Construction Of Cultural Identity In Chinese And American Media’s English News Reports

This thesis researches into media’s construction of cultural identity, applying cultural identity theory to three similar, but distinguished and controversial cases-Confucius statue, Obama statue and Starbucks outlet-reported in both Chinese and American media, which includes China Daily, Xinhua News Agency, the New York Times and the Associated Press.Cultural identity theory is proposed by Collier and Thomas (1988). They suggest that cultural identities can be negotiated in discourse, and intercultural communication competence involves validating cultural identities, that is, identification with and perceived acceptance into a group that has shared systems of symbols and meanings as well as norms or rules for conduct. Cultural identity encompasses two significant aspects:cultural identity content and cultural identity salience. And identity means the meanings represented and constructed in the process of communication.Totally, the number of English news reports collected from the official websites of the above four media are (1) China Daily:22, which includes4reports about Confucius statue,4reports about Obama statue, and14reports about Starbucks outlet;(2) Xinhua News Agency:9, which includes4reports about Confucius statue,2reports about Obama statue, and3reports about Starbucks outlet;(3) the New York Times:7, which includes1report about Confucius statue,3reports about Obama statue, and3reports about Starbucks outlet;(4) the Associated Press:10, which includes2reports about Confucius statue,6reports about Obama statue, and2reports about Starbucks outlet.Applying cultural identity theory, the present study addresses three research questions: What are the cultural identities of Confucius statue, Obama statue, Starbucks outlet, and their locations or socio-contexts constructed in the English news reports of the four Chinese and American media? How do the cultural identities of the three cultural objects conflict with the cultural identities of their locations or socio-contexts? What are the implications of the study for intercultural communication in the context of globalization?The thesis finds out that there is a similar pattern of the three cases’ development. The four Chinese and American media’s English news reports confirm the positive meaning of the cultural objects, and then as controversy arises, conflicting identities between the cultural objects and their locations are displayed. The production or promotion of a cultural object should take into account the cultural identity of the location and the consistency of cultural identity between the cultural object and the location and the particular socio-context. Communicants should take cultural values and cultural norms into account, apart from some regulatory rules. Writers of the news reports are of good intercultural communication competence. When they are reporting, they spare efforts to both the positive and negative meaning of objects, and confirm the cultural identities in particular situations. Besides, new media forms, like Facebook and blog, based on the Internet play an important role in the communication situations discussed in the thesis. Intercultural communicants should pay more attention to mediated communication.