A Preliminary Study On The Front - Page Of Media Paper

China Daily is the first national English newspaper in China. Founded in1981, the newspaper covers a comprehensive China for foreigners, including political, economic, cultural and social development. It is one of the leading English media, which builds up China’s image and conveys its people’s voice. As the Reform and Opening Up goes deeper, the society witnesses a fresh working style and faith to construct a China of rule of law conducted by the government, as well as pursing sustainable development.These changes have already mirrored in domestic mainstream media. Does China Daily also have the similar change? In order to figure it out, the thesis puts its attention to the front pages of China Daily published during the last three years’"Two Sessions", aiming at finding out how the newspaper covers the new China based on the changes in content and design.The thesis collects39front pages of China Daily published during the "Two Sessions" in2011,2012and2013, and analyzes its theme, placement, length, index, advertisement, title, picture and design in detail. The first part of the thesis focuses on constructing the framework, introducing the background, reviewing the literature, proposing the questions and explaining research methods. The second part analyzes all the collected data. The last part summarizes the findings in the previous chapter.The results of the thesis show that the amount of news in China Daily’s front page increases in the past three years "Two Sessions". The newspaper pays great attention to political, social and economic news as usual. In the "Two Sessions" of Year2013, the amount of social news does not witness a clear increase, but its average length does. The length of top news, which mainly consists of political news, decreases dramatically. Technology news and culture news become the two news categories in the front page, which enrich the content. The guidance becomes more diverse, where the readers are easy to find what they need inside the paper. The paper also experiences the consistency for using pictures in an unconventional style compared with those official newspapers in China. As for the design, the newspaper tends to use bright colors to shine up its page and make good use of the space, so it may leave a more positive image for its readers.However, the thesis also defines some improvements to be done. Compared with the coverages in2011and2012, social news disappears from the top news area in the2013coverage. Meanwhile, the amount of pictures related to social news reduces, and news for propaganda is highlighted in terms of amount. The thesis offers a preliminary sketch of the features of China Daily’s front pages during important meetings and can be reference for further research in this field.