A Contrastive Study On Cultural Differences In Disaster Coverage Between China And America

In the twenty-first century, the rocketing development of politics, economy and technology of each country has made life more convenient than before. However,disaster still brings loss and pain to people. Disaster coverage is the focus of newspaper which is an important kind of mass media. Even though the essential information of disaster coverage is similar to each other, the reporting style of the newspaper differs greatly from country to country. Besides the influence of the media system and the journalists, cultural factors do exert certain impact on the disparities of the disaster coverage. This thesis explores how cultural factors influence the report of the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 in 2014 from the intercultural perspective. The author refers to Edward T. Hall’s cultural context model and Geert Hofstede’s culture dimensions to form a theatrical framework and selects four representative newspapers: People’s Daily,the New York Times, China Daily and the Los Angeles Times, dated from 2014 March 7to 2014 March 31. Analyses are mainly focused on the first two newspapers, while others two are added as supplements. Meanwhile qualitative analysis is adopted to discuss and make a contrastive study on the disparities in disaster coverage between Chinese and American newspapers from intercultural perspective.By proposing hypotheses and confirming them, the thesis brings up the following viewpoints:(1) The influence of High- and Low-context culture is that the reports in Chinese newspapers are monotonous, conservative with little visual images; while the reports in American newspapers are vivid, direct with lots of pictures.(2) In regard to the power distance index, Chinese newspapers, compared to American newspapers,think highly of the viewpoints from officials and experts, while the later two suspect and criticize the authorities.(3) Referring to the uncertainty avoidance index, there is a large portion of positive news in Chinese newspapers, however American newspapers present balanced news reports of positive, negative and neutral.(4) As for the dimension of individualism and collectivism, Chinese newspapers pay more attention to countries’ and organizations’ opinions, by contrast, personal feeling, view andexperience can attract the attention of American newspapers more easily.(5) In regard to the influence of masculinity and femininity, the government and officials are described as caring and humane in Chinese newspapers, by contrast, American newspapers point out the government’s negligence.(6) With respect to the long-term verse short-term dimension, reports in Chinese newspapers are mainly focused on the plain fact and data, while reports in American newspapers are more comprehensive and in-depth.