Human Rights in China: A Pawn of a Political Agenda?
Human Rights in China:
A Pawn of A Political Agenda?
A Content Analysis of The New York Times
(1987-1996)
By
Xigen Li
917 A Cherry Lane
East Lansing, MI 48823
Phone: 517-355-7980
Email: [log in to unmask]
and
Charles St. Cyr
School of Journalism
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
Phone: 517-353-3859
A paper submitted to AEJMC 1998 Convention
for consideration for presentation
Xigen Li and Charles St. Cyr are Ph.D. Candidates
in the Mass Media Ph.D. Program
in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences
at Michigan State University
March 22, 1998
Abstract
A content analysis of 10 years of New York Times coverage of human
rights in China has found that The Times set its own agenda in covering
human rights in China apart from president agenda. While U.S.
presidential concern on human rights in China subsided and U.S.-China
trade became a priority of president agenda, The Times continued its
coverage of human rights in China in an ascending pattern. No more
presidential concern on human rights in China and more Times coverage
were found in the election years than non-election years. The evidence
over 10 years of news coverage also suggests that despite a relatively
independent rate of production of human rights news stories by The Times
, neither incumbent presidents nor their opponents treated human rights
as a high-visibility, independent issue or as a separate issue in
foreign policy. Instead, references to human rights were consistently
entwined with other issues, both foreign and domestic.
Human rights in the People's Republic of China is the most controversial
issue in U.S.-China relations. Human rights in China has attracted noticeable
media coverage since China's pro-democracy movement in 1989, and subsequent
efforts by the United States to link China's most-favored-nation trading status
to the human rights record in China. While human rights in China often become
the focus of debate among U.S. policy makers, the issue of how human rights in
China is covered by elite media in the United States has not drawn much
attention from media researchers. With much scholarship narrowly focused on the
Beijing Spring demonstrations of 1989, this project attempts to explore how
human rights in China is portrayed in an elite print medium, and to examine the
relationship between the news coverage of human rights in China and presidential
concerns in U.S.-China relations.
We purposefully selected The New York Times because of its status as an elite
daily newspaper to which both Washington and Beijing pay close attention.[1] The
New York Times arguably plays an active role in shaping elite public opinion and
perhaps even influences U.S. policy towards China. News coverage of human rights
in China by The New York Times is also closely watched by the Chinese officials
and scholars.
Introduction
Much of the scholarly literature about news media and foreign policy examines
the relationship in the context of the media's agenda-setting function. Cohen
argues that the press is such an important institution in the foreign policy
making network that any pattern of press coverage would in one way or another
leave a substantial mark on the participants and thus on the process.[2]
Others suggest that the press is an independent actor in the process of policy
making. Media have become a significant force in shaping political discourse and
they do so independent of the government.[3] Reston noted that the news media
affect foreign policy mainly by reporting the actions of government.[4] Others
contend that the news media keep the debate on foreign affairs going and
sometimes that may lead to policy changes.[5]
However, media are regarded as a weak player in foreign policy process if they
ever have a position there. Chang noted that in a foreign policy environment
where policy officials already control the initiative in both news making and
decision making, institutional and social constraints in the process of news
collection and production often lead to the media's dependency on the government
for the first cue of what's happening in the world of foreign relations, thus
weakening the media's position as a player in the making of foreign policy.[6]
Chang also found that the dominant source of U.S. policy information related to
China from 1950 to 1984 was the executive branch. He noted that without
diversity of sources, both foreign and domestic, the news media may become
willing partners in U.S. government initiatives by allowing top policy makers to
define the parameters of public discussion and debate on foreign affairs issues.
Policy makers are likely to decide what, when and how to deliver the news, thus
setting the news agenda for the media.[7]
The result could be what Graber observed, the bulk of foreign affairs news for
American media actually originates in Washington. The president's views tend to
dominate whenever situations are controversial.[8] American media basically
follow official story lines emanating from Washington in reporting foreign
events, and that media coverage of foreign issues is often biased, negative,
unbalanced, and colored by Western perspectives, as predicted by hegemony
theory.[9]
In the case of The New York Times, Kern et al found that The New York Times is
among the media that are most independent of government and that the elite daily
influences the coverage of other newspapers.[10]
Goodman's study found that press coverage of Clinton administration
Sino-American relations seemed to be government independent. She found that the
administration was unsuccessful at setting the media's agenda. For example, the
amount of government attention to U.S.-China policy was not reflected by the
press. In addition, the government seemed to have no influence on how the press
played such issues. Not only did the press and government focus their attention
in a different manner on China beat issue, but the press played it up as the
government played it down.[11]
Hegemony theorists contend that ideology plays an essential part in making news
judgments. Dominant ideology in a society is an expression of the dominant
class. Contingent ideology facilitates the dominant ideology by emphasizing the
political status quo in the foreign policy maneuvers of the dominant class.
