A Textual Analysis Of The Communication Strategies Of People’s Daily On Facebook

With the increase of China’s influence on global economy and international affairs, it’s important for China to have its own voice on the international arena. As a way to strengthen China’s international communication ability, some mainstream Chinese media start to create their own accounts and public pages on influential foreign social media platforms. Many of their practices have been proven successful in drawing international audiences’ attention. And it is worthwhile to study the effective strategies Chinese media can use to better perform on foreign social media platforms.As China’s leading official newspaper, People’s Daily has been reaching out to the world via Facebook since 2010. By February 2016, the Facebook page of People’s Daily has been followed by over 15.66 million people that spread across America, Europe, Africa as well as the Asia Pacific, which is more than that of many western newspapers such as New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Financial Times.In order to explore features of the published contents on the Facebook page of People’s Daily throughout the year 2015, a content analysis was conducted. In addition, this study employed two significant events—the Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the US and the November 2015 Paris attacks, as exemplary cases to study the reporting strategies of People’s Daily on Facebook.Results indicated that the published contents on People’s Daily Facebook page had the following five features. First, People’s Daily published various types of content including texts, photos, videos and hyperlinks. Second, it covered a wide range of topics especially on social and cultural news in China. Third, People’s Daily used simple and vivid language, combined with appropriate phrasing and rhetoric. Fourth, People’s Daily on Facebook reported both positive and negative news about China in a balanced way. Fifth, People’s Daily actively participated in significant Chinese political events and reports on International breaking news in the first time.At the end of this paper, several strategies were concluded:People’s Daily should promote its popularity in its Facebook Page management based on four aspects--language, localization, audience research and publishing skills. At last, the paper provided some suggestions for other Chinese media to better use the Facebook platform in order to improve international communication effects.