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Framing SARS: A Comparative Content Analysis of the Coverage of SARS
by Two Major Chinese Newspapers
By
Yong Cao, Dennis T. Lowry, and Limin Zheng
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Submitted to the International Communication Division (ICD), for the
Annual Convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and
Mass Communication, San Antonio, August 10-13, 2005.
Please address all correspondence to:
Yong Cao
Department of Radio-Television
Mailcode 6609
College of Mass Communication and Media Arts
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Carbondale, IL 62901
Telephone: 618-303 4450
Fax: 618-453 6982
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Abstract
This study compared press coverage of SARS by two newspapers: the
People's Daily, and a leading commercialized newspaper, the Beijing
Youth Daily. The study found both newspapers used a significant
proportion of news sources attributed to government agencies, and
positively portrayed government agencies. This study reveals the
commercialized newspaper could not deviate significantly from the
party line in covering SARS. The SARS case suggests even the
commercialized press in China is far from an independent press.
Framing SARS: A Comparative Content Analysis of the Coverage of SARS
by Two Major Chinese Newspapers
Submitted to the International Communication Division (ICD), for the
Annual Convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and
Mass Communication, San Antonio, August 10-13, 2005.
Abstract
This study compared press coverage of SARS by two newspapers: the
People's Daily, and a leading commercialized newspaper, the Beijing
Youth Daily. The study found both newspapers used a significant
proportion of news sources attributed to government agencies, and
positively portrayed government agencies. This study reveals the
commercialized newspaper could not deviate significantly from the
party line in covering SARS. The SARS case suggests even the
commercialized press in China is far from an independent press.
Framing SARS: A Comparative Content Analysis of the Coverage of SARS
by Two Major Chinese Newspapers
Abstract
Based on framing theory, this paper compared press coverage of SARS
by two major Chinese newspapers: the official newspaper of the
Chinese Communist Party, the People's Daily, and a Beijing based
commercialized newspaper, the Beijing Youth Daily. Using a stratified
sample of 668 SARS stories between February and June 2003, the study
indicates that the two newspapers differed in sources of attribution,
topics covered, and sensationalism in the coverage of SARS. Both
newspapers used a significant proportion of news sources attributed
to government agencies, party organs and officials. Both newspapers
used positive tones in covering government agencies, party organs,
and officials. This comparative study reveals that the commercialized
newspaper, an increasing segment of the decentralized and fragmented
press in China, had certain autonomy, but it could not deviate
significantly from the basic party line in covering SARS, a crisis,
in which the state had great vested interests. The commercialized
newspaper echoed the tone set by the propaganda press, especially in
crucial-aspects of framing: tone toward the government. The SARS case
indicates that even the commercialized press in China is far from a
free and independent press.
SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), a form of atypical
pneumonia, first surfaced in Guangdong Province, China on November
16, 2002. The early cases were not brought to the concern of Chinese
authorities or the media. The disease began spreading from southern
China to Southeast Asia and soon burgeoned into a global outbreak in
March. In February, 2003, the Chinese Ministry of Health informed the
WHO of 305 cases of SARS including five deaths (The Ministry of
Health China, 2004). In March, 2003, the World Health Organization
(WHO) declared the epidemic "a worldwide health threat" and issued
worldwide "emergency travel advisory." In early March, China denied
access of WTO team of experts to Guangdong. In late March, China
finally joined the WHO collaborative network and then cooperated with
the international community in controlling the SRAS spread. As of
June 30, 2003, 8,447 cases were reported across 33 countries
including 811 deaths. China was the worst hit country. As of June 30,
there were 5,327 cases reported in China including 348 deaths,
accounting for 63.1% and 42.9% of SARS cases and deaths worldwide.
Beijing was the worst hit city in China with 2,200 cases and116
deaths. SARS was on wane globally by the end of June. On June 24,
2003, the WHO declared that SARS outbreaks had been contained
worldwide and lifted its advisory against travel to China (World
Health Organization, 2004).