Galtung and Ruge have hypothesized that events would become news the more they
fit certain organizational and cultural, or "ideological", criteria. The
"ideological" news factors described by Galtung and Ruge refer mainly to values
which are embedded in Western society -- especially those which stem from an
individualist and materialist philosophy.[12]
Altheide suggested that the press tends to bolster the status quo,
particularly as it relates to foreign policy and foreign news coverage.[13]
Gans argued that the American media's foreign coverage tends to follow whatever
the current U.S. foreign policy position happens to be, which is indicative of
contingent ideology. Gans also suggested that journalistic ideology reflects a
set of enduring values that enter into news judgments, and those values also are
manifestations of the journalists' relationship to the larger social context in
which the news is produced.[14]
Wang's study supports the claim that anti-communism remains an important
principle for U.S. media, which use it, in part, to arrive at the distinction
between good and evil in coverage of foreign affairs and U.S. foreign policy.
Her analysis also suggests that this principle has not been consistently applied
in all foreign news reports.[15]
While government agenda and dominant ideology are considered most important
factors influencing media coverage of foreign news, Lee and Yang argue that
national interest may outweigh the importance of sociopsychological factors in
defining media accounts of the political world. Where international relations
are concerned, national interest often transcends or subsumes partisan rifts,
which are characteristic of domestic politics. The U.S. government's human
rights policy -- one that is inseparable from the concepts of individual freedom
and a free market economy -- wins media support even though it is a policy not
implemented coherently or consistently.[16] Both the U.S. government and U.S.
media marginalize dissent in friendly countries and play up human rights
violations in unfriendly and communist countries.[17]
Graber noted that the media routinely accept official designations of who
America's friends and enemies are and interpret their motives accordingly.
Whenever relationships change, media coverage mirrors the change.[18]
U.S. media coverage of human rights in China is believed to follow trends in
U.S. domestic politics that are related to foreign policy issues. In the early
1970s, the United States was anxious to enlist China on its side in the cold war
with the Soviet Union, and U.S. leaders as well as the press overlooked human
rights in China. Only after the military crackdown on the Tiananmen
demonstrators on June 4, 1989, did U.S. leaders, the American media, and the
American public become more overtly concerned about human rights in China.[19]
The human rights issue is also regarded as a symbolic representation
manipulated by U.S. politicians. "The power of human rights as a weapon in
American political campaigns is no secret. Indeed, it is one of the few points
on which thinkers from every school agree. ... the domestic appeal of human
rights. ... The prophets of American foreign policy were thought to need an
idealistic sword to help convert the unbelievers in their midst. That sword was
to be advocacy of human rights."[20]
Human rights is a controversial issue within the international community
because no consensus exists on a universally accepted definition of human
rights. What might be regarded as inexcusably immoral domestically might well be
justified internationally.[21] The news coverage of The New York Times reflects
a Western view of human rights. The fundamental emphasis of human rights in the
Western world is on liberty of the person, the right to physical security, and
protection of basic intellectual belief.[22]
Traditional thinker George Kennan noted, for the purposes of an American
human-rights policy, that a human right will be considered any right that
protects those standards of civil, political, economic, and social behavior to
which all human beings are entitled by the force of international consensus as
reflected in American law.[23]
Although the literature does not provide consistent explanations on how human
rights in China might be covered by elite U.S. media, it will be safe to say
that in the area of foreign policy decision making, media have more dependency
on government sources than in other areas. However, it is not always true to say
that government is prevalent in setting the media agenda as long as most of the
news about foreign policy and international relations is initiated from
Washington, or government officials are its major sources. Other factors, such
as the issues at stake, and the concern of national interest are also important
predictors of the media content.
Two aspects of the design of this study will make it interesting in unveiling
how The New York Times treat the issues that draw attention of U.S. government
agenda. The first is the theme of the study: Human rights in China, which is
high on the U.S. government agenda when it deals with relations with China in
recent years. An analysis of how The New York Times reported this theme will
shed some light on the effect of a government agenda on media coverage. The
second is study's longitudinal character. A longitudinal analysis may provide
more convincing findings regarding the process of agenda setting.
