The Comparative Study Of 1998 And 2016's Flood Reports In People's Daily

At the beginning of July 2016,severe flood disaster had happened in most areas of southern China.Disasters always affect lives of millions of people,media has become a major channel for people to know related information.The "people's Daily" plays an important role in guiding the public opinions,as a mouthpiece of the party and the government.How "people's Daily" behaves in the disaster news? What improvements are when comparing flood reports in 1998 with those in2016? What are causes of these improvements? How to improve and develop the official media's disaster news reports' quality? This paper attempts to offer some answers for these questions.First of all,the paper took "people's Daily" as the main research object,using the method of content analysis and text analysis method to perform this comparative study about 1998 and2016's media flood reports.Some of the improvements are what being reported covers more comprehensive sides,and views and statements are more objective.Not like reports in 1998 which focus on government actions and excellent results of these actions,the reports in 2016 paid more attention to improve the public recognition about disaster.Furthermore,reports became more vividly and shows more humane care.Secondly,this paper explores the causes of this series of changes.The fundamental reason is eighteen-year developments in China's social environment and media ecology.In the social environment,China's political,economic,cultural,science and technology have experienced great progress.Domestic and international public opinion environment has also changed a lot.Factors has favored these improvements.As a result,media has endured changes in reports content,report content and report quality.From the perspective of media ecology,that the rise of new media,the fight between the official discourse and folk discourse,the continuous improvements of journalists profession capabilities have made great contribution for these improvements.Finally,the paper concludes that there is still much room for improvement in the disaster report.People's daily can find a way to utilize rising new media.If it could continuously improve information transparency and focus on the needs of the readers,people's Daily could serve the people,social and the party better.