Analysis of Image Project: Chinese First Lady in the People s Daily, the Reference News and the Southern Metropolis Daily

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1 Analysis of Image Project: Chinese First Lady in the People s Daily, the Reference News and the Southern Metropolis Daily Chen Xie 1,2, Qiuyu Hu 1, Bo Lv 1 1 Normal School, Hubei Polytechnic University, Huangshi , China 2 Department of Communication, Pusan National University, Pusan , South Korea Abstract The image project of the first lady has become a popular topic attracting increasing attention around the world. In China, Peng Liyuan has been widely reported in many different kinds of newspapers. This study aims to do a frame analysis on Chinese first lady-peng s news basing on the people s Daily (PD), the Reference News (RN) and the Southern Metropolis Daily (SMD). In this study, 336 news from these three newspapers were analyzed by content analysis. The results indicated that political news and economic news account for the biggest proportion in Peng s news, although she is only reported as a partner in marriage in these topics. Secondly, SMD is more likely to emphasize Peng as a full partner in news and hold a more positive attitude toward Peng than PD and RN. Thirdly, the information sources in these three newspapers are different. Fourthly, the topics of education, art and fashion report Peng more independent, and hold a more positive attitude toward her, while the topics of politics and economy are more likely to describe Peng more dependent, and hold a neutral attitude toward her. These findings provide implication for future researches on decoding the media image of politicians. Keywords: image project, frame analysis, the first lady. 1. INTRODUCTION The media attention and the public attention about the new first lady in China are much higher than ever before. The Southern Metropolis Daily has reported Peng over 40 times from January to September, In addition, the New York Times, Times China Press, the United Morning Post, the Financial Times, the Atlantic and many other important international newspapers have also reported Peng many times during the same period. According to her high popularity, this paper is going to explore the news coverage in three newspapers in China. The People s Daily (PD), which is an official newspaper of the government of China, publish worldwide with a circulation of 3-4 million. The Reference News (RN) is published by Xinhua News Agency. As the Chinese government s official news agency, Xinhua carefully selects articles from world s major news agencies and news journals and translates them into Chinese. The Southern Metropolis Daily (SMD) is the most widely published metropolitan newspaper in China. Although it is named Metropolis Daily, its circulation is quite large, which has kept its market share among top 3 in China. Also the readers of this newspaper are not from a single place but nationwide. As a socialist country, there is no clear line between conservative newspapers and progressive newspapers in China, and we could not claim that this newspaper is conservative or that newspaper is progressive. However, we could make a comparison between newspapers according to the public s awareness that which one is more conservative and which one is relatively progressive (Wang, 2014). For this paper, PD is regarded as a conservative newspaper by most of people in China, while SMD is much more progressive. Therefore, by comparing these three newspapers, we can find whether there is a difference in framing Peng s news between conservative newspaper and progressive newspaper. This paper will also provide a new perspective to explore First Lady s news coverage by using content analysis. Moreover, the analysis of Peng s news frames could be a beneficial basis for Chinese first lady to build the media image. 1.1 Literature reviews 506

