What Are The U.S Think Tanks'agendas And Frames Of China On Social Media?A Study Of U.s Think Tanks With Different Political Tendentiousness On Twitter

With elites' role highlighted in United States politics,the U.S think tanks have played an increasingly important role in American politics.American diplomatic decision-making is now knowledge,scientific and information technology based.Because of the greater flexibility,wider audiences and rapid communication speed,new media is a new field for think tanks to shape public opinions.The U.S think tanks'and their agendas have an important influence on public opinion,national policy making and consultation.Studying U.S think-tanks' opinions regarding China on social media is conducive to understand and predict China's position in the international situation,and provide useful information in foreign policy decisions.By using the method of content analysis,this paper studies the Brookings Institution,the Rand Corporation and the Heritage Foundation's tweets regarding China from October 30,2016 to October 30,2017,and analyzes the reporting agendas,reporting frameworks and attitudes of the three think-tanks,exploring the relationships between the political tendentiousness of think tanks and agenda distributions,reporting frames and attitudes.The study has found that political tendentiousness of think tanks is significantly related to the distribution of Chinese agendas on Twitter.The left-wing think tank Brookings institution pays more attention to economic agenda.The center-right Rand corporation is concerned more about China's military build-up and military strategies in North Korea,Taiwan and other regions,and the right-wing Heritage Foundation's attention is focused on the people's livelihood and international relations agendas.There is also a significant relationship between political tendentiousness of think tank and the reporting attitudes.The reporting attitudes of Brookings Institution is mainly neutral,and some economic issues are positive.The Heritage foundation's reporting attitude is mainly negative and skeptical.The Rand corporation has a neutral outlook on China,but some issues remain cautious.Different think tanks have different frames on one agenda.The Brookings tends to use fact frame;Heritage foundation tends to use competitive and cold war frames,while Rand Corporation uses various frames including fact,competitive and fact frames.