By closely examining New York Times coverage of human rights in China from 1987
through 1996, this study will try to explore the relationship between
presidential concern regarding human rights in China and media agenda. It will
try to identify whether presidential concerns on human rights and U.S.-China
trade led the direction of The New York Times coverage of human rights in China,
and whether The New York Times coverage of human rights in China changed over
time as the focus of national interest shifted.
The following hypotheses will be tested through content analysis of New York
Times coverage of human rights in China.
Hypotheses
H1. As presidential concern on human rights in China increases,
the coverage of human rights in China increase.
Hypothesis 1 will test to what degree a media agenda is associated with a
government agenda. It will also test whether policy makers are likely to
decide what, when to deliver the news, and whether the president's views tend to
dominate media whenever situations are controversial.
H2. As presidential concern on U.S.-China trade increase, the
coverage of human rights in China decreases.
Hypothesis 2 is based on the assumption that as national interest embedded in
U.S.-China trade become a major presidential concern, human rights issues in
China will give way to it. If the media follow the presidential agenda, the
same downplay could be seen in news coverage. H2 will test the relationship
between a government agenda and a media agenda when president concerned more on
U.S.-China trade than human rights in China. It will also test whether
national interest may outweigh the importance of sociopsychological factors in
defining media accounts of the political world.
H3. Stories about human rights in China rely on U.S. officials as sources more
than Chinese officials as sources.
Hypothesis 3 incorporates an assumption from hegemony theory that media
coverage of international news gives more weight to the voices emanating from
Washington than those from its counterpart or other parties, and that such
coverage serves as one of the indicators of the dominant ideology in American
society.
H4. Stories about human rights in China emphasize disagreements in
U.S.-China trade relations more than human rights in China.
Hypothesis 4 attempts to address linkages between human rights and issues, such
as trade relations, of immediate concern to officials in Washington. If it is
valid to assume that U.S. officials treat human rights as a symbolic issue, then
it is probable that human rights is associated with other issues and
de-emphasized or emphasized based on variation in the U.S. political agenda.
When a New York Times story deals with a substantive issue such as U.S.-China
trade, Hypothesis 4 posits that references to human rights will be incorporated
into the story but they will be secondary to whatever issue is portrayed in the
story as being more vital to the U.S. national interest.
H5. Human rights in China appear more frequently during U.S.
presidential election years than in non-presidential election years in
presidential documents and news coverage.
A common assumption among human rights proponents and students of American
government is the president sets the foreign policy agenda, and the issue of
human rights is raised in presidential elections with consistency because of its
domestic political appeal. Hypothesis 5 attempts to test this assumption.
Hypothesis 5 also may provide insight into what degree the human
rights-political agenda of presidents and their opponents are associated with a
media human-rights agenda during the election campaign.
Method
Definition: News Coverage of Human rights in China
News coverage of human rights in China is defined as news stories portraying
human rights conditions in China or presenting any issues associated with human
rights in China. While distinction between foreign news and foreign policy news
is a big concern in the study of press coverage relating to another country,[24]
it will be necessary to note that such a distinction is not necessary for this
study. The coverage of human rights issues inside China was selected together
with stories reporting U.S. concerns on human rights in China and the Chinese
government's handling of human right issues. The researchers consider that
coverage of human rights issues inside China, which may be considered as foreign
news according to Chang's definition, though comprised a very small portion of
the coverage, is of the same importance as the foreign policy news in terms of
their relevance to U.S. government concern and implication for foreign policy.
Source of Data
The News York Times
All news stories carried in The New York Times during the period 1987 to
1996 satisfying the above definition are included in the population. The New
York Times coverage of human rights in China during the 10-year span includes
the periods before and after the Tiananmen pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989,
which will provide a contrast for how human rights in China was covered based on
a landmark political event in China. The period also includes three presidential
election campaigns, which offers the possibility of revealing how domestic
American politics might affect news coverage of human rights in China, and how
news coverage of human rights might be associated with formation of and changes
in U.S. policy toward China. A longitudinal analysis, we believe, offers the
possibility of making a meaningful contribution to the literature by identifying
variance among variables across time.
The population was compiled from The New York Times Index and checked
through a corresponding Lexis-Nexis database search. The news stories included
in the population must have a demonstrated relationship with human rights in
China. The stories were selected from a cross search in The New York Times Index
under the subject "Human Rights" and the subject "China". The references "human
rights" and "China" were used to search the Lexis-Nexis database. All content
with at least two references -- human rights and China -- constituted the
prospective population. A list of 1,050 articles, which included both news
stories and editorials on human rights in China, was identified.
