The image of the United States in the Chinese media: An examination of the evaluative component of framing

This study examines the presentation of the image of the United States in 874 news stories carried in five Chinese newspapers – from a framing perspective. It has yielded four major findings: (1) the political image of the United States is presented by the Chinese press in a relatively balanced fashion, depicted as one that embodies contradictory attributes: positive and negative, strong but aggressive, democratic but hypocritical; (2) the economic image of the United States is presented as one that is undergoing a recession but full of hope in recovery; and (3) the social image is one that features “fair play with minor skirmishes”; and (4) the cultural image is one that is diverse, free, democratic, advanced in science and technology, but hegemonic and biased.

► U.S. image in the Chinese press studied from a framing perspective. ► Dualistic political image of the United States: democratic but hypocritical. ► U.S. economic image as a “struggle camel”. ► U.S. social image as one of “fair play with minor skirmishes”. ► U.S. cultural image as one of diversity and free but hegemonic and biased.