COMPARISON OF FRAMING OF CHINA #METOO MOVEMENT IN THE DISCOURSES OF CHINESE AND US NEWS MEDIA
Open Access
Author:
Zhang, Manting
Graduate Program:
Communications
Degree:
Master of Arts
Document Type:
Master Thesis
Date of Defense:
April 12, 2019
Committee Members:
Peter Jones Kareithi, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Keywords:
#MeToo movement feminism Chinese news media U.S. news media
Abstract:
In the context of the global #MeToo movement, China has come a long way, but little it
is known by the outside world because of the way news is controlled by the communist
government. The purpose of this study is to aide in building more effective strategies for activists
involved in the Chinese #MeToo movement to work with media. It is my hope that these
findings will offer a model for U.S. audiences, especially activists in the U.S. #MeToo
movement, to better understand the U.S. media’s coverage of gender relations and feminism in
China. This study utilized both content analysis and critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyze
Chinese and U.S. news coverage quantitatively and qualitatively. There are three hypotheses:
1. Chinese news coverage of the Chinese #MeToo movement will be more conservative and will
reflect patriarchal tendencies; 2. The presence of an anticommunist framework will be dominant
in the U.S. coverage of the Chinese #MeToo movement; 3. Chinese news media coverage of
China’s #MeToo movement will focus more on events rather than analysis and interpretation
of these events. The result shows that the former two hypotheses could be demonstrated but the
last one is difficult to be examined.