As this study examines only news stories, 277 editorials were excluded from
the list. A further examination of the headlines and the news digest of the
stories in Times Index excluded those stories that did not deal directly with
the issue of human rights in China. This filtering procedure produced a list of
616 news stories, which constitutes the sampling frame.
Presidential Papers
For government concerns on U.S.-China relations, presidential documents on
U.S.-China relations during the ten year period were used. U.S. president is
the ultimate decision maker in foreign policy. Whatever the president says and
does, whether formal or informal, can have far-reaching implications in
international relations.[25]
The presidential documents included all the nonduplicate items listed in
the Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States and the Weekly
Compilation of Presidential Documents. These two sources covered all
contemporary documents on U.S.-China relations released by the White House,
including announcements, public speeches, agreements, news conferences, messages
to the Congress, and other materials.
Sampling
Twenty-five percent of articles were initially selected for analysis from
the sampling frame list. Systematic stratified sampling was used to select the
sample articles. The sampling was carried out based on the articles by year.
According to the sampling percentage, articles were selected from each year
based on a systematic sampling procedure. Stories in 1987 and 1988 are fewer
than ten, and all stories in these two years were selected. A list of 174 news
stories was finally chosen for content analysis, which constitutes 28 percent of
the population.
The news item was chosen as the coding unit. Among the variables that were
coded were dateline, newsspot, newspeg, sources, reference to human rights and
reference to trade. Content orientation is coded as a major variable, which
refers to the issues that news stories deal with, including conflict within
China, conflict between the United States and China, U.S. political debate
regarding human rights in China, and stories specifically focused on human
rights in China. The news stories were categorized according to a list of
frequently addressed topics, such as U.S. China policy, U.S.-China trade,
Chinese pro-democracy activity, and issues regarding Hong Kong and Tibet.
Two coders participated in the coding of the news content. For nominal
variables, Scott's Pi was used to test intercoder reliability. For ratio
variables, Pearson's correlation coefficient was selected to report intercoder
reliability. An intercoder reliability test result greater than .80 was deemed
satisfactory. For a 95 percent level of probability and an assumed 90 percent
agreement between the coders, 87 stories were randomly selected for intercoder
reliability testing,[26] a total average of .87 was achieved, with reliability
of nominal variables ranging from .80 to 1.0, and that of ratio variables
ranging from .93 to .97.[27] Each coder then coded half of the remaining news
stories after satisfactory intercoder reliability was established.
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States and Weekly Compilation
of Presidential Documents were examined according to the topics of the
documents. Only the documents under the subject China were selected for coding.
Each document is coded according to its theme using the similar categories of
topic for coding the news stories, including U.S.-China relations in general,
U.S.-China trade, and human rights. The topics were selected based on the
categories identified by the subject index of the president documents, and thus
no intercoder reliability check is needed. Each document is counted as one unit
of topic.
Results
H1. The hypothesis that as presidential concern on human rights in China
increases, the coverage of human rights in China increase was not supported.
The presidential concern on human rights in China and The New York Times'
coverage of human rights in China were not synchronized over the ten year
period. During 1987 to 1988 Reagan administration, the president did not show
any concern about human rights in China while The New York Times gave minimal
attention to human rights in China. In 1989 and 1990 Bush's administration,
both the president and the Times gave great attention to human rights in China.
However, the presidential concern on human rights in China peaked in 1990, while
the coverage of human rights in China by The New York Times did not recede until
1994. The presidential concern decreased dramatically in 1991 and 1992, while
1990 also see decrease of coverage in The New York Time, it was actually a
starting point of a continunously ascending coverage.
Insert Figure 1
H2. As presidential concern on U.S.-China trade increase, the coverage of
human rights in China decreases is not supported. During 1987 to 1996, except in
1989 and 1990, when human rights in China became an overwhelming issue brought
by the pro-democracy movement and presidential concern on human rights in China
far exceeded his concern on U.S.-China trade, the president concern on
U.S.-China trade remained considerably higher than the concern on human rights
in China. As the crisis in U.S.-China relations due to pro-democracy movement in
1989 subsided, U.S.-China trade was back on the priority agenda of the
president. However, as human rights in China was given way to U.S.-China trade
on president agenda in 1991, the same scenario did not occur in The New York
Times coverage of human rights in China. During the ten years, president's
concern on U.S.-China trade remained relatively constant except in 1988 and
1995, when the concern on U.S.-China trade was at relatively low level.