The outbreak of SARS had enormous impacts on China. It sickened more
than 5,000 people and claimed hundreds of people's lives. The
outbreak of SARS was not a simple public health issue. SARS caused a
huge nationwide panic in China and had also pronounced economic,
social and political impacts. SARS affected every component of
economics, from aggregate demand to private consumption (Fan, 2003).
The outbreak of SARS and the poor handling of SARS by China's
government during the early stage stirred great fears among foreign
businessmen and tourists (Wonacott, Chang, & Dolven, 2003). The
estimated reduction of GDP annual growth in China could be about 0.2%
or 2.3 billion USD (Fan, 2003). The impact of SARS goes far beyond
the economic sector. The outbreak of SARS posed the "deepest
challenge" to the Community Party in China (Hutzler & Wonacott,
2003). The slow economic growth caused by SARS shook the foundations
of the legitimacy of the Communist Party, which rests on the high
economic growth rate. More important, the lack of transparency and
accountability in the SARS crisis aroused popular discontent,
weakened public confidence in the government and damaged the
credibility of the six month leadership of President Hu Jintao. The
economic and political stability of China was at great risk (Hutzler
& Wonacott, 2003). In this sense, the outbreak of SARS is one of the
most severe challenges to the Chinese communist leadership since the
1989 Tiananmen incident (U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on
China, 2003).
The mass media play a critical role in any time of public health
crisis. "Accurate, timely, and transparent provision of information"
is critical for educating and alerting public (Fan, 2003, p.7). How
did China's press handle the public health crisis? How did
commercialized newspapers differ from party organ newspapers in
covering the crisis? These important questions have not to have been
studied extensively. Given the impact of SARS and the critical role
of the media in the public health crisis, the outbreak of SARS
provides an unusual opportunity to examine how the China press
covered SARS. In the past ten years, the media in China have
undergone tremendous changes. Many commercialized newspapers have
emerged. The traditional tight control over the press by the party
now has been eroded by the commercialization. This study attempts to
answer the questions by comparing two Chinese newspapers--the
People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, and
the Beijing Youth Daily, a leading commercial newspaper in Beijing.
This study also contributes to the existing literature by examining
press coverage of a public health crisis by commercialized newspapers
in China, which don't gain enough academic attention among mass
communication scholars.
Literature Review
Previous Studies
A handful scholarly research examined the press coverage of SARS.
Chan, Jin, Rousseau, Vaughan, and Yu (2003), through a cross country
analysis, examined the correlation between word occurrence of SARS in
six major newspapers and the number of SARS cases. They found that
compared with the western press, the Chinese newspapers did not
closely follow the development of SARS. They argued that the
difference may be a result of different political system. Their
study, based on informetrics did not make any attempts to actually
analyze the content of coverage of SARS.
Yu Sun (2003) examined the journalistic practices during SARS and
found that the emerging independent-fringe media reacted in a timely
manner and conducted in-depth investigations. Sun didn't investigate
the reactions of official and commercial newspapers, which are
dominant players in current press system. Cunningham (2003) examined
the constraints on China's coverage of SARS. He argued that the lack
of transparency and timely coverage of SARS was because of (1)
"miscarriage of journalism and health administration" (p.51), (2)
domestic conferences which dominated the media agenda in March and
(3) the top political power struggle on how to handle the public
crisis. Neither Sun nor Cuningham make any empirical investigations
on the SARS coverage.
Drache, Feldman and Clifton (2003) examined the press coverage of
the SARS outbreak in Toronto. They performed a detailed content
analysis of six newspapers from Canada and the United States. They
found that in both countries half of the coverage focused on health
issues and functioned as a channel of important health information.
Governments were criticized by the press. Different stakeholder
groups, from government to the business community, all actively
promoted their stands, and the media consciously chose where, when
and how to divide their coverage among various groups.
Previous studies indicated active news construction in covering SARS
and suggested that political system, journalistic practices, and
interest groups all influence the news construction process and lead
to different coverage of the same event. The findings in previous
studies indicated a clear direction pointing to framing process in
the coverage. Based on the foregoing analysis, this paper will be
situated in framing theory. A cursory examination of current
comparative content analysis articles suggests an increasing number
of studies which rest on framing theory (e.g., Entman, 1993;
Akhavan-Majid & Ramaprasad, 2000; Yang, 2003). Framing analysis has
become popular in conducting comparative content analyses of news coverage.
