1. Introduction
1.1 Research Background
In recent years, due to the interference of foreign forces and sporadic unrest and violencein Tibet, the media from different countries have been paying continuous attention to the area.Many scholars in China embarked on studying the ways by which foreign media reported theissues in Tibet, such as Fan Shiming (2000), Du Yongbin(2009) Chen Yong(2008) and soforth. In their in depth research, they found that the US mainstream media’s coverage of Tibetissue was neither authentic nor objective. Other researchers discovered that the coverage ofTibet by the German media has the tendency of employing the negative tones. Sincenewspapers play a critical role in affecting the public’s opinions on the political issues, theway which the media employ will reshape the public’s perception. Consequently, it is of greatimportance to understand how the foreign media report the news and their motives concerningour own country.Van Dijik(2009) held the view that the function of the news media was to spread news tothe masses and it also had an effect on the ways people perceived and comment the issuesexisted in the society. Hence, it is of great importance to pay attention to how the mediadepicts the news because it would influence the public’s interpretation and their responding tosome news. According to Cottle (2000), the media played a crucial role in maintaining thecurrent situation. It could also be used to help the public to understand the negative stereotype.In terms of the effects of the media reports, the international communication party deemedthat the media reports provided the public with a channel to comprehend what is going onboth abroad and at home, and it would lead to misunderstanding if covering the newsone-sided. According to this, it is important to study how foreign media cover the domesticnews issues because we can learn whether the ways by which the news media reported thenews is objective and truthful, and we can conclude what stance the media take when theyreport related issues.
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1.2 Fundamental Principles of This Study
With the development of China, the relationship between China and American is amixture of hostility and friendliness. There are two reasons which can be used to explain thestrange relationship between the two countries. The first reason is that both the two countriesregard the other as a strategic partner because of the common interests; the second reason isthat they both consider the other as a competitor or even as an enemy. It is no doubt that the“Tibet issue” is one of the biggest obstacles lying between China and America if they want tofurther their friendship. Therefore, in this respect, it is significant to make out how Americannewspaper, that is, the New York Times, covers Tibet for the reason that it is of great help toChinese diplomacy.Few researchers had explored the reports of Tibet from the communication angle. Most ofthe researchers pay attention to the characteristics of the coverage of Tibet. The studies onhow many foreign media distortedly reported the Tibet by carrying out certain researchesfrom the perspective of euphemism and dysphemism in the New York Times in 2014 and 2015are quite rare. In order to fill this gap, the thesis spares no effort to study the way in which theTibet issue was given garbled reports from the prospective of euphemism and dysphemism.
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2. Literature Review
This chapter is the literature review part which discusses some important ideas andtheories utilized in this thesis. In this chapter, the author studies the news framing theory,conducts a review on the study of Tibet issue, and reveals some gaps which ought to be filled.
2.1 Frame Theory
Communication scholars have regarded framing as a dichotomy between “frame incommunication or media frame” and “frame in thought or inpidual frame” (Druckman,2001). Communication frame refers to words, images, and presentation styles used by aninformation communicator such as a media outlet or news agency to transmit informationabout an event or an issue to the audience. The information communicators will make theirdecisions on which aspects of the information ought to be relevant, salient and appropriate.The inpidual frame refers to the information the audience received, which is considered tobe relevant, salient and right (Chong & Druckman, 2007).In order to study the links between language and conceptual knowledge, Fillmoreproposed the concept of Frame Theory in 1975. He defined the frame as a system that isassociated with the typical system of linguistic choice. In 1982 ，
he published the FrameSemantics, a book that proposed systematic framework theory. As a framework, a cognitivestructure is the knowledge associated with certain repeated story and concept.Fillmore thought that the framework should at least meet two requirements: 1) to reflectthe characteristics of the situation or State of affairs; 2) in principle, independent of thelanguage (verbalization), such as shopping, which includes a series of factors like the buyers,sellers, goods and payments. Fillmore also believes that explaining the significance of anyone of the concepts is bound to the framework of other relevant concepts involved in the sameframe. There may exist a variety of contacts among the different frames. The two mainrelations are in hierarchy and sub-frame relation. The Fillmore theory is a framework forresearch on semantic and syntactic structure of a cognitive theory of meaning and it attachesgreat importance to the word, especially the verbs in the role of language and cognitiveprocesses.He thought the verb associated with the whole situation, you can make the same standson certain aspects of the framework or context. For example, verbs like buy, sell, pay, cost,and spend, charge in the same semantic field have common framework of activation withshopping.
