Freelance News Within The Framework Of The Media Image

As a part of the new social classes,self-employed professionals officially re-emerged in China in 2001.During the past 9 years,the scale of this group has been growing larger and larger, with a great increase in the number of the practitioners. However, confined by social values, cultural tradition, and relevant organizations and policies, these professionals have showed the lack of cultural identity towards organizations and groups,featuring marginality and dispersivity.Media, on the other hand, is not only an important way to obtain and communicate information, but also "spaces of identity" for modern people. News, as "the objective recording of new events",plays a significant role in building media image of a subject,which shows the perception of news producers towards this group, and at the same time is possible to influence the identity the group members hold. Self-employed professionals,with the character of dispersivity and lack of identity, are more possible to be influenced by their media image.This article applied frame theory to analyze the media image of self-employed professionals in China. Based on content analysis of China News Week, the research found that this magazine had some inclination in depicting this group of people, in terms of gender, occupation, and so on, and they were more likely to be showed in a positive but passive way. Also, text analysis showed that the media image of self-employed professionals could be categorized in three aspects:the marginal man with vague identity, a floating leisure class and the professional to be.