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Whose Input Counts and Which Paradigm Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2006 Whose input counts and which paradigm prevails?: a content analysis of mass-mediated debate on U.S.- China relations in 1990's and a policy critique on republican virtue of the policy tradeoff Xiaowei Chen Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Mass Communication Commons Recommended Citation Chen, Xiaowei, "Whose input counts and which paradigm prevails?: a content analysis of mass-mediated debate on U.S.-China relations in 1990's and a policy critique on republican virtue of the policy tradeoff" (2006). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2143. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2143 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. WHOSE INPUT COUNTS AND WHICH PARADIGM PREVAILS? A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF MASS-MEDIATED DEBATE ON U.S.- CHINA RELATIONS IN 1990s AND A POLICY CRITIQUE ON REPUBLICAN VIRTUE OF THE POLICY TRADEOFF A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Manship School of Mass Communication By Xiaowei Chen B.A. Northwest University, 1987 M.A. Sichuan University, 1994 December 2006 Acknowledgements I am grateful to many people for helping me complete the doctoral study and dissertation. First, thanks to the faculty of the Manship School of Mass Communication. To me, studying the humanities overseas is an eye-opening and mind-stretching experience. Enriched and enlightened by the brilliant teachings of Dr. Eileen Meehan, Dr. Tim Cook, Dr. Ralph Izard, Dr. Renita Coleman, Dr. Jack Hamilton, Dr. Denis Wu, Dr. Richard Nelson, Dr. Kirby Goidel, Dr. Emily Erickson, Dr. Louis Day, Dr. Margaret DeFleur, Dr. Xigen Li, Dr. David Perlmutter, Dr. Judith Sylvester, and Dr. Alan Fletcher, I have the privilege to be a citizen of free community. Special thanks to Associate Deans Dr. Izard and Dr. DeFleur for giving me thoughtful guidance; to Dean Dr. Jack Hamilton for cheering me up with relentless optimism in my academic success and backing it up with generous assistantship. Second, thanks to members of my advisory committee: Dr. Ralph Izard, Dr. James Stoner Jr., Dr. Tim Cook, Dr. Kirby Goidel, Dr. Eileen Meehan, and Dr. Irvin Peckham. Dr. Stoner inspired me with unforgettable political science courses; he often jostles my sketchy thinking with simple, but inescapable, questions. Dr. Goidel cautioned me about conceptualization and the hazardous leap back and forth between the theoretical world and the numerical world. Dr. Cook kindly accepted my request to be an advisor; his research on “governance with news” is one of the backbone theories of my dissertation. One month before the dissertation defense, Dr. Cook left us quietly because of cancer. The sore loss of Dr. Cook is heartfelt every now and then across the Manship School. He always bids me to be good, gentle, and civic-minded. Dr. Meehan kindly accepted my emergency request to be sitting at my advisory committee one month before the defense; she advises my dissertation writing and defense with all the ii earnestness and delightfulness. Dr. Peckham, the representative of the Graduate School, reminded me of the scholastic credibility of commentaries when citing. My deep thanks to Dr. Izard, chair of the advisory committee. Dr. Izard taught me four classes grappling with philosophical, legal, and ethical aspects of the free press. He introduced me into the edifice of the First Amendment law and showed me some magnificent ideas which never stop amazing me the resourcefulness of humankind in finding salvation. Besides, Dr. Izard guided me through the rough water of my first two years in the program. His let-the-chip-fall-where-it-is attitude really scared me at first; his ruthless enforcement of the sacred academic standard made me pray to nobody but myself. However, after I made real progress, his relief and happiness is heartfelt. He edited many of my incomprehensible and clumsy English papers, especially this dissertation, with such great patience and meticulousness that I avowed it is cruelty to make the same mistake again. Upon leaving to Ohio University, Dr. Izard kindly accepted my request to stay at the advisory committee. I have many delightful emails from him advising me to razor and consolidate my cluttered thinking as well as to organize comprehensive exam, proposal defense, and final defense. I am so privileged to have Dr. Izard as my chief advisor professor. Third, thanks to my classmates in the program: Sonora Jha Nambiar, Eric Jenner, Ben Wasike, Jodi Bannerman, Karen Rowley, Paul Lieber, Weimin Chang, Mary Lou Shaffer, and Bettye Grable. They encouraged me to lose no heart when I was in deep water, edited my articles when correct grammar was desperately needed, celebrated my getting a B minus with all enthusiasms, and taught me to play softball. The sibling love in a tough program always reminds me of something larger than getting a degree. Finally, thanks to my ma and my daughter for their love and encouragement. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements …………………………………………………………………… ii List of Tables …………………………………………………………………………. v List of Figures ………………………………………………………………………… vi Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………. vii Chapter 1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………. 1 2. Background ……………………………………………………………………. 6 1. Republican Virtue of the U.S. Foreign Policy ………………………….7 2. U.S.-China Relations in 1990s …………...…………………………... 20 3. Literature review ………………………………………………………...…… 28 1. What Is Communitarianism? ……………….………………….………31 2. What is the Communitarian Journalism? …………….…………….….38 3. Media Democracy in America ………………………………………...43 4. News Media Are Major Representation of Public Opinion ………….. 49 5. Newsmaking and Policy-Making …………………………………...... 53 6. Opinion-Policy Nexus ………………………………………………...57 4. Research Questions and Hypotheses ……………………..……………..…… 61 5. Method ……………………………………………………………………….. 63 1. Content Selection and Data Gathering ……...……………………..…. 63 2. Coding and Measurement Protocol ……………………………………69 3. Conceptualization of “Ordinary Citizen”...……….………...….…...…75 6. Results and Discussion …………………………………………………….… 78 1. Answers to Research Questions …….…………….……………..…… 78 2. Test of Hypotheses …………………………………………...………. 98 3. Major Findings ……………………………………………………….112 7. Conclusion and Policy Critique……………………..…………………..…… 113 1. Public Accountability of the Policy Making Process ………..……... 113 2. Corporate America’s Issue Management of U.S.-China Relations…..121 3. Policy Critique on the Lack of the Democratic Morality of U.S-China Relations…………………………………………….. 133 4. Empowering Citizens in Opinion-Policy Process: Communitarian Recommendations………………………………………….……..140 References …………………………………………………………………………... 143 Appendix 1. Coding Protocol ….…………………………..……………………………... 152 2. Data Sheet…………………………………………………………………….171 Vita ……………………………………………………………………………….… 205 iv List of Tables Table 1: The population of NYT/CNN items to be sampled ………………………….68 Table 2: American foreign policy: Goals and theories ………………………………. 72 Table 3: The ten most prominent political actors in the mass-mediated debate ………81 Table 4: Difference between NYT & CNN and between News & Op/Ed in regard to policy stance, human rights and trade, issue, and 4P frames …... 83 Table 5: ANOVA of importance level of human rights between NYT & CNN and between News & Op/Ed ………………………………………...……... 85 Table 6: ANOVA of importance level of U.S.-China trade between NYT & CNN and between News & Op/Ed ………………...…………………...………… 85 Table 7: ANOVA of policy stance between NYT & CNN and between News & Op/Ed ………………………………………...……… 85 Table 8: Mean value of policy stance among political actors ……………….……….. 86 Table 9: Top five policy shapers based on opinion-authoring and citation ………….. 88 Table 10: Crosstabulation of Op/Ed’s Authorship vs. 4P foreign policy theories …... 89 Table 11: Crosstabulation of citations’ authorship vs. 4P foreign policy theories ……90 Table 12: Chi-Square test of correlation between authorship and 4P frames ……… 94 Table 13: Top ten most cited political actors in NYT/CNN ………………………… 94 Table 14: Chi-Square test of correlation between citation and 4P frames …………… 94 Table 15: Authorship of opinion vs. prioritization of the 4P framework …………… 96 Table 16: Authorship of citations vs. prioritization of the 4P framework …………… 97 Table 17: Distribution of issue among all the news/opinion articles ……………… 100 Table 18: Crosstabulation of issue vs. citations’ authorship ………………………..102 Table 19: Crosstabulation of issue vs. Op/Ed’s authorship ………………………… 103 Table 20: Chi-Square test of opinion author/citation and issue coverage ………….. 105 Table 21: Policy stance (human rights, trade, contain-engage) across groups ……... 107 Table 22: Chi-Square test of association between authorship and policy stance …... 108 v List of Figures Figure 1: The volume of news/opinion items with regard to China by NYT/CNN during the Clinton years (1993-2000) ………………….………………… 79 Figure 2: Distribution of 4P foreign policy theories in the mass-mediated debate……92 vi Abstract
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