How Do The Media Regulate The Social-fairness Mentality Through The Coverage Of Social Problems

Presently, China is in the process of accelerating transformation period of social reforms. The former social structure and social order that once posed obstacles to the social development has been broken. The old integration mechanism is completely out of order and the new mechanism that tallies with market economy is being constructed and tested. Due to the deficiency of efficient systems and the maladjustment of people's concept, some new phenomena appear on certain levels during the social development and a series of new social problems emerge. Social fairness as one of the social problems has become a sensitive topic and a difficult problem that needs to be settled in a timely manner so that there will be a smooth development of society.To achieve and maintain social fairness in a practical way, guarantee systems of social fairness with its main focus on the fairness of right, opportunity, rules and distribution must be gradually established in conformity with the law, and the state as well as the government should take concrete measures to reform and integrate every social aspect. However, in accordance with the attributes of impartial ideology, we should also regulate public mentality on social fairness through news media beginning with the steering of ideology and make every effort to make news media a complement of other regulating measures.The thesis is to analyze the impact of social-problem coverage on the regulation of social-fairness mentality and probe the methods and strategies of how social-problem coverage regulates the social-fairness mentality through the employment of the Fairness Theory proposed by Adams, the Cognitive Consonance theory by Hyde, the Cognitive Dissonance theory by Festinger, Agenda Setting theory, "Double-Side theory", combined with the practice of social problem coverage, so as to help maintain social stability, improve the work of both the party and the government, and construct a harmonious social setting. The main structure of the thesis runs like this: part I is on the prominence of social problems in the transformation period with the focus on the definition of "social problems" and the analysis of the main social problems China is facing; part II is the general survey of social-fairness problems in China with the emphasis on the definition of "social fairness" and an objective analysis of the status quo of social-fairness problems in China and the government's attitude toward social-fairness problems; part III talks about the present public mentality on social fairness in China. It deals with the causes of social fairness, analyzes the present public mentality on social fairness and points out the important role of news media in the regulation of social-fairness mentality and the means to achieve its regulating function; part IV is on the strategies of how social-problem coverage regulates social-fairness mentality, with the main focus on the principles that should be employed during the probe of social problems and methods and psychological strategies that should be adopted in the practice of news coverage.