A Comparative Study Between The Newyork Times And People's Daily On Thecoverage Of The China-US Trade War ——Based On The Framework Theory

After President Trump came to power in 2017,he took the "America First" principle as his ruling philosophy,and changed his national strategy from globalism to nativism and nationalism.In the field of China-US economic and trade,he launched a series of investigations against China and provoked a China-US trade war on the grounds of “goods trade deficit.” Since the introduction of the first round of tariff lists on June 15,2018,China and the United States have gone through nearly two years of economic competition.It was not until January 15,2020 that the first phase of the trade document was officially signed and entered the current armistice period.The contest between China and the United States not only revolves around the economic and trade field,but the media of the two countries are also fighting for the right to speak in the process of reporting the trade war.In order to explore the factual selection and framework construction of the two countries' media in the trade war reporting,this article takes the framework theory as the research perspective and selects 139 the New York Times and 81 People's Daily related reports for content analysis and frame analysis.Due to the long-term and complicated process of the trade war,in order to better grasp the characteristics of media reports,this article divides the China-US trade war into four stages:a period of full outbreak,a period of mitigation,a period of escalation of conflicts,and a period of temporary truce.The study found that: in terms of reporting tendencies,the New York Times has constructed a diachronic framework for expressing controversy-expanding controversy-deepening controversy-preserving controversy,People's Daily presents framework changes for affirming the position-calling for cooperation-multiple responses-balancing demands,which reflects emphasizing conflict and overall balance respectively;in the content of the report,the New York Times politicizes economic issues and directly characterizes China and the relationship between China and the United States,lacking causal links between arguments and evidence,People's Daily mainly relies on facts to convey its position,especially clarify and respond around the issue of the “China-US trade deficit”,which reflects dispute declaration and fact declaration respectively;in reporting methods,the New York Times presents domestic elites in the balance of interests,decision-making and risk assessment,and indirectly conveys media bias with the help of fuzzy sources,the news discourse of People's Daily maintains a high degree of consistency with the government discourse,and at the same time quotes third-party sources to strengthen their views,which reflects multiple presentations and unified expressions respectively.Based on the above-mentioned research findings,this article finally puts forward the following suggestions on the way to improve the discourse power of People's Daily: First,promoting the national strategic concept and displaying the image of a great power on multiple platforms;Secondly,strengthen the staged discourse interaction and take the initiative to declare disputes;Finally,enrich the subject of news discourse and expand the theme of the report in multiple dimensions.By summing up the experience for People's Daily in this economic conflict report,it will help to change its current discourse disadvantages and strengthen its right to speak in the international public opinion field.