Sino-US Mainstream Media Report On The Diaoyu Island Incident

The problem of the Diaoyu Island sovereignty, from the beginning of the1970s, hasbeen the focus of the Sino-Japanese territorial dispute. It gradually developed into a majordiplomatic dispute between the two countries when Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara madea speech about the purchase of the Diaoyu Island in April2012. As a world power, theUnited States which has alliance with Japan, claims this time that what it delivered to Japanin1972is the “administrative rights” on the island, but not sovereignty. It also claims thatthe United States does not take any position on the issue, neither will choose any side. Onthe other hand, it admits that the US-Japan Security Treaty applies to the disputed island.Several Chinese experts, scholars and critics note that these contradictory statements provethat the United States has already chosen sides. This research intends to explore U.S.position and attitudes on the Diaoyu Island issue from the U.S. media reports, and compareSino-US reports to see the differences of agenda features on the basis of agenda settingtheory.Through a content analysis of Diaoyu Island incident reported in the “People’s Daily”and “New York Times”, the representative of China and the United States media, we findthat there is no significant difference in the feature of length, page or news source, while asignificant difference in the number of reported, press location, genre, tone, attribution andtheme. And the United States news reports, represented by “New York Times”, show a biastoward Japan.The reports of “People’s Daily” make a strong voice on behalf of the Chinesegovernment to influence global public opinion, while “New York Times” cover up itsideology behind by using objectivity on the surface and rely on the media hegemony toimplement its ideology influence globally.“People’s Daily” need to improve from certainaspects of agenda setting, in response to the impact if the US-led Western media hegemony.