China Image On TIME Cover Story

After the reform and opening up, the rising speed and developing scale of China earn sufficient attention of the world. In2010, China is becoming the second largest economy, which has been surpassed Japan. Although own the economic country, but Chinese cannot refer to themselves as economic power. This is because a nation’s strength and weakness not only demonstrate in external image, such as politics, economy and military, but also in culture, people’s living standard and other internal image. And media is the most straightforward way to let the world know one nation, or the image of one country. If a nation received consistently high praise around the international society, its national image will help it expands areas of cooperation. On the other hand, if a country is "cruel and dictatorship", it will be isolated and helpless. Therefore, a nation’s image plays an important role in a country’s development.Chinese cover stories on "TIME" magazine are the researching object of this thesis. I selected the China cover stories in "TIME" magazine since January1,1979to December31,2012,64articles totally. Through the study o China cover stories in different periods and backgrounds, I would like to understand the standpoint and tendency about China in "TIME" reports and explore the reporting feature and trend in different era so as to sum up Chinese Image. Through characteristics and operational mechanism of "TIME" we could find some effective international communication means, especially in bringing beneficial thinking about how to fully show a real China. This thesis is divided into4chapters.The first chapter is the introduction. In this part Ⅰ will make a summary about the conceptions of "national","national image","state media image" and "cover", putting forward the new ideas and suggestions to the future "Chinese national image" shaping. In addition, I will also aim at explaining reason of this study and the sample selection principles.The second chapter is mainly on the "Outline" of China image on TIME weekly cover so as to get a review of33years of TIME magazine Chinese national image and a simple elaboration on the characteristics of the Chinese cover story on TIME.The third part is about the systematic analysis of the64cover stories. First, analyzing sample elements from three angles such as the title, interviewer source and cover images. Secondly, putting ten years as a stage division, this thesis is divided into three parts which is attributed to the three history period. Thirdly, starting from historical, political, economic and cultural perspective, I will describe a different Chinese national image. Finally, according to diverse history period, I will sum up the reporting characteristics of cover story on China in TIME.In the fourth chapter, I will talk about reason why TIME described such a China Image according to an analysis on American cognition to China, national interests and the United States news idea that three aspects of how to have great effect on the "time" magazine cover story of china. So that we could to explain the huge effect of national interests, news idea, culture background and media operating mechanism on TIME reports selection and value judgment.Finally, China should also enhance their capability of cross-cultural communication skills while calling for an objective report on China so as to win the initiative on cross-culture communication and to strive for constructing a peacefully prosperous China.