Evolving Frames: British Newspaper Coverage of Repression and Resistance in China over Time, 1949–2009

ABSTRACT

This study sets out to see if the Western media frames of China change over time and how the dominant ideology emerges in the representations. It investigates how the Tibet-China conflict was portrayed and represented in the British national daily newspapers across four research periods from 1949 to 2009. It examines the frames chosen by the press and the influence of the sources (especially external journalistic influence) reflected on the frame-building process. In this research, both content analysis and qualitative frame analysis were used to analyse 955 news articles from ten newspapers. The present study shows that the British media frames of the Tibet-China conflict evolved over the period of fifty years. During the Cold War period, the coverage reflected the ideology of anti-Communism and during the post-Cold War period, it presented China as a human rights violator in Tibet. The changes in frames can be attributed to the external reality of the Cold War, the constantly changing international relations, and other internal or external journalism factors. It indicates that the frame-building process not only reflects news frames as tools used by journalists to construct reality, but also explains which external journalistic factors influence this evolving process.

KEYWORDS:

• British national daily newspapers
• China
• evolving
• frames
• framing
• ideology
• Tibet

Disclosure Statement

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

Notes

1 In this study, China refers to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which was founded in 1949.

2 Dominant ideology refers to the ideas, attitudes, values, beliefs, and culture of the ruling class in a society. It also indicates political ideology is embedded in a culture’s “common sense,” in the everyday habits of thought that shape how people think and act as they engage in their routine activities.

3 It was renamed The Guardian on 24 August 1959.

4 Relaunched as The Sun in 1964.

5 Named Daily Graphic 1946–1952. In 1953, it was renamed Daily Sketch. In 1971, it was closed and merged with the Daily Mail.

6 News Chronicle ceased publication on 17 October 1960, being absorbed into the Daily Mail.

7 The newspapers which did not pay much attention to the Tibet issue were excluded in this research (e.g. Financial Times and Daily Star).

8 The category of topics is based on multiple-response variables (Topic1, Topic 2 and Topic 3 have been combined into a set).

9 The category of sources is based on multiple-response variables (Source 1, Source 2, Source 3 and Source 4 have been combined into a set).