Framing Theory
The concept of framing was first introduced by Goffman, who defined
frame as "the principles of organization which govern (social)
events" (Goffman, 1974, p.10 as cited in Akhavan-Majid & Ramaprasad,
2002). Framing theory in mass communication considers how the news
media cover events and issues and make them understandable to the
public. Media frames, defined as Gitlin, are "persistent patterns of
cognition, interpretation and presentation, of selection, emphasis,
and exclusion, by which symbol-handlers routinely organize discourse,
whether verbal or visual" (Gitlin, 1980, p.7)
Entman (1993) identifies two essential factors for faming:
selection and salience. He states, "To frame is to select some
aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a
communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem
definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment
recommendation for item described" (p.152).
This study follows Entman's approach and examines how media use
frames that focus on certain aspects of events, making certain
attributes more salient. It also investigates how media select by
highlighting or omitting certain aspects of events. Framing functions
through framing devices. Entman (1993) further argues that frames
occur by "presence or absence of certain key words, stock phrases,
stereotype images, sources of information, and sentences that provide
thematically reinforcing clusters of facts or judgments" (p.152).
According to Entman, through these framing devices frames are
constructed and communicated to the audience. Similarly, Callaghan
and Schnell (2001) also argue that framing occurs when journalists
decide on a particular dimension of the story to present to the audience.
Some scholars argue that faming can have substantial effects on an
audience. Entman (1993) suggests that fames could affect audiences by
defining problems, diagnosing causes, making judgments and suggesting
recommendations. Price, Tewksbury and Powers (1997) found that news
framing of events could systematically affect how readers understand
and interpret these events.
Many media scholars have identified factors influencing framing.
Scheufele (2000) summarizes five factors influencing journalistic
issue framing. These include social norms and values, organizational
pressures and constraints, journalistic routines, and pressures from
interests groups. Shoemaker and Reese (1996) and Akhavan-Majid and
Ramaprasad (1998) suggested framing is closely related to
journalistic practice, ideology, and news sources.
As stated earlier, framing theory is widely used in comparative
content analysis. This study is based on the assumption that two
newspapers under study will frame the same event in different ways.
As Entman suggested, the importance of comparing news coverage of
similar events may help reveal "the critical textual choices that
framed the story." (Entman 1991, p.6)
China's Press in Transformation
In the past 10 years, China's press has undergone significant
transformation. During the economic reform, commercialization has
penetrated almost every sector of the society. The press, formally
under tight control by the state, is no exception. Scholars studying
the Chinese press have reached consensus that it is outdated to
explain China's media through traditional party propaganda model (Guo
& Chen, 1997; Zhao, 1998; Yong, 2000; Huang, 2001; Pan, 2002).
A number of scholars have attempted to analyze Chinese press
transformation within a state vs. market framework (Zhao, 2000). The
state and the market are two major forces in shaping Chinese press
system, and the two forces are in "an inherently antagonistic
relationship" (Zhao, 2000, p.4). Market mechanism on one hand,
although introduced by the state, will undermine the political
control of the Party and on the other hand the political system will
also hinder market development (Chen & Gong, 1997; Hao, Huang &
Zhang, 1998; Zhao, 2000). Zhao argues that the press in China "can
be explained neither by the Party principle nor by market force
alone." (Zhao, 1998, p.151).
The commercialization with the political control has led to
significant structural changes in China's press (Zhao, 2000). The
traditional Soviet-like press system has been fragmented and
decentralized (Zhao, 2000). One of the most important structural
changes is the emergence of commercialized press in China (Guo &
Chen, 1997; Zhao, 1998; Zhao, 2000; Huang, 2001). Against the
backdrop of the structural changes, this paper argues that today
there are two major press modes in China: party propaganda press vs.
commercialized press. The major characteristics of the propaganda
press and the commercialized press are summarized in Table 1.
