On The Role Of Values ​​in The Objective Coverage Of The U.s. Media

The study of China-related reports in American mainstream newspapers is an important area of the research of the image of China in foreign media. In recent years, the number of scholars engaged in the study has increased. This field of research is interdisciplinary and not yet mature, nor are the study methods. This thesis is just an endeavor to explore this topic.In this thesis, the analysis is based on communication theory and international political theory of constructivism. And quantitative analysis method is applied. About 50,400 articles were retrieved from ProQuest database within the time period 2000.1.1-2008.12.31 and all of them were published in 7 of the important newspapers in U.S. ("The New York Times", "Washington Post", "The Wall Street Journal," "Los Angeles Times," "Chicago Tribune", "Christian Science Monitor").All the articles were China-concerned reports, and 502 of them were taken as samples for analysis.This article first analyzed the authenticity of the China-related reports of these mainstream American newspapers. Through the study of the numbers, proportion and categories of articles that fell into the concept of "differ from the reports of Chinese news press", a conclusion can be made that during the time period 2000-2008, China-related daily topic coverage from mainstream American newspapers are generally objective, only a small percentage of the articles are total distortion of the facts.Then this paper analyzed the reporting preference of these mainstream American newspapers. According to the numbers of articles that "contains ideological terms" and that "speaks highly of China", a conclusion can be drawn that American newspapers seldom give enough credits to China. However, in reports that are on "Taiwan", "Tibet" and "human rights" and some other core issues, ideological terms were frequently used, truth was therefore distorted. This thesis then focused on the samples on "Taiwan" and "Tibet" and discussed the wording and purposes of the ideological articles from a constructivist perspective. Subsequently, the thesis analyzed the relationship between Sino-US economic and trade exchanges and the reporting of this issue and concluded that economic and trade relations did not change the inclination of the China-related coverage. In addition, the thesis also described the unique environment the mainstream American press is in.This thesis was trying to paint a big picture of the China-related reports of the mainstream American newspapers during the time period 2000-2008. Quantitative analysis was applied to reveal hard core of the value of the American newspapers, which has been hidden under the objective appearance.