A Study Of?The New York Times?media Discourse On Trade War Between China And America

Sino-US relation has always been the most important bilateral relation in international communication and has significant influence in the international pattern.The cooperation between the two countries have become increasingly close since the diplomatic relations between China and the US established in 1979.However,with the continuous improvement of China's international influence,the bilateral relation between China and the US has begun to present new characteristics.The shift of equilibrium between China and the US has led to a large number of untrue reports about China in the global communication,and China is facing an extremely unfriendly international public opinion environment.Especially after Trump came into power,the measures and the public opinion expression of social media led the Sino-US relation to a new high tide.The trade war between China and U.S is a long-term,complicated and rigorous friction between them.China has always proposed communication rather than confrontation to solve the economic and trade disputes between the two countries.Therefore,how to achieve dialogue is a problem urgent to be solved.In the decisive period of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects,China urgently needs a relatively friendly external international public opinion environment.Consequently,from the perspective of journalism and communication,this paper takes ?The New York Times?,a media with universal international influence in the United States,as the study object,adopts content analysis method and discourse analysis method to extract the reports with relevant subject of "China-U.S Trade War",and interprets the discourse construction behind the news reports,in the hope of handling the attitude and position of the US mainstream media to China-US Trade War,providing Chinese media with suggestions on responding to China-U.S Trade War news reports and carrying out strategic debates with the United States,improving the influence,guidance and credibility of Chinese media in the future international communication pattern,so that audiences at home and abroad can more clearly understand the overall picture of China-US Trade War and the actual image of China.The study found that the conflict between the reporting trends of?The New York Times?and the tariff policies of the two countries did not show a complete convergence,but focused on confrontation with Chinese public opinion.The "New York Times" mainly focuses on rendering reports of events affecting the subject through long-form newsletters,especially the macro impact of the China-US trade war.However,in actual reports,it is more inclined to expand the biased reports of the America voice.Correspondingly,through an examination of the reporting framework,it is found that the New York Times is more inclined to use the framework of economic consequences and conflict to shape the confrontation between the two countries when shaping the China-U.S trade war coverage.Marginalization.The study finds that the report trend of the New York Times and the confrontation between the two countries' tariff policies do not present a trend of complete convergence,but focus on the confrontation with China's public opinion.The New York Times mainly lay particular emphasis on rendering the report of events' influence through long-distance communication reports,especially the macro impact of the China-U.S Trade War.However,in the actual report,it tends the biased report of expanding American voice.Correspondingly,through the investigation of the report frame,it is found that the New York Times tends to shape the confrontation between the two countries by using the economic frame and conflict frame in shaping the reports of China-US Trade War,while the cooperation frame and humanity frame are marginalized.Through the integration of Fairclough's and Van Dick's discourse analysis theory,the study also finds that the report of the New York Times generally presents the contradiction with its own concepts,and China-U.S Trade War report it constructed is unified with the hegemonism of "America first".This contradiction is the result of the discourse hegemony of The New York Times in essence.The New York Times is not independent of the U.S.government,but a powerful weapon of the macro government power and ideological camp.It tries to weaken the implied emotions and biases of discourse with professionalism and artistry in the construction process of news texts' discourse,and strengthens the legitimacy of American behavior and the negativity of Chinese image through agenda setting.