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UIO WHAT’S MY IMAGE IN YOUR REPORTS Rediscussing Objectivity in International News ‐‐The Case of the New York Times and the People’s Daily MASTER THESIS Department of Media and Communication University of Oslo, Norway TAOTAO LIU SPING 2009 SUMMARY This is a 15-day research study aimed at showing how two newspapers, the New York Times and the People’s Daily, report on issues relating to each other countries i.e. The United States and China respectively. It is conducted in the comparative and analysis manner with the aim of finding out whether the two newspapers reported each other’s countries objectively. The quantitative and qualitative methods demonstrate that the problems related to objectivity that are reflected in the two newspapers are also connected to quantity and quality. This is because while reporting about Chinese issues, the New York Times had a total percentage of 67 of all its news items having a negative attitude. While reporting on the issues of the United States, the People’s Daily had more news items with a “superficial” neutral attitude. As a result, in certain aspects, the two elite newspapers violate the principle of objectivity. The differences between the two newspapers, such as the ownership, their writing style, and economy, culture and foreign policy, are the factors that resulted in the problems of the two newspapers that were reflected in this study. Nevertheless, the international integration has evolved into an unstoppable tendency, expanding from the economic field, slowly into the political and cultural field among different countries around the world. Objective international coverage could be the bridge that could connect countries and promote mutual understanding between them. That will further contribute to the peace and stability of the whole world. And that also consists one of the motivations of this study. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, special thanks go to my supervisor, Professor Svennik Høyer for his patient and constructive guidance throughout all the stages of writing this work. I thank him a great deal for his valuable proposals and critical insights that led to the further development of this thesis, which in turn helped me discard any emotional attachments in the writing of this thesis. Furthermore, I thank him for lending a listening ear and being considerate and respectful of my opinion. Next I would like to thank the department of Media and Communication at the University of Oslo for granting me the opportunity to study the masters program in Media Studies, availing me with an opportunity to learn about, as well as experience the western media. To Jovia Musubika, thank you for the grammar correction, your support, encouragement and above all, for being my friend. Thank you for your company and for those beautiful times we shared in Oslo, not forgetting the difficult times in my life too. Finally, I would like to thank my beloved family; my parents, my brothers and sisters, for their financial support as well as their continuous mental encouragement during the time I was alone for my studies in Oslo, far away from China. Taotao Liu Oslo, 26.01.09 ii List of Tables and Charts Chart 1: Percentage of Selected News Items in the New York Times………………..28 Chart 2: Percentage of Selected News Items in the People’s Daily…………………28 Chart 3: Allocation of Three Attitudes in the New York Times ……………………..29 Chart 4: Allocation of Three Attitudes in the People’s Daily……………………….30 Chart 5: Comparison of the Amount of Words between Two Newspapers…………35 Table 1: The Nature of Topics and Attitude in the New York Times…………….......31 Table 2: The Nature of Topics and Attitude in the People’s Daily…………………..33 Table 3: The Genre in the Two Newspapers…………………………………………38 Table4: Tree Attitudes in Genre of Two newspapers………………………………..39 Table 5: The Foreign Relations in the People’s Daily……………………………….51 Figure 1: the Own Character of Two Newspapers…………………………………...55 iii Content SUMMARY ................................................................................................................................... i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................. ii List of Tables and Charts ............................................................................................................ iii Content ...................................................................................................................................... iv Chapter 1: Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Research Problems and Research Questions ............................................................ 2 1.2 Background ................................................................................................................ 6 1.2.1 American Media ................................................................................................ 6 1.2.2 New York Times ................................................................................................. 7 1.2.3 Chinese Media ................................................................................................... 9 1.2.4 The People’s Daily ............................................................................................ 12 1.2.5 Comparison of the Two Newspapers and the Reasons for Choosing them .... 13 1.3 Structure .................................................................................................................. 14 Chapter 2: Methodology ..........................................................................................................16 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 16 2.2 Quantitative Method ............................................................................................... 16 2.3 Qualitative Method ................................................................................................. 19 2.4 The Comparison of Quantitative and Qualitative Methods .................................... 22 2.5 Sampling and Case Study ......................................................................................... 24 Chapter 3: Presentation of the Finding ....................................................................................26 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 26 3.2 Brief Overview of the Two Newspapers .................................................................. 27 3.3 Findings through Quantitative Method ................................................................... 27 3.3.1 Percentage of Selected News Items and Attitude ........................................... 28 3.3.2 The Nature of Topics and Attitude .................................................................. 31 3.3.3 The Amount of Words and Attitude ................................................................ 35 3.3.4 The Genre and Attitude ................................................................................... 37 3.4 The Findings through Qualitative Method .............................................................. 41 3.4.1 Group I: Same Theme ...................................................................................... 41 3.4.2 GroupII: Foreign Relations ............................................................................... 49 3.4.3 GroupIII: Own Characters ................................................................................ 53 iv 3.5 General Conclusion of the Findings ......................................................................... 55 Chapter 4: Theory .....................................................................................................................58 4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 58 4.2 News Values ............................................................................................................ 58 4.2.1 Objectivity ........................................................................................................ 61 4.2.2 The Relations between Objectivity and Politics, Economy and Culture .......... 62 4.2.3 Bias .................................................................................................................. 65 4.2.4 Ethics ............................................................................................................... 65 4.3 The Stereotype ........................................................................................................ 67 4.3.1 The Characteristics and Outcomes .................................................................. 67 4.3.2 Stereotype in Communication ......................................................................... 69 4.4 Foreign Policy .......................................................................................................... 69 4.4.1 The Relations between Media and Foreign Policy .......................................... 69 4.4.2 The Relationship between China and US......................................................... 70 4.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 72 Chapter 5: Analysis Chapter .....................................................................................................73