Exploring The Representation Of China’s Image In Time From The Perspective Of Framing Theory

The representation of national images on media has always been the focus of intercultural communication researches. Being a leading main-stream media in America, Time has issued lots of China-related covers and relevant cover stories. China-related reports on US mainstream media are always the focus of intercultural communication researches, which will enable us to understand the propaganda, attitude and images of China on US Medias and in their social cultures. Meanwhile, by means of its powerful economic strength, US Medias play an important role in creating and representation the national images of other countries. Therefore it’s vital to research on how American Medias report and represent China’s national image.It’s a matter of fact that the representation of other countries’images has always been influenced by various factors in intercultural communications. As one of the category of "image", the image of other countries can be represented by means of Medias and it can also be altered with the development of history and be relatively stable in certain period of time. Based on the frame theory, this paper has selected the China-related cover stories from TIME magazine within more than half a century, dating from1949, when P.R. China was founded to2011, and make analysis on the reporting quantity, contents and agenda setting to explore the representation of China image on TIME as long as more than fifty years, which constitutes three historical periods:1949-1971cold war period;1971-1989open-up period and after1989the containment period. The paper makes analysis on cover stories of each historical period to represent the detailed "China image" on TIME magazine. Then the paper make statistical analysis on report quantity, contents, reporting tendency and agenda settings, which discloses TIME magazine, self-introduced as "objective" and "neutral" reports, actually displays its political tendency everywhere based on its own benefits, international situations and Sino-US relations at that time.In the end the research makes conclusion as for the representations of different China images on TIME magazine from1949to2011and analyzes the reasons from the aspects of US government’s China policies, Media ideology, economic and political interests, which all influence the selections of agenda setting and value judgment of China-related reports on TIME magazine.