The Study Of New York Times’ Reports Concerning China With Discourse Right Theory

During the18th National Congress of China’s Communist Party, Hu Jintaomentioned that China should improve its soft power and culture economy should bethe mainstay industry during its journey to go outside. The key of culture soft powerlies in discourse right which can reflect the strengths of the country’s soft power.In modern Chinese, discourse right means the rights that people own to sharewhat they want to express. And the media international discourse right refers to thepower to control and guide public opinion. During the time of globalization weather acountry can own its international discourse right has much to do with its nationalimage. How the media from the West report China reflects the results of China’sexternal communication.Beginning from the national image, this article takes the reports on the18thNational Congress of China’s Communist Party from New York Times as samples tointerpret China’s national image in the world. And the result is that the mainstreammedia headed by the New York Times in the US all have tendentious when reportingChina.Guided by Agenda Setting Theory this article analyzes the factors that can affectthe reports of China from the media in America, the experiences the American mediaown to control discourse right and the current situation in China and then put forwardsome suggestions to gain more discourse rights for China.In the first part the origin, the implication, the thinking, the methods, thedifficulties and the innovations of the issue are introduced. And then the article willreview the theories of the topic from aspects of discourse right, soft power and agendasetting. And at last the reports on the18th National Congress of China’s CommunistParty from New York Times will be studied from angles of amounts, contents, sourcesand tendentious. The article will conclude two factors that affect the tendentious overChina from mainstream media in America and three key factors why Americanmainstream media can have so much discourse right. At the end of the article I willput forward five suggestions to improve China’s international discourse right.