Although the commercialized press has certain autonomy, the
party-state system in China still exerts visible influence in the
commercialized press. The commercialized press in order to survive
the market competition and retain legitimacy has to follow the party
line. It is evidenced by previous research on SARS coverage that the
institutional constraints still keep China's press from being
autonomous and politically diverse.
This study, influenced by framing theory, analyses the extent to
which the systematic differences between propaganda press and
commercialized press might have pronounced impact on news framing. It
also attempts to investigate to what extent the commercialized press
could push the limits in reporting about SARS, a sensitive and
significant event in China. By examining the coverage of SARS by two
newspapers from different press modes, this study also provides
empirical evidence of the interplay of market forces and political
control in Chinese current press system, a largely unexplored topic.
Research Questions and Hypotheses
This study selected two newspapers: the People's Daily and the
Beijing Youth Daily. The People's Daily itself is a party organ and
a typical propaganda newspaper. The Beijing Youth Daily is a leading
commercialized newspaper in Beijing. Drawing on the previous
discussions, this study focuses on the following research questions:
Research Question 1: How did the People's Daily differ from the
Beijing Youth Daily in terms of sources attribution in covering SARS?
Research Question 2: How did the People's Daily differ from the
Beijing Youth Daily in terms of their story tones in covering China's
government agencies dealing with SARS?
Research Question 3: How did the Beijing Youth Daily cover business
enterprises in terms of reporting tones in its SARS stories? This
research question focuses on the Beijing Youth Daily, the
commercialized press, since China's commercialized press has always
been stuffed with advertorials of enterprises (Taipei Times, April,
10, 2004). The SARS crisis provided an opportunity for enterprises to
conduct publicity operations, and the commercialized press is willing
to be a platform for such publicity activities through paid
advertorials as a revenue generator. The interdependency between
enterprises and commercialized press is an interesting topic and also
is unexplored in content analysis of China's press.
Research Question 4: To what extent, did the People's Daily differ
from the Beijing Youth Daily in terms of sensationalism in reporting
about SARS?
Research Question 5: How did the People's Daily differ from the
Beijing Youth Daily in terms of topics covered in reporting about SARS?
News sources, tone and topics are important framing devices. Given
the characteristics of the two press modes, which constitutes the
basis of this comparative analysis, this study attempted to find if
there were any significant differences between the two newspapers in
their coverage of SARS.
Hypothesis 1a: The People's Daily will have more sources attributed
to the central government than other sources than the Beijing Youth Daily.
Hypothesis 1b: The Beijing Youth Daily will have more sources
attributed to Beijing municipal government than other sources than
the People's Daily.
The above two hypotheses predict that in covering such a significant
event as SARS, government, party organs and officials will do most of
the talking. However the People's Daily is under the direct control
of the central government and functions as mouth piece of the state,
while the Beijing Youth Daily is under the jurisdiction of Beijing
party authority. Thus the coverage of the two newspapers should
exhibit different proportions of political news sources.
Hypothesis 2a: The People's Daily will have a larger proportion of
positive paragraphs in covering the central government than the
Beijing Youth Daily.
Hypothesis 2b: The Beijing Youth Daily will have a larger
proportion of positive paragraphs in covering Beijing municipal
government than the People's Daily.
These two hypotheses predict that the two newspapers might both use
positive tones in covering government, but with different focuses
because of the source of political control.
Hypothesis 3: The Beijing Youth Daily will have a larger
proportion of positive paragraphs in covering Beijing enterprises
than other provincial enterprises.
Local enterprises are commercialized press's advertising sources and
vital to the survival of commercialized the press in market
competition. The Beijing Youth Daily is famous for its investigate
reporting and consumer right advocacy. For example, in 1996, the
Beijing Youth Daily exposed the toxin beverage problem of Wahaha, a
large state owned enterprises in Hangzhou (Rosen, 2000), but it is
careful in dealing with its local business environment. The Beijing
Youth Daily may positively cover local enterprises, but may raise
some consumer issues about enterprises in other provinces in the SARS
crisis, such as producing defective masks and driving up prices of
daily necessities. By so doing, the Beijing Youth Daily may win the
trust of consumers (Rosen, 200) without offending its advertising
source, the local businesses.
