| After decades of hardships,China has finally accomplished the daunting task of eradicating absolute poverty.As an important actor in the global fight against poverty,the global media have used the story of China’s poverty alleviation as an agenda item to publish English-language reports,"poverty alleviation" or "poverty eradication" have already become a national narrative,shaping the country’s image.A three-level agenda-setting theory is used to explore the construction and presentation of China-related poverty alleviation issues in the global media.In the first and second agendas,the Analysis of Topic Model Networks developed from machine learning approach is used to refine the reporting issues and outline the issue attribute network;in the attribute agenda,the Content Analysis method is used to summarize the substance and emotional attributes of China-related poverty alleviation reports.Based on the three-level agenda setting analysis,the following characteristics are found in China’s international image of poverty alleviation: 1)the Chinese government is proactive;2)China’s rapid economic growth and multiple-level poverty alleviation systems have enabled the miracle of lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty;3)China has taken the initiative to promote international cooperation and build good partnerships to achieve common development.However,although some media dominated by Europe and the United States recognize China’s achievements in poverty alleviation and development,they do not attribute them to human rights progress.They still construct a negative image of China in terms of human rights issues,and at the international level,they deliberately portray China as a behind-the-scenes careerist who interferes and controls other countries.At different stages of poverty alleviation,the image of China’s international poverty alleviation presented by the global media has changed to a certain extent.However,individual issues such as the political system,human rights issues and the China threat theory have always had a negative impact on the positive image of the country.The image of China’s international poverty alleviation presented by the global media also varies significantly across countries in different regions,with African and Pakistani media portraying a positive image of China’s international poverty alleviation,while media in the rest of the world construct a neutral image of China’s international poverty alleviation.The global media have different opinions and feedback on China’s poverty alleviation achievements,either documenting China’s poverty alleviation achievements,summarizing China’s poverty alleviation experiences,criticizing the problems in poverty alleviation,or questioning the Chinese government’s poverty alleviation policies,etc.The international public opinion is diverse and the image of China’s poverty alleviation is complex and disparate.Finally,by using the three-level critical discourse analysis method proposed by Fairclough,it is also possible to explore the discursive construction characteristics and strategies of countries’ reports in terms of the linguistic characteristics of news texts and the process of news text production,and to explain the factors influencing the variation of images from the perspective of discursive power and ideology. |
