| Being dubbed as the "No.1 News Agency of the World", the Associated Press is the largest news organization in terms of the number of stories it produces each day. There are altogether 362,122 news reports in three formats incluing text, photos and video from 2006 to 2015. The Associated Press has over 15,000 traditional and new media clients across 112 countries. Most of them rely on the AP's report for their China coverage, which plays an important role in shaping the global public opinion of China. Therefore, there is great significance to study on the AP's China news production.The thesis is based on the news production sociology. It follows the procedure of observation-consideration-interview-induction. It was based on the author's 10-year long observation of the Associated Press Beijing Bureau as well as the first hand documentation and many in-depth interviews with the key staff.The Boxers Rebellion report in 1900 was the first ever China story published by the Associated Press. During the 1930-40s, many clients received the Chinese Communist Party's news only from the AP. Then the China coverage had to be done in Chinese Hong Kong and Tokyo since 1949, until Beijing Bureau's reopen in 1979. In 2008, the total numbers of reporters as well as Chinese news stories published in China both reached their peaks. The author chose to study the AP in the period of 2006-2015 for three main reasons:it was the time the author could carried out the observation; the AP China's convergence coverage started from 2006; China itself developed significant during the ten years.The study confirms the AP's China coverage is mainly in text, photo and video formats. The news agency remains an important "gatekeeper" even in the era of the Mobile Internet. The AP's strength still lies in its hard news stories. The China coverage is mainly produced by more than 20 full-time staffers in Beijing. Its target audiences are the overseas media clients who are interested in China's politics, economy and culture rather than the Chinese outlets.The AP's text reports of China are based on its strict news value, including balanced and comprehensive news coverage. On the image side, the photographers prefer to use third person perspective to witness the fate of the individuals. AP's China TV reports do not only focus on political news, but also increase the numbers of the entertainment, sports and community news content as well as live news coverage. The AP Beijing Bureau moved into a brand new convergence newsroom in 2007, before the position of Greater China Cross-format News Director, which marked the systematical convergence coverage in reporting China.According to the findings of the thesis, there are four major factors to influence the AP's China news production in the diversified field. First, the non-Chinese and the Chinese employees are producing the similar news products according to their professionalism. Meanwhile, they could play the role in the discourse construction. Second, the AP remains a non-profit organization in its 170-year history and the China news production is under the news value of balanced, fair and independent coverage. Third, the Chinese official media, including Xinhua News Agency and CCTV become major sources for the AP while Sina Weibo and Tencent WeChat also turn into the tools to find witnesses and people who are close to the news. Fourth, the regulations for the foreign news organizations in China as well as other kinds of invisible pressure also influence the news production, especially the coverage of Tibet and Xinjiang.The Associated Press' China coverage shares a lot in common with some Chinese media's international reports, such as the subjects and the target audiences. Therefore, the AP's experiences could provide some revelations for those Chinese media in the following ways. Firstly, the balanced reporting principle is the key to build the credibility amongst various backgrounds of the media organizations. Secondly, the perusing of artistic reporting and accurate communications could make the news coverage appealing to the audiences. Thirdly, the media convergence strategy, especially the effort to strengthen the photo, video and live TV coverage are becoming the organization's core competitiveness. And finally, the developmence of the social media would not only benefit the news production including obtaining better User-Generated Content (UGC), but also play a marketing role in audience interactions. All the strategies above would somehow be able to adapted by the Chinese media in order to increase their ability in global communications, and eventually enhancing their discourse power on the international stage. |
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