Research On The Construction Of The Media Image Of Mother

Mother is not only the source of human life carrier, but also the home of human feelings, and it is also linked to many complex or even self-contradictory social and cultural meanings. The concern on mother is therefore the concern on the human destiny. In recent years, as the "Mother’s Day" gains its popularity, the figure of mother becomes the focus of the mass media and the public. In the process of reporting and guiding the public opinion about Mother’s Day, how the image of "mother" was constructed by the media, and whether it objectively reflects the full spectrum of mothers’ life, are vital aspects that are worth studying.This contribution bases on a sample of the historical reports of the newspaper China Women’s News during the period of Mother’s Day each year, with a time span from1985to2013. It aims at conducting a quantitative and qualitative study on the media image of mother constructed by China Women’s News.This paper is divided into four parts. In the preface section, we illustrate the motivation of this work, and the reason why we choose China Women’s News as the subject of the study. Besides, we also introduce the importance, the state-of-art and the methodology of this study. The first chapter is devoted to the analysis of content. Starting with the description of mother in the reports during Mother’s Day, we classify and analyze the samples of the research quantitatively. The generic characteristics of the image of mother in the media are thereby reconstructed. The second chapter is devoted to the analysis of text. By examining closely the texts of some representative reports, we discuss further the construction of the image of mother in the newspaper, as well as the social and cultural implications behind. In the third chapter, we make comments and critics on the image of mother conveyed by China Women’s News. We also give suggestions for possible improvements, hoping that these may be helpful for future studies. In the end, conclusions are drawn and future prospectives are given.