Expression Of Sound International

As China's economy expands, its currency revaluation has become a heated topic both at home and abroad over the past few years. China-bashers, led by politicians from United States and some European countries, often accused China for keeping yuan "artificially" low to pursue its own interest, namely trade surplus. Some even claimed that an artificially lower yuan led to US economic recession and unemployment rate hike. Likewise, western media have often used Renminbi revaluation as an easy scapegoat for world economy slow down, especially in US. Compared to the overwhelming external pressures and criticisms, China's English-language newspaper, whose target readers are supposed to be foreigners, seemed too weak to counter those dominating western voices. Certainly, it became an obstacle for the government to get their ideas and concerns to people outside China.After careful study, the key different is the way they attract readers attention. Most state-run media, no matter what language they use, tends to be self-satisfied instead of audience-centered. Such enormous ego may irritate foreign readers. After all, what western readers really want to read is something logical, analytical with new insights, not the same old textbook rhetoric. Suspense is often required to hold readers' interest by creating curiosity or concern. We cannot pile up similar stories they used, but we can copy their technique. Their opening line is short, direct and engaging. Ours should be too.That's why I decided to choose Hong Kong's "South China Morning Post" as research object, together with "China Daily" for the sake of comparison. Through a careful comparative study of the 545 yuan appreciation related stories collected from the two newspapers at the same period of time, my ambition is to find out the recipe for state-run English newspaper to effectively deliver messages of China authorities to foreigners, that is to give them variety and grab their interest, while ridding of any old conventions that may lose sight of readers' interest, needs and motivation.