| The First Lady is not only a celebrity, the president's wife, the public face of the White House, but also a representative of modern American women. The First Lady traveled to China from March 19 to March 26, 2014. She visited Beijing, Xi'an and Chengdu. The theme of the trip is the importance of education. This comparative study investigates American and Chinese news coverage of Michelle Obama's visit to China from March 19, 2014 to March 26, 2014. This study employed quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze a total 292 paragraphs from American media and 82 paragraphs from Chinese media. By systematically comparing the issue agenda and attribute agenda in American and Chinese media coverage, this study identified differences and similarities in both levels of agenda in the two countries' media coverage. The findings showed that there were some significant differences in the issues covered between the Chinese and US press. The data suggested that diplomacy, foreign policy, freedom, human rights, race, and culture, (six out of these eleven) issues revealed significant differences between American and Chinese media. However, American and Chinese media seemed to employ similar attributes of the First Lady, which reflected certain gender stereotypes. Dominant ideology, glocalization and four theories of press were discussed to explain the differences of issue agenda between two countries. |
