| This paper took the news reports of ethnic minorities of the People’s Daily in 1950-2014 as examples to study ethnic minority’s images of Party Newspaper from the following aspects:in the context of our country, what images of ethnic minorities may the media choose to construct? How to construct one (or all) image(s)? What rules to follow? Which specific strategies applied to help the production of the meaning of images?The study found that there were nine images in the media:recipients, people who eulogize and advocate, people who improve life, spokesmen and maintainers of national unity, participants of national important activities, hometown constructers, people with noble morality and the negative image-separatists. Certain differences of the media images existed in different periods and different themes of the news. Media images appeared respectively as individuals, ethnic groups and people of all ethnic groups. Age, occupation had no substantial impact on the construction of the media images, gender affected the image construction in some way, that is, from intentionally ignoring gender differences to deemphasizing gender differences. In the same news reports, the relationship between two kinds of images was not isolated and unrelated, but supplemented, paralleled, contained and conflicted in order to support the production of news’ central meaning actively. The construction of ethnic media images was reproduction of national relations in new China, media images at the same time also had distinct characteristics of era, thus strikingly marked with the stamps of the times. Influenced by the change of media surroundings and the reform of Party Newspaper, some changes have taken place on how to present, but little change on "what image". This shows that it is very difficult for the construction of ethnic media images to disaffiliate from the influence of the dominant discourse.The frame of news reports established the standard of the construction of ethnic media images. Six frames were extracted in the ethnic minority news as follows: superiority of social system, support the leadership of CCP and PRC, equality and unity among 56 ethnic groups, pluralism of Chinese cultures, harmonious development of society, framework of personal quality. The same image could exist in different news frames respectively; its meaning may be transformed according to different frames; or different images may be constructed through the same frame, which indicated the production of symbol operation of media images and the flexibility of transformation of meaning from different angles to represent certain meaning.On specific construction strategies of media images, the news reports represented recipients, class soldiers in the special period, members of the motherland of China and the maintenance of national unity under the framework of systemic superiority through the metaphors of sun, war, compatriots, flowers and eyes. The study investigated "who speaks" and "what to say" in the news through news quotation and its quotation sources. It found that the identity of quotation sources was decided by the discourse and the way of speaking. The singular quotation sources represented respectively individuals, ethnic minorities, people of all ethnic groups (including Han nationality)to make dialogues with the nation. The plural quotation sources represented ethnic minorities, people of all ethnic groups (including Han nationality)to make dialogues with the nation. News quotations by supplementing news fact, expressing their attitudes and opinions, became the important means of constructing media images. From the view of narration, the dualistic image may be the important mode to tell stories of ethnic minorities in the media text. Through the dualistic opposites between "ego" and "the other" and the contrast between "past" and "present", the news may construct the images of ethnic minorities.
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