News Commentaries And The Construction Of Public Sphere

In this era of big population explosion,the media is the most effective medium to transmit information and viewpoints,and thus becomes one of the possible forms of realization of the public sphere.Comment is the most practical form in the media that embodies the value of the public sphere.The public can express their views on public affairs.The media can also express their opinions by commentaries,urging all parties to assume their responsibilities.Previous related research has been focused on the functions and roles that news commentaries play in the construction of the public sphere,while in this study it is focused on its actual performance,looking into the elements of public sphere and how they are demonstrated in news commentaries.This thesis draws on the relevant theoretical studies of the public sphere and its relationship with the media.Taking the review section of The Beijing News as the research object,combining the research methods of quantitative study and text analysis,this paper constructs the public sphere of The Beijing News with in-depth analysis and interpretation.In the course of the research,the author first analyzes the newspaper's review section with some indexes such as the layout,the source of the author,the distribution of the topics,the commenting standing and the purpose,and then analyzes two symbolic public events that happened in China in 2017,in an attempt to fully demonstrate the characteristics of The Beijing News commentaries and their performance in the construction of the public sphere.The research shows that the public space of The Beijing News is larger than other domestic medias and its public participation is also relatively adequate.The topics have a strong property of public affairs,and the point of views are pluralistic and differentiated.Besides,it partly serves as the monitor of the power of government.There is,however,commercial intrusion and selective agenda setting in the newspaper.Also,The Beijing News is more focused on non-Beijing issues and full of elite discourse.