2 Framing is arguably one of the most powerful and persuasive communication tools. Entman (Entman, 1993) maintains that frames influence how individuals view and consequently proves information from any one source through emphasizing certain points of focus. Entman defines framing as selecting some aspects of a perceived reality and making them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, more evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described (Entman, 1993). Hallahan (Hallahan, 1999) further explains framing as a technique used to define reality. Gitlin (Gitlin, 1980) refers both to visual and verbal framing, stating that media frames are persistent patterns of cognition, interpretation, and presentation, of selection, emphasis, and exclusion, by which symbol-handlers routinely organize the discourse, whether verbal or visual (Gitlin, 1980). Following this perspective, a frame is a way of organizing the world both for journalists who report it and, in some important degree for us, who rely on their reports (Gitlin, 1980). Scheufele and Tewksbury (Scheufele and Tewksbury, 2007) explained that framing is based on the assumption that how an issue is depicted in news may have an influence on how it is understood by audiences. McCombs and Ghanem (McCombs and Ghanem, 2003) stated that "framing is the construction of an agenda with a restricted number of thematically related attributes to create a coherent picture of a particular object". The major premise of framing theory is that an issue can be viewed from a variety of perspectives and be construed as having implications for multiple values or considerations. Ghanem (Ghanem, 1997) delineated four major dimensions of media frames and attributes: topics, presentation, cognitive attributes, and affective attributes. She defined the cognitive dimension as dealing with general cognitive categories that might shed a light on whether the media and the audience are thinking about the problem in the same way (Ghanem, 1997), and the affective dimension as dealing with the public s emotional response that may result from media coverage (Ghanem, 1997). In addition, the framing is usually used in political candidates, Devitt (1997) argues that strategy based coverage and stories emphasizing conflict dominate media reports rather than issue based coverage. The focus on strategy and conflict inherently influences how public figures are framed in the media and subsequently perceived by the general public. The media has the ability to select and focus on aspects of a candidate that they deem newsworthy, creating their own reality, rather than report on a more comprehensive view of a candidate that resembles actually reality. Cappella and Jamieson (Cappella and Jamieson, 1996) underscore this concept of how the media frames politicians using polling data. They echo Devitt s sentiments that the media is interested in covering conflict instead of more substantive and issue based material. Additionally, work done by Benoit, Stein, and Hansen (Benoit, Stein, and Hansen, 2005) on New York Times coverage of presidential campaigns reinforces the concept that media coverage of political candidates differs from the image that the candidates themselves intend to project. When using in the political area, the gender issue could be a hot spot mostly to be discussed. However, themes about First Lady s news could also be one of them. 1.2 Research questions The purpose of this study is to explore the news frames of First Lady Peng Liyuan by examining the news content from three different newspapers in China. According to four elements proposed by Ghanem (Ghanem,1997), the following research questions will be posed: Q1: what are the topics in the news of Peng? Do the People s Daily, Reference News, and Southern Metropolis Daily differ in their framing topics of Peng? (Subtopics) Q2: what is the tone in the news of Peng? Do the People s Daily, Reference News, and Southern Metropolis Daily differ in their tones toward Peng? (Affective element) Q3: what is the partnership type in news of Peng? Do the People s Daily, Reference News, and Southern Metropolis Daily differ in framing Peng s partnership? (Cognitive elements) Q4: what is the information source in news of Peng? Do the People s Daily, Reference News, and Southern Metropolis Daily differ in information source? (Framing mechanism) 507

3 Basing on the above four questions, the following three additional research questions are also going to be explored. Q5: Do Peng's partnership type in news differ in topics of news? Q6: Do the attitude toward Peng differ in her partnership type in news? Q7: Do the attitude toward Peng differ in topics of news? 2. MATERIALS AND METHODS 2.1 Sampling This study conducted a content analysis of Peng s news in three different newspapers (PD, RN and SMD) in china. Peng became the first lady of China since Xi Jinping has been elected as Chairman of China on March, 14 th of This study has collected the news related with Peng from the past two years (March, 14 th of 2013 ~ March, 15 th of 2015). By inputting Peng Liyuan through the site of Sina search, there are 336 news about Peng in total (PD: 131, RN: 94, SMD: 111). 2.2 Units of analysis and coding category According to the research questions, the author noted the following items as units of analysis: the type of newspaper, the publication date, subtopics, attitudes toward Peng, partnership type and information sources. First of all, the type of newspaper was codes as 1) PD, 2) RN and 3) SMD. Secondly, publication date was marked like Thirdly, the topics of news were classified into 1) politics, 2) economics, 3) educations, 4) fashion, 5) art and 6) others. If the news has contained two or more than two topics, the main topic which is discussed more than 50% of the length was coded. Fourthly, the tone of news (affective elements) is generally divided into positive attitude, neutral attitude and negative attitude. However, according to China s special situation, the negative reports would be impossible or difficult to see in Chinese newspapers. Thus, the attitude toward Peng in news was coded as 1) positive attitude and 2) neutral attitude. While coding the cognitive elements, it is related with Peng s partnership types in news. According to Watson (Watson, 2000), he has divided First Lady s partnership types into several kinds: full partner, partial partner, behind-the-scenes partner, partner in marriage and non-partner. The full partner means very active in politics and take interest in her spouse s activities, and also participate in social issues. The partial partner means somewhat active in activeties. Behind-the-scenes partner means the first lady is active in politics but behind the scenes. Partner in marriage means she is not active in politics and she is more traditional duties of being a wife. The type of non-partner stands for the first lady who is not an active participant in the more traditional social issues. However, this division of first lady s partnership is full of hallmarks of capitalism which could not be coped and applied into Chinese first lady. According to the Chinese condition and general nature, Peng s partnership type has been made some modifications which were coded like follows: 1) full partner, which reports Peng s independent activity in news. 2) Partial partner, which suggests Peng as a fellow of Xi in news but with a few active activities by herself. 3) Partner in marriage, which suggests Peng has no active activities in news and only as the wife of chairmen. According to Gan (Gan, 1993), the information source in news of China can be divided into reporters interview, news agency, government, international organization, civic group, and general people. As for information source of Peng s new, it will be divided as follows: 1) reporters interview, 2) news agency, 3) international organization, 4) civic groups, 5) general people, 6) not clearly identified and 7) others. Additionally, the category of news agency only includes the agency of China. When the information come from the news agencies in foreign countries, it was coded as 3) international organizations. 2.3 Analysis and inter-coder reliability This study mainly used frequcncy, cross tabulation and X2 test for statistical analysis in SPSS 18. Using Cohen s (Cohen, 1960) kappa, two of the coders analyzed 10% of the totally coded articles in common. 508