Hypothesis 4: The Beijing Youth Daily will use more sensational
headlines than the People's Daily. This hypothesis predicts that with
different journalism as shown in Table 1, the Beijing Youth Daily
will use more sensational headlines to attract readers.
Hypothesis 5: The People's Daily will have a larger proportion of
stories about politics, while the Beijing Youth Daily will have a
larger proportion of stories about economics, health, and social
life. This hypothesis predicts that the propaganda orientation of the
People's Daily will usually stress party and government's policies.
The propaganda press has an obligation to carry political propaganda
and the commercialized press has fewer such topics (Lee, 1994; Zhao,
2000). The Beijing Youth Daily, without such political burdens, will
cater to the taste of urban readers by emphasizing social life and
health issues.
Method
This study employed quantitative content analysis as the research
method. Content analysis according to Krippendorff (1980) is "a
research technique for making replicable and valid inferences from
data to their context" (p. 21).
The People's Daily and the Beijing Youth Daily
The People' Daily with a circulation of three million, the largest in
China, is the most authoritative newspaper in China (Chang, 1995).
The editor-in-chief of this newspaper is directly appointed by the
Party Central Committee. Its editorials and commentaries are often
relayed by other national media. In this sense, the People's Daily is
the press with the most official influence in China (Chang, 1995),
but the People's Daily has "never reached urban consumer through
private sales" (Zhao, 2000, p. 9). Although the People's Daily is
probably the most studied newspaper in China in terms of content
analysis by mass communication researchers, it does not provide a
good picture of China's fragmented press. We have to look at
coverage of the commercialized press, which constitutes a significant
and growing portion in China's fragmented press.
The Beijing Youth Daily, although a state run newspaper and
affiliated with Beijing Communist Youth League, is one of the largest
commercialized newspapers in Beijing and the second largest in China
with over 0.9 billion RMB advertising revenue in 2003. It also has
the largest subscription among daily newspapers in Beijing with over
600,000 circulation (China Daily, 2004, December 22).The Beijing
Youth Daily is the parent company of Beijing Media, mainland China's
first media group to be listed on an overseas stock exchange. The
Beijing Youth Daily is circulated through its own circulation system
rather than official postal distribution system and is targeted at
urban residents in Beijing. As one of the largest market oriented
newspapers, the Beijing Youth Daily occupies an important position in
information flow in Beijing. Empirical evidences suggest that
"Chinese readers actively and selectively used and liked non-party
newspaper than the Party organs" (Sun, Chang, & Yu, 2001, p. 214). In
a survey in 1996, the Beijing Youth Daily ranked among the top two
"read the most" and "like the most" newspapers by Beijing readers
with a substantial lead over the People's Daily (Sun et al, 2001,
pp.209- 210). In terms of reader outreach, the Beijing Youth Daily is
more influential than any other propaganda newspapers in Beijing. The
Beijing Youth Daily has a tradition of carrying controversial issues
or stories that "elicited wide public interest or concern" and often
"walked a fine line, testing the limits of investigating reporting
and consumer advocacy" (Rosen, 2000, pp.155-156.) In this sense, the
Beijing Youth Daily is an ideal representative of the commercialized
press in China; however, it seldom enters the vision of
communications scholars in terms of content analysis. This study
attempts to fill this void by comparing the Beijing Youth Daily and
the People's Daily' in their coverage of SARS.
Population and Sample
The study period spans from February 22, 2003, when SARS first
appeared in the two newspapers to June 24, 2003, when the WHO removed
the travel advisory to China. The population of this study consisted
of all stories containing the words "sasi", "fei dian" (Chinese for
SARS) during this study period. The search produced a total of 6,680
articles, which is the population of this study. The articles of the
People's Daily were retrieved from its official CD. It contains full
text of the People's Daily in 2003. The articles of the Beijing Youth
Daily were retrieved from its official CD containing the full text of
the Beijing Youth Daily in 2003.
A random sample of 10% of the population, 668 articles was selected.
