Exploring the themes in the U.S. media coverage of Wanda’s investments in Hollywood

ABSTRACT

Cast against the backdrop of the U.S.–China “trade war” during the Trump Administration, Wanda Group’s billionaire chairman Wan Jianlin’s aggressive investments in the U.S. entertainment industry have become even more contemporaneous. This study first analyses the U.S. media coverage of Wanda’s investments in Hollywood using the grounded theory approach. The content analysis identified three major embedded themes: business, attitudes and actions of U.S. society, and China’s soft power strategy. The concurrence of the business and China’s soft power strategy reinforces the argument of previous studies that business and soft power are inherently connected. This study further argues that these two themes reflect the two major driving forces underlying the collaboration between China and Hollywood. This study also shows the predominant negativity in the attitudes and actions of U.S. society theme. This negativity reveals the public opinion environment in which the sharp power theory and Trump Administration’s new China–U.S. relations policies were developed, which would have significant impacts on the future collaboration between China and Hollywood.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese investment
• Hollywood
• U.S. media
• soft power
• cultural imperialism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.