4 Releability for each ranged from0.75 and 0.91: topic (0.818), attitude (0.848), partership type (0.758), information source (0.909). According to Landis and Koch (Landis and Koch, 1977). these results indicated substantial agreement ( ) or in part almost perfect agreement (larger than 0.80). 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Results RQ1 questioned the topics in the news of Peng and whether there is a difference of topics in these three newspapers. According to table 1, the proportion of the topics in these three newspapers followed the order: politics (33.9%), economy (21.1%), art (19.0%), education (13.7%), fashion (6.8%) and others (5.4%). A oneway x 2 indicates that the difference in frequency of topics is significant (x 2 [df=5] = , p<.001). However, the topics in these three newspapers are almost same. That is, the result of a two-way Chi-square test in the cross-tabulation of topics and type of newspaper is not significant (x 2 [df=10] = , p=ns). Moreover, the political topics account for the biggest proportion in all of the topics. This propotion of topics seems to emphasize Peng s new identity as a politican, not only a singer or actor in past. Figure 1. Topics distribution of Peng s news in three different newspapers. RQ2 asked the attitudes in the news toward Peng and whether there is a difference of attitudes in these three newspapers. From table 2, 38.7% of news holds a positive attitude toward Peng, and 61.3% of news holds a neutral attitude toward Peng. A one way x 2 indicates that the difference in frequency of attitude is significant (x 2 [df=1] = , p<.001). In addition, the proportion of news holding a neutral attitude is larger than the news holding a neutral attitude in the PD and RN, while the proportion of news in SMD holding a positive attitude and holding a neutral attitude is almost same. The result of a two-way Chi-square test in the cross-tabulation of topics and type of newspaper is significant (x 2 [df=2] = 7.740, p<.05). Or in another word, the SMD seems to be more positive towards first lady-peng. This is mainly related with the characteristic of their working team and readers of SMD. Figure 2. Attitudes distribution in Peng s news in three different newspapers. 509

5 RQ3 asked the partnership type in the news of Peng and whether there is a difference of partnership type in these three newspapers. According to table 3, 29.8% of news emphasize full partner, 24.1% of news emphasize partial partner, and 46.1% of news emphasize the partner in marriage. A one way x 2 indicates that the difference in frequency is significant (x 2 [df=2] = , p<.001). Moreover, 43.8% of news emphasizes the full partner in Peng s news in SMD, while RN (53.5%) and PD (50.8%) emphasize the partner in marriage, which means the partnership type is different in these three newspapers. The results indicate that the cross-tabulation of partnership type and type of newspaper is significant (x 2 [df=4] = , p<.005). To put it simply, the SMD is more likely to emphasize Peng as the full partner in news. Figure 3. Partnership type in Peng s news in three different newspapers. Figure 4. Information source in Peng s news in three different newspapers. RQ4 asked the information source in the news of Peng and whether there is a difference of information source in these three newspapers. According to table 4,the proportion of the information source followed the order: new agency (32.7%), international organization (32.4%), reporter s interview (24.7%), civic group (6.0%), not clear identified (2.7%), general people (1.2%) and others (0.3%). A one-way x 2 indicates that the difference in frequency is significant (x 2 [df=6] = , p<.001). In addition, most of news in PD (53.0%) are coming from news agency, most of news in SMD (45.7%) are coming from the reporter s interview, while most of information source of RN are coming from international organization (71.7%). That is, the result of a two-way Chi-square test in the cross-tabulation of information source and type of newspaper is significant (x 2 [df=12] = , p<.001). Also, the differences of information sourses are due to their different targets and readers. RQ5 asked whether the partnership type in news differ in topics of news. Basing on Table 5, the news of arts and education emphasize full partner much more, and the topics of politics and economy emphasize partner in marriage much more. Actually, the partnership type is different according to different topics in news. That is, the result of a two-way Chi-square test in the cross-tabulation of topics and partnership type is significant (x 2 [df=10] = , p<.001). 510