Proportional stratified sampling was employed in this study, and
months were used as strata. Proportional stratified sampling has the
advantage that it "makes smaller homogeneous groups that would
guarantee a more representative sample" (Riffe, p. 93). In
proportional stratified sampling, sample sizes were selected "from
within strata based on the stratum's proportion of the population"
(Riffe, p. 93). For example, for the People's Daily, articles in
April account for 10% of all articles during the study period, then
35 (346 x 10% = 35 ) articles of the sample was randomly selected
from the April. With this sampling procedure, 268 articles and 400
articles were randomly selected from the People's Daily and the
Beijing Youth Daily respectively.
Units of Analysis
Based on framing analysis and the two modes, source, topic, tone and
sensationalism were selected as variables to examine the coverage.
Different units were used in this study because of the different
nature of these variables. An entire story was used as coding unit to
code for date, newspaper, source attribution and topic. The paragraph
was used to code tone, and the headline of each story was used to
code sensationalism.
Operational Definitions
Major concepts of the variables are defined as follows:
Source Attribution: Each story was coded for the primary source
quoted inside the story as source of information or comment.
Tone of Coverage: Each paragraph was coded for one primary attitude
(positive, neutral, negative, and non applicable) in covering the actors.
Sensationalism: Each headline was coded for whether it used
shocking words or expressions.
Topic: Each story was coded for one dominant topic, which reflected
the primary focus of the story. There were five sub-categories:
politics, economics, health, social life and others.
Coding Procedures and Inter-code Reliability
Two of the authors, both native Chinese speakers, independently
conducted the coding. A twenty percent of the sample stories (134)
was randomly selected for inter-coder reliability test. The method of
the Scott's Pi was used for source attribution, sensationalism and
topic. The advantage of the Scott Pi is that it controls for chance
agreement. The reliability coefficients for source attribution,
sensationalism and topic were 85.4%, 100%, and 82.7%. Holsti's method
was used to calculate inter-coder reliability coefficient for tone.
The reliability coefficients for tone on China's central government,
tone on Beijing municipal government, tone on Beijing enterprises and
tone on provincial enterprises were 87.3%, 90.3%, 93.3%, and 89.6%.
The reliability test results are all acceptable (Riffe, Lacy, & Fico,
1998; Wimmer & Domminick, 1994).
Results
The coverage of SARS in both newspapers suggests a two-stage
pattern. One is cover-up and one is saturation. Between February and
March, only total 22 articles were SARS related, accounting for 0.3 %
of the entire population. SARS was almost invisible in the papers'
media agendas. The findings of the cover-up were consistent with the
findings by Cunningham (2003) and Chan, et al (2003). Apparently,
commercialized newspapers could not dare to go beyond the limits and
challenge the cover-up of such a significant event. Among its few
stories about SARS between February and March, the Beijing Youth
Daily concentrated on official comments and stated that SARS was
effectively contained.
From early April, there was a sudden jump in terms of the number of
articles related to SARS. During the saturation period, the People's
Daily and the Beijing Youth Daily carried dozens of stories on and
about SARS each day. The blanket style coverage reflected a shift of
policy among the top leaders, who finally decided to no longer
withhold information about the outbreak of SARS to the public.
Hypothesis 1a predicted that the People's Daily would have more
sources attributed to the central government than the Beijing Youth
Daily and hypothesis 1b predicted that The Beijing Youth Daily would
have more sources attributed to Beijing municipal government than the
People's Daily. The results of comparison of source attribution are
presented in Table 2. Hypothesis 1a was supported (Z-score = 10.46, p
< .01). Hypothesis 1b is not supported. We found a significant
difference with regard to source attribution between the two
newspapers (?2 = 131.42, df = 5, p <.01). The Beijing Youth Daily
used more sources from science and health organizations. Governments
including central, Beijing and other provincial and local government
did more talking in the coverage in the People's Daily (73.1%) than
in the Beijing Youth Daily, (38.3%). The two newspapers did not
differ in terms of sources attributed to international organizations.
