Mobilising public support for the U.S. China-trade war: a comparison of U.S. and Chinese news media

ABSTRACT

In international conflicts, national governments establish the legitimacy of their positions or policies through news announcements. This study examines how the news media in each country, through alignment with their government’s foreign policies, mobilised public support for the U.S.–China trade war. Furthermore, we explain the intricacies of the relationship among government policy and the news media, by showing how the government plays an important role as a news source for the news media. We analyse how the news media’s frames of reporting are influenced by the government and how the news media shape the public’s understanding of the conflict. We utilise a comparative content analysis of four mainstream news media in China and seven mainstream news media in the U.S. to show how both governments provide the frames of the trade conflict and dependence of the news media on elite news sources help mobilise support of their audiences following the government’s framing.

KEYWORDS:

• Trade war
• U.S.-China relations
• news framing
• news sources
• public mobilization

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge the coding work of Chang Bi, Yanqin Lu, Frankline Mantanji, Rik Ray, Yang Yang, Ruonan Zhang for the U.S. data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The funding of the coding work in China is supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (NSSFC), Project #14ZDB162.

Notes on contributors

Louisa Ha

Louisa Ha (PhD, Michigan State University) is Professor of Research Excellence in Bowling Green State University and Founding Editor-in-Chief of Online Media and Global Communication. Her research interests are audience research, media business models, international communication, online video, social media influencers.

Ke Guo

Ke Guo (PhD, Fudan University) is a professor and dean in the School of Journalism and Communication at Shanghai International Studies University. His research focuses on global communication, public opinion, and media studies in China.

Peiqin Chen

Peiqin Chen (PhD, Fudan University) is a professor in the School of Journalism andCommunication at Shanghai International Studies University. Her research focuses on international journalism and communication.