Media Discourse Of Migrant Workers And Historical Change

Taking a discourse analysis approach, this paper examines news reports about migrant workers from 1980 to 2009 in People's Daily and analyzes historical changes of media discourse about migrant workers during these thirty years. The purpose of this paper is to disclose the connection between media discourse and social and historical context as well as identify the essential powers affecting media discourse production.It is found that the discourse about migrant workers in People's Daily has undergone many significant changes from the undertaking of reform and opening up of China and both the number and theme of relevant news reports have changed dramatically. Furthermore, this paper describes the changing trend from three dimensions:changing stressed facets of migrant workers themselves, relation between migrant workers and city, relation between migrant workers and administrative power. Taking the development of the problem of migrant workers and the consistent adjustment of policy into consideration, it is obvious that the changes of media discourse about migrant workers are closely related to the social and historical context.Based on the former foundations, the concept of "field" is introduced to the analysis and several important influencing powers in the field of media discourse production are analyzed. It is found that political power has dominated the process of media discourse production; migrant workers have affected media discourse as a silent but active agent; social culture has changed the attitude of media imperceptibly; the journalistic professionalism works as a balancing power among different interest groups. Together with other influencing powers, these powers have greatly affected the production of media discourse about migrant workers and brought about the changes of media discourse.