Usually party organs such as the People's Daily, prohibited from the
direct use of international news agency stories, rely on Xinhua, the
official news agency, while commercialized newspapers would use or
rewrite "commercially attractive international agency stories" such
as detailed coverage of President Clinton's sex scandals (Zhao, 2000,
p. 10). However, during SARS, an event on which the state had a great
stake, commercialized newspapers apparently complied with the rules
either voluntarily or by regulations and tried to be politically safe.
Hypothesis 2a predicted that the People's Daily would have a larger
proportion of positive paragraphs in covering the central government
than the Beijing Youth Daily. This hypothesis was not supported
(Z-score = 1.49, p>.05). We found no significant difference in terms
of tone toward the central government between the two newspapers (?2
= 4.64, df = 2, p>.05). The results are presented in Table 3.
Hypothesis 2b predicted that the Beijing Youth Daily
would have a larger proportion of positive paragraphs in covering
Beijing municipal government than the People's Daily. The hypothesis
was supported (Z-score=3.22, p<.01). The Beijing Youth Daily seemed
to pay particular attention to the local authorities.
Hypothesis 3 predicted that the Beijing Youth Daily would have a
larger proportion of positive paragraphs in covering Beijing
enterprises than in covering other provincial enterprises. This
hypothesis was supported (Z-score=3.81, p<.01). We also found a
significant difference in tone on enterprises (?2= 47.13, df = 2,
p<.05). The Beijing Youth Daily carried stories about how some
Beijing enterprises made contributions to the fight against SARS,
while some provincial enterprises profited from the crisis. Table 4
and Table 5 summarize the results of comparison of tone on Beijing
municipal government and enterprises respectively.
Hypothesis 4 predicted that the Beijing Youth Daily would use more
sensational headlines than the People's Daily. This hypothesis was
supported. (?2= 9.58, df = 1, p<.01) The Beijing Youth Daily is more
reader orientated than the People's Daily and clearly under the
influence of popular journalism. The results are presented in Table 6.
Hypothesis 5 predicted that the People's Daily would have a larger
proportion of stories about politics and economics, while the Beijing
Youth Daily would have a larger proportion of stories about social
life and health. The results are summarized in Table 7. This
hypothesis was partially supported. (?2= 169.24, df = 4, p<.01) The
two papers differed in topics covered. Compared with the Beijing
Youth Daily, the People's Daily had a larger proportion of stories
about politics (Z-score=11.77, p<.01). There might be a tendency in
the People's Daily to politicize the fight against SARS. The Beijing
Youth Daily seemed to have a more flexible editorial policy and to
face fewer restrictions on this front. It covered more topics in
social life and economics which generally would be more popular among
urban readers than political topics.
Discussion
This study suggests that the Beijing Youth Daily did not differ
from the People's Daily in reporting SARS with regard to tone toward
the central government, and both papers used significant portions of
sources attributed to governments. The People's Daily used more
positive paragraphs than the Beijing Youth Daily in covering the
central government. The Beijing Youth Daily used more positive
paragraphs than the People's Daily in covering Beijing municipal
government. The Beijing Youth Daily portrayed Beijing enterprises
more positively than other provincial enterprises. It also used more
sensational headlines than the People's Daily. The People's Daily
covered more political topics than the Beijing Youth Daily, while the
Beijing Youth Daily covered more social life and economic topics.
These findings suggest that both newspapers highlighted the positive
aspects of the government agencies, party organs, and officials in
their dealing with SARS while downplaying the negative dimensions.
However, during the early stage of the outbreak of SARS, the
governments, both central and local, did not handle the crisis
properly and misinformed the public. The minister of the Ministry of
Health and the mayor of Beijing were both sacked for cover-ups, but
such negative aspects of government's handling of SARS were excluded
from the coverage. Both newspapers had the government dominating the
talking in the coverage and downplayed the influence of other actors,
such as international organizations, and science and health
organizations. Through such source selection, the press framed
government's role positively, and thus may have affected the readers'
perceptions of the government's roles in fighting SARS and restoring
public confidence in the government.
As expected, the Beijing Youth Daily and the People's Daily had
some significant differences in covering SARS. The Beijing Youth
Daily, unlike the People's Daily, did not strictly stick to the party
line and had certain autonomy in selecting topics covered and using
more sensational headlines to attract readers.
