A Contrastive Ecological Analysis Of News Reports On The COVID-19 Pandemic Between China Daily And The New York Times

In early 2020,the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the world,seriously endangering the life safety and health of all human beings.As an important way for people to get information under the pandemic,the hidden ideology behind the news media will have an important impact on people’s perception and judgment of the pandemic.As two influential countries in the world today,China and the United States have received much attention to how their news media speak out.News reports about the pandemic have been extensively and thoroughly studied in fields of international relations,journalism and communication to linguistics,but less attention has been paid to ecology.Through a contrastive analysis of news reports from China Daily and The New York Times,two authoritative news media from China and the United States,this thesis aims to reveal the important influence of news discourse on international ecology especially on China and the United States.Martin and White have developed the appraisal system within the framework of systemic functional linguistics and published the book The Language of Evaluation:Appraisal in English in English.He and Ma have extended the appraisal system from the perspective of ecolinguistics and clarified the ecosophy of "diversity and harmony,interaction and co-existence",which is generally applicable to all kinds of ecological discourse analysis.This thesis is guided by this ecosophy and takes the extended appraisal system with ecological characteristics as the theoretical framework.After examining the news reports in terms of the distribution of appraisal resources in China Daily and The New York Times,the following similarities are found:(1)In terms of the distribution of the three sub-systems of the attitude system:i.e.affect,judgement and appreciation,the appreciation dominates both China Daily and The New York Times.(2)Both China Daily and The New York Times use the most engagement resources in their domestic-related reporting.After examining the news reports in terms of the distribution of ecological properties in China Daily and The New York Times,the following similarities are found:(1)Both China Daily and The New York Times exhibit a certain degree of eco-ambivalent properties,which makes room for further ecological enhancement of journalism.(2)The overall ecological orientations of both China Daily and The New York Times are more obvious and easier to judge.At the same time,the following differences concerning appraisal resources are identified:(1)In terms of the distribution of the three subsystems of the appraisal system-attitude system,engagement system and graduation system,China Daily’s engagement system dominates,while The New York Times has the highest number of attitude resources and the second-highest number of engagement resources,and it is close to the number of attitude resources.(2)China Daily uses more attitude and graduation resources in its domestic-related coverage and more engagement resources in its foreign-related coverage,while The New York Times uses more engagement resources in its domestic-related coverage and more attitude and graduation resources in its foreign-related coverage.The following differences concerning ecological properties are identified:(1)In terms of the distribution of ecological properties,China Daily is dominated by ecologically beneficial properties,while ecologically destructive properties dominate The New York Times.(2)China Daily uses more ecologically beneficial properties in its domestic-related reporting and more ecologically ambiguous properties in its foreign-related reporting,while The New York Times uses more ecologically ambiguous properties in its domestic-related reporting and more ecologically destructive properties in its foreign-related reporting.The discussion reveals that different diplomatic philosophies,communication methods and cultural values are the internal motivations for the different ecological orientations of news reports of the pandemic in China Daily and The New York Times.Specifically,(1)In terms of diplomatic philosophy,China actively seeks major country cooperation,while the United States seeks major country competition.(2)In terms of communication methods,China focuses on building its national image and guiding international public opinion,while the United States is good at manipulating its own media and stirring up international public opinion.(3)In terms of cultural values,China has always advocated a harmonious view of nature,such as "Man is an integral part of nature in Chinese)" and "Dao follows the laws of nature(daofaziran in Chinese)",while the United States has always advocated the concept of conquering nature and challenging nature.This thesis argues that the different ecological properties presented by China Daily and The New York Times have the following impacts:(1)China’s ecologically beneficial coverage has strengthened China’s domestic cohesion and increased its international discourse power.(2)The ecologically destructive coverage in the US undermines China’s image in the West and consolidates the influence of US public opinion.(3)The U.S.’s public opinion offensive against China has the tendency to be permanent.In the face of possible distortions of China by foreign media,countermeasures and suggestions are provided for China’s news media at the international communication level.(1)Increase the frequency of using engagement resources in domestic-related reports to convey China’s position.(2)Increase ecologically beneficial discourse in foreign-related reporting to show the style of a great nation.(3)Use more ecological discourse to dispel possible distortions in foreign media and reflect the wisdom of a great nation.