One belt one road : a comparative analysis of news in China Daily and New York Times

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Type
Thesis
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Author
Xu, Huimin
Supervisor
Teo, Peter
Abstract
This study compares and contrasts the reporting of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in two English newspapers, China Daily (CD), and New York Times (NYT) through the lens of critical discourse analysis. It aims to analyze how these newspapers use various linguistic resources to portray the BRI and uncover the embedded ideologies underlying in the news reports. This study adopts Fairclough’s (1989) three-dimensional analytical model as the framework and uses various linguistic tools such as transitivity to analyze the news texts. This study first analyzes the headlines, leads, and quotation patterns of 56 news reports on the BRI, before investigating how the BRI is represented in the newspapers through transitivity analysis. The analysis shows that both newspapers construct the BRI in different ways. CD portrays the BRI as aspirational economic activities led by China which promote openness, inclusiveness, and international cooperation and partnership. NYT, in contrast, discredits the BRI by depicting it as a geopolitical threat, an aggressor which attempts to challenge the U.S., and change the international rules and world order.

This study reveals that the two newspapers either legitimize or de-legitimize the BRI in certain ways to serve the respective interests of the countries they represent. CD endeavors to serve the Chinese government’s purpose to publicize and promote the BRI, while NYT devalues the BRI based on the concern that it undermines U.S. interests in the Asia-Pacific region.
Date Issued
2019
Call Number
P302.77 Xu
Date Submitted
2019