6 Figure 5. Topics of Peng s news in different kinds of partnership types. RQ6 asked whether the attitudes toward Peng in news differ in partnership type in news. From Table 6, the attitude toward Peng is much more positive when the news shows the full partner of Peng, while the attitude is more neural when she is only a partner in marriage in the news. Or we can say the attitude toward Peng is different according to her partnership type in the news. That is, the result of a two-way Chi-square test in the cross-tabulation of attitude toward Peng and partnership type in news is significant (x2 [df=2] = , p<.001). Figure 6. Attitude toward Peng in different kinds of partnership types (from left to right: positive, neutral, total). RQ7 asked whether the attitude toward Peng in news differ in topics of news. According to Table 7, the topics of politics, economy in news are more likely to hold a neutral attitude toward Peng, while the topics of education, fashion and art in news are more likely to hold a positive attitude toward Peng. In another word, if the topic of news is different, the attitude toward Peng would be different accordingly. That is, the result of a twoway Chi-square test in the cross-tabulation of attitude toward Peng and topics in news is significant (x 2 [df=5] = , p<.001). Figure 7. Attitude toward Peng in different kinds of topics in news. 511

7 From the results of Q5, Q6 and Q7, we could conclude that when the topics of news are education, art and fashion, Peng seems to be more independent, and the news toward her seems to be more positive; in contrast, when the topics of news are politics and economy, Peng seems to be more dependent, and the related attitudes seem to be more neutral. This kind of results is mainly because of Peng s personal traits and women s social status in contemporary China. 3.2 Discussion This study has done a frame analysis on Chinese first lady-peng s news in three newspapers (PD, RN and SMD). The results not only showed their differences in framing Peng s news, but also indicated some characteristics of framing first lady s news in China. First of all, the present study found that the topics of these three newspapers are almost the same, which report political topics most. This is mainly because first lady is regarded as a politician in China, although she only plays an insignificant role in political areas. Also, most of the news about Peng is related with Chairman Xi, while, the Chairman of China is so busing in politics, which makes the proportion of political news the most. Secondly, the SMD seems to be more likely to emphasize Peng as a full partner in news and hold a more positive attitude toward Peng than PD and RN. This difference in these three newspapers seems related with the traits of SMD s working team and readers. To be more specific, the average age of leaders in SMD is 32, and the average age of news reporters in SMD is 27, which is much younger than the news reporters in PD and RN. This trait makes SMD a more open mind in producing news, and a much more equal attitude toward gender issue in China. Although the first lady is regarded as a politician, she is still considered as a woman. Also, the age range of readers of SMD is from 25 to 44, which is also much younger than the readers in PD and RN. With a higher education of readers, SMD seems to be accepted at a higher level than the other two newspapers, which means a more independent and active first lady will be easier to be accepted in SMD. Thirdly, the information sources in these three newspapers are different. More specifically, most of news of PD is coming from news agency, for example, the Xihua news agency and Zhongxin news agency. Most of news of SMD is coming from reporters interview, and most of news of RN is coming from the international organizations. This difference, actually, indicates the different targets of these three newspapers. The PD provides direct information on the policies and viewpoints of the government, and the Xihua news agency is the official press agency of China, which is a ministry-level department subordinate to the Chinese central government. The RN selects articles from world s major news agencies or news journals, and then translates them into Chinese, so the information sources of news in RN are concentrated in international organizations. However, the SMD is known for its investigative journalism and provocative commentary, which calls for a great deal of reporters interviews. Fourthly, we could conclude that the topics of education, art and fashion seem to report Peng more independent, and hold a more positive attitude toward her, while the topics of politics and economy are more likely to describe Peng much more dependent, and hold a neutral attitude toward her. This kind of results lays in two kinds of reasons: Peng s personal traits should be the first reason. As a famous Chinese ethnic vocalist, she was well known long before Xi Jinping became famous. Her patriotic songs helped her win popularity among the Chinese people since the 1980s. Also, she is an accomplished artist with great capability in culture who got a master s degree in vocal music of China for the first time. In addition, she has paid much more attention to the charity culture. In 2011, she was appointed by the World Health Organization as a Goodwill Ambassador in the fight against tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. Meanwhile, she is a long-term advocate for poverty relief and also she is an ambassador for the prevention of juvenile delinquency and for tobacco control. Besides these, she also participated in philanthropic projects including Gates Foundation initiatives for issues of children. In short, Peng is more active in the domains of arts, fashion and education before she was the first lady, which has brought lots of advantages in these facets even after she has been the first lady of China. Although the news holds a positive attitude toward Peng in some kinds of news, it still implies women s unequal status in China nowadays. Politics and economy are always regarded as the most important factors in the 512

