The Image Of “Eastern Ally” In The American Media

"National image" is a product of mass cognitive activities,a cognitive response based on the various activities of the country.As the platform and means of the image propagating,the media played an important role in communication and shaping.However,as the limitations and characteristics of the media,National images are often distorted and reshaped in the process of communication.The American media—as the mainstream media in the world today—sometimes even more so.This thesis take the American three major news magazines as an example,combining with the knowledge of related history and international relations,research the way the communication and shaping of the image of American “Eastern Ally” —Japan—by American media around the end of cold war(1986-1995).The main body of this thesis is divided into three chapters.Chapter one talks about the advantages and characteristics of news magazines which are important research materials for this research,and furthermore,the representative of the TIME,Newsweek and U.S.News& World Reports.Analyze the role of American media in shaping the image of other country,introduces the basic situation of " three major news magazines " report about Japan.From different dimensions,the second chapter adopts both method of quantitative analysis and text analysis to analyses about 1000 texts(reports),to find out including the basic component of the reports about Japan,characteristics and tendencies of different subject reports.And combined with the specific text analysis,sum up the economic image,the political and military image and the social and cultural image of the Japan in the mirror of American media.Chapter three analyses the characteristics of Japanese image from the framework of "Eastern ally",especially the reasons for the negative image of this period,the two identities of "the East" and "alliance" are the key variables.The inherent "others" attribute in social and cultural fields and the weakening of the "halo effect" because of Re-construction of alliance relations make the image of Japan become more negative in the 1980 s and 1990 s.