Agenda Setting And Framing:Research Of Reports Of Chinese Important Food Safety Incidents

Agenda setting and framing analysis are two of important theories in communication. It has been exactly40years since when McCombs and Shaw proposed the theory of agenda setting. And in the40year the theory has been questioned, modified and improved again and again. But there still exists a quantity of controversy about the theory. The study of framing arose in the1980’s. And so far there has been considerable achievement in this research. Unfortunately, it still lacks a set of research paradigm. In the current situation, the research of the relationship of agenda setting and framing analysis is very important and make great sense to the further research of both of these two theories.This thesis samples314pieces of news of Sudan III, turbot fish, Sanlu milk powder and the Shuanghui meat which contains clenbuterol on both People’s Daily and China Youth Daily. Via content analysis, the thesis analyzes the quantity, page, news style, news thesis, actor role and news sources of the reports. Though the analysis, the thesis picture how the issue agenda of food safety is built and how the news media builds the frame of the same issue. The study finds that there is a contact between Agenda Setting and Framing Analysis in many aspects, especially in the production of news message.