8 development of a society. As for China, a developing country, politics and economy seems to be the men s world. In another word, women only play an insignificant role in the areas of politics and economy in China. In a more general sense, it has been argued that women s participation and initiative in politics since the beginning of the People s Republic in 1994 have been significantly limited by the fact that feminist political action has never meant to go beyond authorized women s work mandated by the Party (Edwards, 2004). It is significant, for example, that the twelve women on the party s Central Committee elected in 1992 were mostly involved with women s work. The first lady, no matter how popular she is, is still considered as a woman, who couldn t make any important contributions in politics and economy. That s why Peng is always showed a partner in marriage in the topics of politics and economy. 4. CONCLUSION The results of this study have indicated four main points. Firstly, Political news and economical news accounts for a big proportion in Peng s news, although she is only showed a partner in marriage in these topics, and secondly, SMD seems to be more positive toward the first lady-peng, Thirdly, the information source in these three newspapers are totally different. Finally, basing on all the news in these three newspapers, when the topics of news are education, art and fashion, Peng seems to be more independent, and the news toward her seems to be more positive. This study has revealed the current situation of news reports on the first lady, which could be a beneficial basis for her to build the media image. Although this study has compared Peng s news frames in three newspapers, it still has some limitations. First, it would be better if it can be compared with the news frames of first ladies in foreign countries. In fact, the role of the first lady in foreign countries, especially in America, seems to be more experienced than China, which could offer some valuable experiences for Chinese first lady in the future. Second, a more comprehensive study including other newspapers, magazines, television news, blogs and other forms of media could yield different results. Another limitation is a potential bias in coding due to the personal opinions of the individual. Using a neutral coder of identifying specific keywords to describe each frame could have contributed to eliminate some coder bias. Peng has been the first lady for only two years, and further researches should utilize other sources of media framing to gain a more complete picture of how Peng Liyuan is portrayed. Additionally, the comparison of Peng with other first ladies, in or out of China, could also be a better direction of research. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This paper was sponsored by College Students Innovation and Entrepreneurship Programmers of Hubei Province, Female Audience s Culture Identity on New Korean Drama : based on the survey from different generations of female ( ); Hubei Polytechnic University s Teaching Reform Key Project, Improving and Reinforcing the Empirical Ability of Students Major in Communication (2016B15). REFERENCES Benoit W.L., Stein K.A., Hansen G. J (2005). New York times coverage of presidential campaigns. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 82(2), Cappella J.N., Jamieson K.H. (1996). News frames, political cynicism, and media cynicism. The American Academy of Political and Social Science, 546, Devitt J. (1997). Framing politicians. The American Behavioral Scientist, 40(8), Edwards L. (2004), Constraining women s political work with Women s Work : the chinese communist party and women s participation in politics, in A. McLaren (ed.), Chinese Women Living and Working, Entman R.M. (1993). Framing: toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), Gitlin T. (1980). The whole world is watching: mass media in the making and unmaking of the new left, Los Angeles: University of California Press. Gutin M. (2000). Using all available means of persuasion: the twentieth century first lady as public communicator. The Social Science Journal, 37(4),

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