Abstract
Despite its spectacular economic ascendancy, China is still the 'other' to the West in world politics today. Chinese authorities have tried to show the world the country's readiness to be involved in world affairs as a responsible big power, in ways that are designed to gain it wide acceptance, through diplomatic engagement. The introduction of 'first lady' diplomacy undoubtedly serves that purpose although no official narratives have been released that situate the development as such. But how China's first lady can win 'hearts and minds' for her country in the context of perceptions of 'the China threat', and how countries with different attitudes towards China frame the first lady, are questions worthy of exploration. International news is often regarded as a speculum that reflects world politics. This paper examines the effectiveness of China's first lady diplomacy in promoting China's image by comparison of three levels of data: Previously reported opinion research; global salience data; newspaper frames uncovered in this research. It employs a frame analytical method developed by Pan and Kosicki that focuses on syntactical, script, thematic, and rhetorical dimensions of news text. Additionally the concept of visibility and valence used by J.B. Manheim and R.B. Albritton to assess a country's national image is employed to evaluate China's image represented by its first lady. Data from the Global Salience Index developed by Segev which reflects the visibility of countries in international media context is compared with the frame analysis results and Pew Data that reflect the valence of a country. News frames of Peng Liyuan in four online newspapers from four different countries (selected on the basis of GSI and Pew data vis-à-vis China) are analyzed with the aim of identifying the media frames of China's first lady. The media outlets selected are: China Daily which is a state organ of China, The News International (Pakistan) which exhibits a most positive attitude towards China, New York Times from the United States where attitudes to China fall into a medium favourable range, and Japan Times from the country that registers the most negative views towards China. Findings show variations and commonalities in the comparative data for different countries. The theoretical significance of the paper is that it compares three levels of data (opinion research, global salience and newspaper frames) for five countries on China's first lady diplomacy initiative. This will allow for the creation of a typology that can be further tested in a larger study that will be used in theory building relating opinion research, global salience and frames. Such a study has not been conducted before and academic attention to Chinese first ladies is also something new.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | International Communication Section |
Subtitle of host publication | Abstracts accepted for presentation at IAMCR 2015 in Montreal, Canada |
Place of Publication | Montreal |
Publisher | IAMCR |
Chapter | 10603 |
Number of pages | 2 |
Publication status | Published - 2015 |