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2.2 Studies on Euphemism and Dysphemism at Home and Abroad
Different scholars have different understanding of euphemisms and dysphemism.Euphemisms can be defined as “words with meanings or sounds thought somehow to be nicer,cleaner, or more elevated than and as used as substitutes for words deemed unpleasant, crudeor ugly in sound or sense” (Wilson, 1993). Euphemisms are employed to avoid threateningothers even if the terms are not necessarily offensive. Friedman (2004) stated that taboodeformation is the process of producing euphemisms. The tracks of taboo deformation can berevealed by the method of historical euphemism. A euphemism is employed to substitute forthe original, so that the form of the original one does not appear in the language. Fromkin(1999) held that a euphemism is used to avoid unpleasant ideas, even when the term replacedfor it is not necessarily offensive. This kind of euphemisms can be found in the processes ofcommunication and politics. For example, people often refer to the atomic bombs employedin Hiroshima as “the gadget”, “the device”, “the thing” or some other vague meanings. Whentalking about American army’s invasion into Grenada in 1983, President Reagan was veryunsatisfied with the word invasion; on the contrary, he regarded it as a “rescue mission”.People often use “spontaneous energetic disassembly” for explosion, “gay” for homosexual.The reason why the euphemism gradually developed is that the existence of taboo words ortaboo ideas. Allan & Burridge defined that “a euphemism is used as an alternative to adispreferred expression, in order to avoid possible loss of face: either one’s own face orthrough giving offence, that of the audience, or some third party” ( Allan & Burridge, 1991).The dispreferred expressions maybe refer to the taboo, impolite or distasteful words orexpressions, or some other reason which may threaten the hearer’s or the third party’s face ona given occasion.
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3. Research Design....17
3.1 Research Questions........... 17
3.2 Data Collection..........17
3.3 Analyzing Approach..........18
3.3.1 Content Analysis...... 18
3.3.2 Textual Analysis.......21
3.3.3 Coding.......22
3.4 The Devices Employed in Framing Analysis....25
4. Research Results and Discussion.........29
4.1 Features of Tibet Issue Coverage in the New York Times.......29
4.1.1 The Number and Length of News.......... 29
4.1.2 The Types of News.......... 31
4.1.3 Bylines of the News.........32
4.1.4 News Placement.......33
4.1.5 Page of News....34
4.1.6 The Themes of News.......35
4.2 The Framing Analysis of the New York Times’Tibet Issues........... 36
5. Conclusion.....47
5.1 Findings......47
5.2 Limitations.........49
4. Research Results and Discussion
This chapter is the most important part in this thesis and it can be pided into two parts.The first part talks about the features of the coverage of Tibet issues in the New York Times bystudying the numbers of news, the length of news, the types of news, the bylines of news, theplacement of news, the page and the theme of news. In the second part, the author conducts aframing analysis on the news covering the Tibet issues by the New York Times in terms of itssource, tone and frame.It is necessary to say that the eight variables are employing in content analysis and theother variables are utilizing the textual analysis.
4.1 Features of Tibet Issue Coverage in the New York Times
It is estimated that 149 news stories are produced in 2015 and nearly 12 piece of news arereported in the New York Times every month. From the Figure 1, April is regarded as thehighest rate of occurrence and the number of news is 25, and the January, August andNovember are considered as the lowest frequency and the news account is 7. The newsaccount in July is 19, ranking the second place and the number of news in May is 15, rankingthe third place, followed by the September with 16 news number. The news number of June is13 which ranked the fifth place, followed by the March with 14 news stories, February with10 news numbers, October with 8 news numbers and December with 11 news stories.It is calculated that the length of news covered the Tibet issue is 556 words on average.The longest news report possesses 2345 words while the shortest news contains 125 words.By analyzing the Figure1, we can see that 60 pieces of news are employing 0 to 400 words tocover the Tibet issues, 70 news are utilizing 401 to 700 words to report the Tibet issues, 11news are adopting 701 to 1000 words and 8 news are using 1001 to 1300 words to cover theTibet.
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Conclusion
The Chapter five is the conclusion part and this part can be pided into two parts: thefirst part presents a summary of the research results by analyzing the selected news stories;the second part talks about the limitations of this thesis and also provides some suggestions.The purpose of this thesis is to find out how the New York Times covers the Tibet issuesdistortedly by employing the frame theory and content analysis theory. The author conductsthe analysis by analyzing those factors: the amount of news, the length of news, the types ofnews, the bylines and placement of news, the news page, the themes of news, the source ofnews, the favorability of news. The author chooses the first six factors to analyze its contents,and the last three factors are employed to conduct the frame analysis.Through analyzing the news stories, some findings have been found.The first finding is that the coverage of the Tibet issues by the New York Times wasunbalanced in 2015. In terms of the number of the news, three months had come to the peak,and they are: April, July, and September. The reason why these three months could reach thecoverage peak was that some important events took place, such as: the self- immolation ofseveral Tibet activists, the cooperation of the two countries and so forth. Concerning thelength of the news, most of the news stories employed 401- 700 words to cover the Tibetissues. Most of the news in the New York Times which was used to cover the Tibet issues washard news, and the other two types of news: soft news and News feature were very sparse,from which we could know that the New York Times was inclined to show the reality of thenews to the person in their own countries. More than half of the news stories covering theTibet issues were placing in the homepage, which showed that the New York Times paid greatattentions to the Tibet issues.
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The reference (omitted)