times also re-framed negative articles about China to have a positive valence. Cluster analysis showed two dominating frames in the Global Times's reports: (1) special features of economic effects (2) a "Chinese proposal" for the US-started problem. Meanwhile, articles from the source showed two other frames: (1) mutual retaliation in Thucydide's trap (2) civilians' pain as the economic consequence of the trade war. Comparison and cluster analysis showed that the Global Times tailored foreign media reports about China to serve frame-building purposes; this finding was different from that stated in the predominant literature, which found that Chinese media directly criticized the reports of foreign media.
Date of Award | 5 Aug 2019 |
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Original language | English |
Supervisor | Tien Ee Dominic YEO (Supervisor) |
User-Defined Keywords
- Foreign news