| Author: | Zhang, Dan |
| Title: | Media representations of the Sino-US trade dispute : a multi-cultural discourse analysis |
| Advisors: | Liu, Ming (CBS) |
| Degree: | DALS |
| Year: | 2023 |
| Subject: | Critical discourse analysis Multiculturalism -- Social aspects Newspapers -- Language China -- Foreign economic relations -- United States United States -- Foreign economic relations -- China Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Pages: | xi, 290 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the issue of multiculturalism in China’s media practices in the context of globalization. A discourse-analytic framework is developed to explore how multiculturalism is realized in the linguistic and discursive strategies used in conflict reporting in the media. The Sino-US trade dispute is taken as a case study and the representations of this issue in China Daily, the New York Times and the South China Morning Post is compared to examine whether and to what extent they take a multicultural stance. Three corpora, CD, NYT and SCMP are established by extracting the news texts on the Sino-US trade dispute from these three media from 22 March 2018 to 1 November 2019. A multidimensional analytical framework is established by drawing insights from the theories of multiculturalism and critical discourse analysis to describe, interpret and explain media representations of the Sino-US trade dispute in terms of themes and attitude, representation of the countries and intertextuality. A corpus-assisted discourse analysis is adopted to analyze the topics, attitudinal features in terms of semantic preferences and prosody, quoted sources and the collocates of terms about nations (e.g., China, US). The language patterns and discursive strategies employed in media representations are qualitatively explored, including nomination, predication, argumentation, and social actor representation. The findings suggest that while both CD and NYT adopt a national-centric stance, with CD focusing on the positive representation of Self and NYT centering on the negative representation of Other from an “Othering” perspective, SCMP takes a multi-cultural stance by presenting culturally diverse discourses, perspectives, identities and voices. The thematic analysis reveals that the three newspapers are similar in highlighting the actions of the two parties and the detrimental effects on the market and economy. However, while CD emphasizes China’s reform and development as well as the resolution of the trade dispute through dialogue and cooperation, NYT frequently highlights the suffering of American companies as a result of China’s unfair trade practices, and SCMP places greater emphasis on peaceful progress, talks and agreements between the two sides. Trade dispute discourses in CD are characterized by a positive representation of China’s policies and practices. China is constructed as a proponent of cooperation and mutual benefit, a victim of the trade war, a defender of its legitimate rights and a defender of the multilateral trading system, while the US is negatively constructed as the initiator of the trade dispute, a perpetrator that hurts the world as well as a violator of international trade rules. In contrast, NYT reproduces the China Threat Theory to construct China as a threat to US national security due to its unfair trade practices, in which the US is constructed as a victim of China’s policies and practices, legitimately taking actions to safeguard the interests of both American businesses and the international community. SCMP tends to adopt a multi-cultural stance by presenting diverse discourses from both Self and cultural Others and giving voice to marginalized viewpoints to foster culturally inclusive communication in a decentered democracy. It not only highlights China as a victim of the trade dispute and a defender of its legitimate rights and interests, but also allows for the expression of dissenting voices that indicate the concerns of foreign businesses about China’s economic and trade policies as well as the great challenges faced by the Chinese leadership. Self and Other in SCMP are able to negotiate different identities, through which the imbalance of power relations is challenged. Additionally, a superordinate global identity is constructed for China and the US in which each of them plays equal roles in resolving the trade dispute for the benefit of the world. With regard to discourse representation, both CD and NYT provide greater room and direct quotes for the in-group members, while the out-group members are quoted when they are depicted as supporting our position. Government officials from our side are frequently portrayed as individuals in CD and NYT. SCMP exhibits diversity and balance in the types and origins of sources and tends to represent events from a third-person perspective by using more quotations from experts. Using the objectivation strategy, government officials in China and the US are more frequently impersonalized by referring to the institutions to which they belong. This study contributes to prior research on hybrid discourse systems that are manifested in media practice in the context of globalization by establishing an analytical framework to give a multi-cultural discourse analysis of media representations. A multicultural perspective, which departs from the West-East dichotomy, could provide a fresh lens through which the representations of the same issue by different news media in different media systems or socio-cultural contexts can be compared. Additionally, the study has implications for Chinese official media to improve international communication strategies as well as for international media to use their discursive practices to foster intercultural relations and communication in conflict reporting. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | restricted access |
Files in This Item:
| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7167.pdf | For All Users (off-campus access for PolyU Staff & Students only) | 8.18 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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