Comparative Study Of U.S. And Chinese Newspaper Coverage On Public Health Emergency

In the recent years, Health communication become more and more popular as theSARS and H1N1epidemic spread all around the world. Media plays an important role inthis situation. Due to the media reports are deeply affected by lots of factors, China andthe United States reports in the Public Health Emergency shows obvious differences. Tostudy about this, it is helpful to explore the underlying reasons and make bettercommunication effect.Content analysis and contrastive analysis were utilized to do the research. Accordingto five indices, the study shows the variance of U.S. and Chinese newspaper coverage onH1N1epidemic in2009. At the same time, this study analyzes U.S. and Chinese newscoverage of H1N1in terms of social impact, economic consequences, health concerns,uncertainty, solution, reassurance and conflict.Findings shows that social impact, health concern and solution frame are mostlyused by both. But the U.S. media use conflict and uncertainty frame more frequently.Through the discussion, the media frame stories of H1N1in a way that reflects thenational politics, economics, culture and new ideas of each country. And this studymainly contributed to link the ideas of framing and these elements. In the end of theessay, some suggestions were concluded through the contrastive research, such as paymore attention on the audience, report in a rational way, concern for the individual and soon. So the health communication may meet the growing needs of society in the future.