The Intertwining Between National Interests, Ideology And News Philosophy

The significance of study on reports of China of the U.S. mainstream media is twofold. One is practical:understanding how the U.S. mainstream media builds and disseminates China's image through the window of press, can help us adjust communication strategy to guide and influence U.S. media, to make its reports of China more objective and comprehensive. Meanwhile, we can take image of China in the U.S. mainstream media as mirror to carry out self-improvement. Second, in the academic sense:the current theoretical research on the U.S. News is abundant, but mainly based on U.S. domestic reporting, and the study of whether these theories are applicable to international news reports and how these theories are put into practice in the international reports is scarce, and there are some divergences of opinion. So this study can enrich the theory of Western journalism which is based on United States.Taking Time which is the most influential news magazine in the United States as a study object, this thesis analyses its reports on China from the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 to the end of 2008. Through content analysis and frame analysis of reports on China of Time during the past sixty years, this thesis finds image of China in the reports showing several changes. It can be summarized into three stages:The precarious evil empire (1949.10.1-1971.4.9); Forward step by step in the Game of the conservative and progressive reform (1971.4.10-1989.4.14); The rising threat (1989.4.15-2008.12.31).By contrasting "Chinese Mirror" in Time and the reality of China's in these three stages, this thesis finds except for a few inaccuracies, Time's reports on China during 1949.10.1-1971.4.9 and 1989.4.15-2008.12.31 can mostly reflect the actual situation in China on the specific fact level. However, there is obvious one-sided part and distortion of China's overall presentation and evaluation. Reports during 1971.4.10-1989.4.14 can more objectively and deeply present China's overall image and grasp China's overall development trend.Studying Time's reports from the aspect of the international situation and the historical background of China-US relations, this thesis finds in the long run large fluctuation of Time's reports on China is the result of significant impact of U.Snational interests and ideology. Although in subjectivity Time will insist on the news philosophy of reflecting objective fact, not fabricate and deliberately distort facts for national interests and ideology. However, national interests and ideology will play a role that subtly influences the selection and organization of news facts and background material, the citation of sources and the use of language. Meanwhile, because Time's news values of "exposing the ugly" will be influenced by national interests and ideology, the extent and position of "exposing the ugly" of China will change during different periods.Moreover, Time often directly comments on the news from the aspect of national interests and ideology for the impact of explanatory report philosophy.