Study Of Contemporary Chinese Disaster News

As disaster is closely related to human life, disaster coverage has long become one important form of news coverage. A careful review of disaster coverage of contemporary China reveals that the dominant factor that affects its change is the relationship between government and news media, more specifically, the unity and contradiction of the two opposites -government political control and professional ideology in journalism practice of different times.Based on the theory of the government and society, the thesis divides contemporary China into two periods—total society and separate society with distinctive characteristics of disaster coverage of each. In total society, the prime function of news coverage is to propagate, which was accepted and then internalized by professional journalists. Besides, due to political legitimacy and character of counter-disaster model, positive dealing of negative disaster coverage became a common practice and it reached its highest in the Cultural Revolution with the prevalence of extremely lopsided disaster coverage at the time. As a result, objectivity, as a professional criterion, lost its importance in disaster coverage gradually. In separate society, with changes in counter-disaster model and with increasing public awareness of the right-to-know, functions of news become multifold. Professional awareness is growing in professional journalists and changes occur in government political control. As a result, professionalism becomes a trend in disaster coverage, represented by active adaptation to political control, looming of objective report, exploration of professional means, stress on dedication and social responsibility etc.The history of disaster coverage of contemporary China shows how government and news media conflict with each other on the one hand and how they depend on each other on the other hand. The kind of relationship—the unity of the opposites, characterizing all kinds of development, motives positive progression in the right way. Rapidly developing, China is now in a time of various disasters, and how to cope with potential disaster in a more orderly and efficient way is a task of both government and news media. In view of this, government and news media should construct new partner cooperation aiming at public benefits, that is, government should give news media freedom to get systematized and news media should provide government with professional news service.