A Comparative Analysis Of Construction Of Images Of "First Lady" In Chinese And American Mainstream Newspapers From The Perspective Of Gender Discourse

Nowadays,people get to know society and world through the media,in which newspapers with authentic and serious features have become an authoritative channel to assess different societies and cultures.Based on the Gender Theory,this thesis adopts mainstream newspapers China Daily,Global Times,New York Times and Washington Post as the research sample.News reports regarding "First Lady" will be analyzed through combination of quantitative and qualitative research as well as comparative analysis and discourse analysis,so as to learn about the status quo of news reports of"First Lady",to analyze the similarities and differences of images of "First Lady",in Chinese and American mainstream newspapers,and further to uncover the hidden causes.The creative point of this research lies in its combination of the "gender theory" and the methodology of "discourse analysis" to analyze the construction of the images of first lady in Chinese and American news reports so as to probe into the similarities and diversities of the images of first lady in China and America as well as their relationship with gender.Meanwhile,it attempts to uncover the potential causes of such similarities and differences,and further discusses how to achieve the real gender equality.There are some similarities and differences in construction of the images of "First Lady" in Chinese and American mainstream newspapers.The main findings of this research are concluded as follows.First,in general,the text length of American news reports is larger than that of Chinese newspapers through comparing the word tokens of the two corpora.Second,Chinese and American mainstream newspapers differ in specific number and ratio of news articles in constructing the images of first ladies;however they share a similar proportional distribution of news reports on different roles of first ladies.In particular,news reports describing first ladies’ role in political stage have reached the maximum in all of the news reports collected from the mainstream Chinese and American newspapers.Whereas,news reports emphasizing first ladies’ role in other fields are comparatively few in number and ratio.Third,the mainstream newspapers share some common features and differ in several aspects in constructing the images of Chinese and American first ladies.They have constructed the images of first ladies as a supportive wife,a soft power,who cares about education and health care,an independent and professional person,who is elegant and with fine fashion taste.However,there are still some differences in the images constructed by the media at home and abroad.And even in times of taking similar activities,the images of first ladies constructed by the media differ to some extent.For example,in describing first ladies’ feminine features,although both Chinese and American first ladies have super fashion taste and both behave elegantly in public,the mass media highlight the gracious and beautiful features of Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan for her personal charm and style of dressing with Chinese characteristics,while emphasizing the fashionable but luxurious features of American first ladies Michelle Obama and Nancy Regan.The findings of this research could help extend the application of the gender theory to the realm of mass communication and politics.In the meantime,by comparing and analyzing the Chinese and American news reports on the first lady,this study will be conductive to a strengthened understanding of gender in different societies and cultures,and an in-depth reflection on women’s position and gender equality.