The Discourse Research On Xinhuanet As An Official Media

In recent years, with the rapid development of Internet, network events occur frequently. And the impact of various network events is gradually increasing. As the important platform for information publishing, the official network media need to report events timely and guide the public opinion in its reports. As one of China’s official network media, Xinhuanet is one of the largest network media with global influence, therefore its reports of network events are typical and it is of practical reference value to study the specific methods of Xinhuanet to convey the mainstream values.Based on textual analysis, this article takes People’s Daily as the comparison object, and compares the reports of network events between Xinhuanet and People’s Daily’s with the perspective of discourse analysis. Firstly, in terms of sample selection, the first network event belonging to social events from 2010 to 2014 is chosen according to Annual Report on Public Opinion in China. Then news reports are collected from Xinhuanet and People’s Daily based on network events. This research shows that at the macro level, Xinhuanet tends to use narrative propositions, presupposition propositions and implicit propositions to express news facts and reflect the impartiality of the news. From the macro structure aspect, by using a wealth of primary propositions, Xinhuanet dilutes the narrative of the main line which is based on official acts. What’s more, Xinhuanet deliberately highlights the presence of the audience in news headlines to attract more readers. By using these methods, Xinhuanet improves its readability. The micro structure of the news is an important way to present the content of the news subject. The discourse features of the micro structure of Xinhuanet are mainly embodied in the wording, figures of speech and sentences. The words of Xinhuanet present the objective and neutral characteristic in surface, but actually express official position by using specific words. And Xinhuanet uses quotation to let news texts show the structural characteristics of functional coherence. Combined with the use of the source information, Xinhuanet shows the limited news objectivity. What’s more, the net tries to get closely to the audience by using the summon structure in imperative sentences.Xinhuanet’s discourse features are formed in the environment of network communication, the spreading features of network communication, the influence of professional journalism and the change of audience status are all main factors to influence the language characteristics of network news. To face the challenges from network environment, Xinhuanet learns from professional journalism and pays attention to audience’s presence so as to achieve a better communication effect. But Xinhuanet also confronts other problems, such as the weak readability and reports lacking depth.