It is interesting to find that the Beijing Youth Daily, trusted for
its consumer protection work (Rosen, 2000, p. 157) during the SARS
crisis, seemed to ingratiate Beijing enterprises and provided a
platform for their publicity activities. The Beijing Youth Daily only
raised consumer issues when they had something to do with provincial
enterprises. The findings in this research are consistent with Chen
and Chuan's argument that the entrenchment of commercialism has
become a new form of control (Chen & Chuan, 1998). As Schell (1999)
argued the "double jeopardy" of party censorship and market
censorship could stifle some public debates.
This comparative analysis suggests that there is an ongoing trend in
China toward greater press autonomy and diversity in covering "non
explicit political" issues (Zhao, 2000, p. 8), but in times of a
crisis such as SARS, the decentralized and fragmented press in China
is still under tight control of the state and closely follows the
tune of the state.
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Table 1
Major Characteristics of Propaganda Press and Commercialized Press
Propaganda Press
Commercialized Press
Journalism
Party Journalism:
1) stick to the Party's guiding ideology 2) propagate the Party's
programs, policies and directives
3) stick to the Party's organizational principles and press policies
(Zhao, 1998)
Tabloid Journalism:
1) profit-driven
2) sensationalism
(Guo and Chen, 1997; Huang, 2001)
Orientation
Propaganda Orientation:
1) Ideological education
2) Promotion of Party's policies
3) Organization of actions to achieve Party's goal (Pan and Lu, 2003, p219)
Reader Orientation
1) Information
2) Entertainment
(Pan and Lu, 2003, p219)
Financing
Sponsored by Party
Self-sufficient
Subscription
Compulsory subscriptions at all level government agencies (Zhao, 2000)
News stand
Private sale (Zhao, 2000)
Table 2
Comparison of Source Attribution (%) between the People's Daily and
the Beijing Youth Daily
Source Attribution
The People's Daily
N=268
The Beijing Youth Daily
N=400
Z-score
Central Government
51.1
13.8
10.46*
Beijing municipal government
14.6
18.3
-1.25
International Organization
6.3
4.8
0.89
Provincial and Local Government
7.5
6.3
0.61
Science and Health Organization
4.5
9.3
-2.32*
Others
16
47.8
Chi-square = 131.42, df = 5, p <.01
* p<.01
Table 3
Comparison of Tone on Central Government (%)
Tone/Central Government
The People's Daily
N=292
The Beijing Youth Daily
N=106
Z-score
Positive
71.9
64.2
1.49
Neutral
28.1
34.9
-1.31
Negative
0
0.9
1.66
Chi-square = 4.64, df = 2, p=.098
Table 4
Comparison of Tone on Beijing municipal government (%)
Tone/Beijing municipal government
The People's Daily
N=74
The Beijing Youth Daily
N=154
Z-score
Positive
86.5
66.2
3.22*
Neutral
13.5
33.1
-3.13*
Negative
0
0.6
-0.69
Chi-square =10.476, df = 2, p<.01
*p<.01
Table 5
Comparison of Tone on Enterprises (%)
Tone/Enterprises
Tone/Beijing Enterprises
N=97
Tone/Provincial Enterprises
N=44
Z-score
Positive
74.3
40.9
3.81*
Neutral
24.7
13.6
1.49
Negative
.1
45.5
-6.86*
Chi-square = 47.13, df = 2, p<.01
*p<.01
Table 6
Comparison of Sensational Headlines (%)
Headline
The People's Daily
N= 268
The Beijing Youth Daily
N= 400
Sensational
0
3.5
Non-sensational
100
96.5
Chi-square = 9.58, df = 1, p<.01
Table 7
Comparison of Topics (%)
Story Topics
The People's Daily
N=268
The Beijing Youth Daily
N=400
Z-score
Politics
54.9
12.5
11.77*
Economics
5.2
12
-2.96*
Health
27.2
30.3
-0.84
Social Life
2.6
27.5
-8.29*
Others
10.1
17.8
Chi-square = 169.24, df = 4, p<.01
* p<.01
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