An Image Study Based On The Media Image Of People's Daily And CNN During The US-China Trade War

Trade friction between China and the United States is a hot issue in the world,and its trend and development will have an immeasurable impact on the international economic pattern and international relations.In the trade game between the two countries,news report is the main way for China and the United States to gain the right to speak and dominate the trade war.As one of the most influential media organizations in the two countries,CNN and People's Daily online have a wide range of users at home and abroad.The huge influence of these two media in the international public opinion field has directly affected the construction of the national image of China and the United States.Therefore,it is typical and representative to take CNN and People's Daily online as the research object to explore how the two media construct the national image and reporting strategies of China and the United States during the trade friction between China and the United States.In this paper,content analysis and comparative study are adopted to infer the reported emotional distribution of both sides according to the emotional attitudes of the words in the report.According to the probability distribution of the occurrence of the words in the report,the corresponding LDA model was established to speculate the distribution of the subjects reported by People's Daily online and CNN.Finally,according to the experimental results,the image of the United States in the People's Daily online and the image of China in CNN are constructed,and the reports of the two media are compared and analyzed.Through empirical research,the following core views are found:First,the number and length of bilateral reports are directly related to the ups and downs of trade frictions.In the sample time range,there are four periods of intense conflict and four periods of detente in china-us trade relations,and the transformation between different periods depends on the attitude change of the United States,which also directly affects the number of reports on People's Daily online and CNN.Among them,CNN reports on trade frictions account for a high proportion of its china-related reports.Second,the us is on the offensive and China is on the defensive.In the trade friction between China and the United States,the United States is in the attacking position.In the media reports,the American media CNN is also in the attacking position.The CNN report can choose any topic to question the Chinese side,including human rights,intellectual property rights,China's status and so on.However,People's Daily online,as a Chinese media,can only convey the opinions of the Chinese government,respond to the queries of western media and lodge protests in the reports.Third,there are potentially core issues in all the media coverage on both sides.The two media outlets share underlying core issues,including politics,economics,international relations,technology and more.The core arguments focus on the discourse right of high and new technology in the future,the position of the United States as the world hegemony,the threat of the rise of China,the differences in social system and other issues.People's Daily online reports on these core issues mainly express China's views and refute the us' s practices.On these core issues,CNN not only conveys the us position and questions China's trade practices,but also questions the rationality of the us trump administration to launch a trade war.Fourth,the reporting position of People's Daily online is consistent with that of the government,while that of CNN is dissociative from that of the government.The People's Daily online,through its combative language,conveys the confidence that China can achieve the victory of trade friction.The focus of its report is to show China's restraint,rationality and confidence.Most of the contents of the report are direct or indirect transmission and interpretation of official information.In contrast,CNN shows a diversity of views.On the one hand,CNN maintains the western media's consistent narrative of China bashing and China threat,and is consistent with the U.S.government in discrediting China.On the other hand,CNN will criticize the huge losses caused by trump's initiation of china-us trade friction from the perspective of economy and market.The image of the United States constructed by People's Daily online in the report of sino-us trade friction includes these characteristics: "hegemonism","opposite to globalization",and "capriciousness".People's Daily online has created a negative image of the United States,mainly involving a large number of criticism,refutation,protest and denunciation against the United States government's launching of sino-us trade friction.The reporting attitude of such reports is negative.When it comes to other us-related issues,People's Daily online reports are neutral and positive.The image of China constructed by CNN can be generally summarized by the following keywords: "fruitful economic results","challenging the interests of the United States","worrying human rights situation".On the one hand,CNN recognizes China's achievements in the economic field and gives positive reports on such contents.On the other hand,it still holds the usual biased position of western media and gives negative reports.On certain issues,it looks down on China and advocates the China threat theory.In this study,the experimental use of subject model,natural language processing and other computer tools to analyze different media reports in China and the United States is a quantitative and qualitative research method.This research method expands the existing analysis methods and research ideas of media research,and enriches the research on media and national image and international communication.