A Case Study Of Editorials By Ren Zhongping In People’s Daily

In China, the Communist Party newspaper is the mouthpiece of the governmentand the main platform for the Party’s political communication. As the soul of anewspaper, the commentary is the Party’s main way to make its voice heard and guidethe public opinion. However, with the development of the Internet and the diversity ofpublic opinions, the function of the commentary in Party newspapers faces severechallenges. People’s Daily, among all the Party newspapers, makes an effort toinnovate, with the outstanding example of “Ren Zhongping”. Referring to thehomophonic abbreviation of the important commentaries of the People’s Daily,"RenZhongping", honored as "the pearl on the spire of a pagoda", represents the highestlevel of the commentary in Party newspapers. In an attempt to explore thetransformation and innovation of the commentary in Party newspapers, the thesisadopts text analysis and content analysis to study the78commentaries from “RenZhongping” during1993and2012.Essentially, the study on the commentary in Party newspapers belongs to thecategory of political rhetoric study. The transformation of the commentary in Partynewspapers reflects the development of the Chinese Communist Party’s idea onpropaganda. After presenting the development of the CCP’s idea on propaganda, thisthesis believes that the transformation from the political propaganda to politicalcommunication represents the governing party’s respect for the rule of journalism andcommunication. The innovation of "Ren Zhongping" demonstrates the essence of thistransformation. Moreover, the thesis also studies the commentaries in Chinese Partynewspapers in the perspective of the global media landscape. Commentaries in Partynewspapers should get more involved in the global discourse system in order tostrengthen its influence in the international communication. This is a direction forfuture development of the commentary in Party newspapers such as Ren Zhongping.