Media Framing Of Shale Oil Revolution

The shale oil revolution since 2008 seems to have been completely regarded as a revolutionary achievement of national significance belonging to the United States.It is anyway an important energy production event in the history of human energy,which has had a great impact on energy prices.The international energy price dropped from the historical peak around 2013,which is largely due to the great power brought by the large-scale commercialization of shale oil technology in the United States.At the same time,its emergence has also brought about important changes in the global energy pattern,and turned the United States into a major global energy producer.According to the New York Times,the shale oil revolution began around 2008,when the oil price was getting closer to $150 per barrel.The United States faced long-term energy shortage and dependence on Saudi Arabia,Venezuela and Nigeria and other unstable oil-producing countries.For the sake of getting rid of import dependence and gaining energy independence,the United States began to vigorously promote the commercialization of shale oil in the whole country or even in the world.In fact,the development of shale oil revolution has been accompanied by the production of shale oil and even crude oil or even petroleum.China and the United States,as major energy consumer countries,have been paying attention to the shale oil development for a long time,and China' s growing attention to shale oil can be traced back to the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China.The evolution of shale oil including shale gas in China and the United States has also undergone some little-known transformation process,especially in early days.The success of shale oil revolution is inevitably interactive with the oil price closely related to the national economy.In fact,the two countries have both bred the soil for the success of shale oil revolution almost at the same time.Therefore,the success of shale oil revolution cannot simply be regarded as a national revolution belonging to the United States.The process of shale oil revolution is essentially a process of commercial transformation of shale oil technology,which is related to not only the energy price,but also the interests of mass media and the wide participation of public opinion.In the process of gradually gaining commercial transformation,shale oil technology has been interpreted by the media from diametrically opposite angles.The touts praised the shale oil revolution as a Shinhwa(mythology)that rewrote the energy history of the United States,while critics thought it was just a hoax directed by the United States.Interestingly,this debate still shows no signs of ending,and shale oil technology itself has anyway been more matured after enduring long-term fierce criticism of public opinion,and has been widely regarded as an energy revolution that even with some innovative nature.Shale oil technology cannot be commercialized without the extensive participation of the mass media.Faced with all kinds of criticism even censure from the mass media,shale oil technology that was born with some natural defects,rather than died younger,it has grown stronger gradually.It has achieved great success in the United States and maximized its commercial value of subverting the energy market.This incredible transformation process not only embodies the mainstream and peculiar political economy rules,but also contains the specific pattern related to mass media communication.In addition,the maturity and limitations of the media itself are also key factors that restricted and resulted in different framing of shale oil revolution,which has thus affected the development of shale oil revolution to certain varying degrees.The author finds the reason that the shale oil revolution occurred in the United States rather than China is not only because of the differences of the country's political and economic background and energy policy of our country,but also because of the different framing of the mass media From the perspective of mass communication,shale oil revolution is not so much a technological Shinhwa of energy industry as a mass media's Shinhwa in the field of mass communication.Focusing on the development and evolution of shale oil revolution in the United States and China,from the perspective of communication,using the media reporting framework research method of journalism will give some enlightenment to communication researchers in the field of energy,and provide an important reference for future cross-communication and energy economics research.This paper takes the reports of The New York Times and People's Daily,two representative national newspapers in China and the United States,as analysis samples,which has certain universality and particularity.Through the research,the author finds that the mass media has shaped the media framework for promoting the commercialization of shale oil technology from different aspects.Among them,New York Times has constructed the media framework of shale oil revolution from three aspects:national security,economic development and environmental protection,while People' s Daily has constructed the media framework of shale oil revolution from three aspects of economic development,reform and international cooperation.After further analysis and comparison,the author found the crux of the dispute between media and public opinion,that is,the contrast between media's attitude and tendency towards shale oil technology maturity.Another important interest and value involved in the technological transformation and revolution of shale oil is energy price,and through the different tendentious structure of shale oil reports,the trend of energy price can be checked and corrected to a certain extent.The author finds,it is precisely because of the different emphasis and reporting tendency of the mass media in China and the United States,as well as the repeated quantitative and centralized reporting that the commercialization of shale oil technology in China finally leads to different directions.