Social Movements as a Dialogic Process: Framing, Background Expectancies, and the Dynamics of the Anti-CNN Movement

Abstract:

In 2008, CNN’s reports on the Lhasa Riots angered Chinese students and triggered the large-scale Anti-CNN Movement. By examining posts on the movement’s website, 310 news articles, and eighteen in-depth interviews, this study identifies the prevailing mentalities of the episode’s primary actors–the U.S. media, students, and the Chinese media, and analyzes how their mentalities shaped their framing strategies and their interpretations of others’ frames. We call for a shift of focus from the traditional media frame and movement frame to a perspective that sees the dynamics of media-related social movements as a dialogical process bounded by actors’ background expectancies.

Acknowledgements

We thank C.C Lee, Jonathan Zhou, He Zhou for their valuable comments. We are also grateful to Benjamin Ross, Yolanda Wu, Candy Kui, Chengcai Ji and Chengyu Li for their help.

About the Authors

Fen Lin graduated from the University of Chicago and now is an assistant professor of Media and Communication at the City University of Hong Kong. Her research interest includes media and social change, political communication in authoritarian regimes, the state-media relation and its impacts on collective actions.

Dingxin Zhao is a Max Palevsky Professor in the department of Sociology at the University of Chicago and Qianren Jihua visiting professor at Zhejiang University. His research covers the areas of social movements, nationalism, comparative historical sociology, social change, and economic development. His interests also extend to micro sociology, ecological sociology, sociological theory, and methodology.

Notes

The Movement activists also accused other media of being biased, including the Washington Post, Fox News, the German news stations RIL and N-TV radio, Spiegel; and the British outlets The Times, Sky News.

The percentage was calculated from the original post in the movement website: http://bbs.m4.cn/thread-120510-1-1.html.

Retrieved from the Ministry of Education on April 27, 2012 at http://www.moe.edu.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/s6200/201201/129607.html.

Retrieved online from http://www.gallup.com/poll/15934/Chinas-Gen-Bucks-Tradition.aspx, on April 27, 2012.

Interview notes, N0112.

Interview notes, N0112.

Interview notes, N0508.

Interview notes, N1308.

Interview notes, N0308.

From the homepage www.anti-xinhua.com on April 11, 2008.

This comment was posted on anti-cnn.com on April 04, 2008.

This article was posted on April 22, 2008 at http://top.jschina.com.cn/top81bbs/thread.php?cid=1&rootid=674464&id=674464.

This article was posted on May 7, 2008 at http://www.wyzxsx.com/Article/Class22/200805/38509.html.

Interview note N0112.

Interview notes, N0112.

Refer to Rao’s interview with Phoenix Weekly. Retrieved from http://news.ifeng.com/shendu/fhzk/detail_2012_05/08/14393806_0.shtml.

Refer to Rao’s interview with Phoenix Weekly. Retrieved from http://news.ifeng.com/shendu/fhzk/detail_2012_05/08/14393806_0.shtml.