Framing Analysis Of The Confucius Institute In Australian Mainstream News Media Coverage (2005-2019)

Since the official establishment of the first Confucius Institute(hereinafter refers for as CI)in Seoul,Korea in 2004,CI has witnessed a dramatic growth and accordingly,a large number of researches have been conducted on CI at home and abroad.However,there have been few studies on media coverage of CI from the perspective of media framing.Therefore,this paper uses content analysis and discourse analysis to study the chronological trend,news source,overall tone and dominant frames of reports,and analyzes the image of CI framed by the Australian mainstream news media as well as probes into the behind reasons.The research samples are selected from the academic database of Factiva.This research chooses Australia’s two most representative mainstream newspapers,The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald as sample sources,and selects the time span from May 2005 when the first Confucius Institute was established at the University of Western Australia to the end of September 2019.The study finds that the amounts of news coverage on CI increase with fluctuations,but still,CI does not draw much attention from the Australian mainstream newspapers since the number of reports with CI itself as the main theme is relatively small.In terms of news sources,most reports on CI are contributed by the two newspapers themselves,while those from the Chinese media or the Confucius Institutes are totally absent,indicating the dominate discourse power controlled by the Australian mainstream news media.In addition,based on the content of news reports,four frames are coded in the study,that is,the cultural frame,political frame and strategic frame and economic frame,there are both positive and negative reports under the cultural frame,which is frequently used in the Australian mainstream news media,but overall speaking,most are negative reports.Reports under the political and strategic frame are overwhelming negative and most of the positive reports come from the economic frame,yet the number of reports under this frame is relatively small.Based on this,this article provides a detailed discussion of the respective images of CI presented by the Australian mainstream news media in the four frames in the discussion section:an intervener in academic freedom and a contributor to cultural communication,an overseas advocator of China’s political propaganda and a builder of China’s national soft power as well as a facilitator of economic and business development.Therefore,the Australian mainstream news media report CI dichotomously and show ambivalence toward CI.On the one hand,they report CI in a negative way out of the concern that CI serves as a Chinese government’s political tool to propaganda its ideology and doctrine and as a strategic measure for China to promote its soft power and expand its international influence,and it may cause damage to the local academic freedom where CI is set up.On the other hand,positive reports are also provided to show welcome to CI for promoting Chinese and Chinese culture and expectation on CI to further bring more economic benefits and strengthen business cooperation.In response to this,the paper further explores the broader social circumstances of the time,and analyzes the behind reasons for forming the ambivalence of CI by the Australian mainstream news media from the perspective of "cultural boundary"between ideology and economy,the Australian media and the Confucius Institute itself.