Framing Beijing: Beijing’s City Image In The New York Times (2000-2021)

Competitions for resources such as immigrants,tourism and investment among cites are becoming increasingly fierce nowadays.As an essential element representing a city’s competitiveness,a benign city image is crucial in winning regional contests for resources.At a time of massive and rapid urbanization,city officials have become increasingly aware of the importance of city images and relevant studies have come into sight.Beijing,China’s capital and political,cultural,international communicatcion and scientific and technological innovation center,is one of the world’s megacities.In recent years,with development in China’s city planning and management,Beijing has seen changes and updates.As the capital,Beijing’s city image not only matters in attracting resources,but can also affect China’s national image.How a city is portrayed in an internationally significant media is essential in the construction and shaping of a national image.This study sets out to examine how Beijing’s city image is presented in The New York Times.It adopts media frame theory as its theoretical framework and content analysis and textual analysis as its methods to analyze Beijing-related reports of seven different fields in the newspaper from 2000 to 2021:politics,society,environment,economy,culture and travel,public health and Winter Olympics.Among them,reports of politics and Winter Olympics are only briefly discussed because they touch more on the country and the Party,not the city itself.The study is mainly composed of four parts.It begins with an introductory chapter illustrating the research background and significance of the study.Following it is the literature review of past related studies in Chapter Two,introducing what this paper has learned from and inspired by the past literature.It then goes on to introduce the theoretical framework and research methods adopted in this study.In Chapter Four,the study examines each field of news stories within a unified three-element media frame.The three elements are "definition","explanation",and "evaluation"."Definition" refers to topics under each field."Explanation" is typically represented by sources quoted in reports."Evaluation" refers to tones of the news.The study also finds that despite focusing on different aspects of the city,these reports all take on political overtones.After analyzing all fields of reports,the paper summarizes an overall city image on this basis of Master Plan of Beijing(2016-2035).It finds that(1)the city’s role as the national capital and political center and the role as the national culture center are embodied and strengthened through these reports,(2)the city’s role as the international communication center and the role as the scientific and technological innovation center are weak in these reports,and that(3)the city is working to become a harmonious and livable metropolis,despite a long way to go.It is also noted that the government represents a main actor in the reports and is generally depicted negatively.