Discourse Game: Foreign Event Report Of Chinese Event And Chinese Media

In March2008, following a period of unrest in Tibet, the Chinese Government realised that maintaining the initiative in international media discourse on the’Tibet Issue’had become a more serious problem.The government’s international image and policies relating to "Tibetan issues" came under scrutiny and were subject to increasing international criticism. What had been a domestic political issue, had now become internationalized by the Dalai Lama Clique, who had been given public support by the American government and other western allies.The research aim of this dissertation is to examine how the key proponents of the’Tibet Issue’discourse, China, America and the Dalai Lama, created news agendas, conflicting and competing for international attention, by framing and re-framing core discourse concepts, articulated through the international Press, and re framing an’invisible war’From the perspective of the international media, this period of’play and counter-play’around the respective position of China and the West’s response to the "Tibet Issue", became more complex and more impenetrable.Based on the process of the discourse power’s production in the international media circle, this dissertation uses text analysis, discourse analysis, qualitative research and quantitative research. In this period from March2008to December2010, the author explored three main research initiatives:Firstly, how The New York Times interpreted and reported the Tibet ’question’and internationalized the "Tibet Issue" using double frameworks to re-frame the2008Lhasa "3.14" issue, and their tendency to bias when reporting news sources and discourse strategy, and in their reproduction (re-framing) of the original Tibetan discourse by the Chinese government and People’s Daily.Secondly, from1949to2010, as the Party’s voice, how did The People’s Daily produce and frame the "Tibet Issue" relative to the national political discourse system, especially after the changes of the "3.14" issue. This part also focuses on the strategies used to deconstruct and re-construct the discourse of the Dalai Lama, his western "allies", and the western mediaThirdly, research focused on the Chinese central government’s official policy relating to Tibetan attitudes, and official (text) announcements, released by the Minister of Foreign Affairs’ news spokesperson.The research is based on the above analysis, and the relationships, discourse power and the crossed swords between the New York Times, People’s Daily and the proclamations of the Minister of Foreign Affairs news spokesperson.In addition to the introduction and conclusion, this dissertation includes three chapters. The introduction discusses the preparation work for the research.The first chapter "the indirect war around the’ Tibet Issue’" discusses the international community’s communication discourse of the "Tibet Issue", and the discursive construction of the western governments, mass media, public opinion, the Dalai Lama and other political groups.The second chapter focuses on the sources of media competition and the different points and attitudes relating to the "Tibet Issue", especially how the opinions from China’s central government and the Chinese mass media were deconstructed in The New York Times. There are four main levels presented in the chapter:the first is a summary of the domestic studies about the New York Times, the second level is the news source’s bias in the news reports of the2008Lhasa "3.14" issue, and discursive strategies, the third level is about the main characteristics of the news reports in the post "3.14" period, and the final level is the research undertaken on the media marketing and propaganda skills of the Dalai Lama.The third chapter " the sophisticated history and invented ’Tibet Issue’ from a domestic perspective " discusses two questions; on the one hand, it is a study of the People’s Daily’s news reporting agenda-history and context of Tibet from1949to2010, and the modification of the discourse power production following the "3.14" issue. On the other hand, it focuses on the texts of the news spokesperson of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, to highlight the official discourse rules and discursive strategies.The conclusion presents the main findings of the dissertation, its possible deficiencies and the future work and direction that this research may take.