An Analysis Of The Differences Between Chinese And Us Social News Reporting From The Perspective Of Cultural Values

The purpose of this study is to analyze comparatively the New York Times and China Daily’s social news coverage regarding China’s air pollution in 2013 from the perspective of cultural values.The study is positioned in cross-cultural communication studies and mass communication studies.Through the combination of the knowledge in communication,comparative journalism and cross-cultural communication,the research employs a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods: content analysis and discourse analysis.Forty-nine pieces of news from China Daily and thirty two from New York Times on air pollution from January 1st,2013 to December 31 st,2013 are selected for the content analysis in order to compare the number of news,news genres,and news reporting tendency as well as comment on both news media.Furthermore,five news articles are respectively selected for the discourse analysis to further examine the representation of the reporting of air pollution and the characteristics embedded in the social news coverage of the two newspapers.The study suggests that the different characteristics in social news reporting can be obviously observed through the analysis of news of air pollution.What is more,reasons for the differences are also analyzed by using Hofstede’s value dimensions theory,stereotypes and “gate keeper”.Finally,in order to promote the development of Chinese press and make China well-understood by the world,some suggestions and implications will be given in this thesis.