Presidential concern on human rights in China was most noticeable in 1989 and
1990, and was on a remarkably descending pattern, while The New York Time's
coverage of human rights in China continued to grow until 1994. Only after
1995, the presidential ascending concern on U.S.-China trade was accompanied by
the decreasing coverage of human rights in China.
Insert Figure 2
H3. The hypothesis that stories about human rights in China rely on U.S.
officials as sources more than Chinese officials as sources was supported.
Chinese officials were cited in 43 percent of stories, while 61 percent of
stories used U.S. officials as sources. The proportion test indicates that the
difference is statistically significant (Z = 4.8, p <.01). U.S. official sources
were categorized as White House, Congress, State Department, and other U.S.
officials. Although for each category the percentage cited was no more than for
total Chinese officials, when the four categories for U.S. sources are collapsed
into one, and the overlap is controlled, the result reveals U.S. officials were
consistently cited more often than Chinese officials and had more opportunity to
express their views in New York Times stories about human rights in China than
did their Chinese counterparts.
Insert Table 1
Of all New York Times stories about human rights in China included in the
sample, 33 percent originated in Washington, D.C., and 40 percent carried
Beijing datelines. Of the stories with a Washington dateline, 98 percent cited
U.S. officials as sources but only 14 percent cited Chinese officials as
sources. Of the stories with Beijing datelines, 39 percent cited U.S. official
sources and 70 percent cited Chinese official sources.
H4. The hypothesis that stories about human rights in China emphasize
disagreements in U.S.-China trade relations more than human rights in China was
not supported by the data in the aggregate. Disagreement in U.S.-China trade
relations is reflected in references to trade. Of all the stories sampled about
human rights in China, there are more references to human rights (831) than
references to trade (381). From 1987 through 1989, there was no reference to
trade in any Times story about human rights in China. In 1990, however, the
number of references to trade (39) exceeded references to human rights (27). In
all subsequent years, references to human rights exceeded references to trade in
stories about human rights in China.
However, in 1994, both references to trade and references to human rights were
at their greatest frequency than in any other year throughout the 10-year period
studied. The year 1994 accounts for 32.6 percent of the 834 human rights
references in the study and 43 percent of the 381 trade references in the study.
References to human rights were 10 times more likely to occur in 1994 than in
1989, the year of repression of pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square.
Insert Figure 3
The data reveal that references to trade are clustered in the categories
conflict between the United States and China and U.S. political debate, which
comprise 87 percent of stories with references to trade, while references to
human rights were spread relatively evenly across the content categories.
Although there were fewer references to trade than references to human rights
over 10 years, when we examined stories with trade as the central topic, we
found that they had 61 percent of the references to trade, while general human
rights stories had 39 percent of the references to trade. The mean of references
to trade in trade stories is significantly higher than the mean for such
references in non-trade stories (9.0 versus 1.0). Trade stories over 10 years
account for only 15 percent of references to human rights, while all other
stories generated 85 percent of references to human rights. Stories identified
with the topic of trade come exclusively from two categories of Dateline:
Washington, 22 stories; Beijing four stories.
H5. The hypothesis that stories about human rights in China appear more
frequently during U.S. presidential election years than in non-presidential
election years in presidential documents and news coverage was not supported. In
1988, no concern on human rights in China was shown in presidential documents.
In The New York Times, neither the number of stories nor references to human
rights increased from 1987. In 1992, the president showed less concern on human
rights in China than 1991. In Times, both the number of stories and the
references to human rights were at the same level as in 1991, although
relatively higher than in 1990. In 1996, the presidential concern remained the
same as in 1995. Contrary to the previous two election years, 1996 saw a
decline in Times both in the number of stories about human rights and in the
number of references to human rights. The number of stories declined 35 percent
from 1995, while references to human rights declined 34 percent. In contrast to
1994, the number of human rights stories in 1996 decreased 46 percent, while
references to human rights showed a dramatic decrease of 72 percent.
Insert Table 2
Discussion
The findings for H1 and H2 confirm the notion that The New York Times is
independent of government, and the newspaper did not necessarily follow the
government agenda on the issues of human rights in China. During 1987 to 1988,
China was a good strategic partner of the United States as Cold War was still
going on. Human rights in China, even though remained to be problematic by the
Western standard, was not an evident concern of the U.S. president. The New
York Times picked its own story as it saw the problem, although on a minimal
basis. The president's zero concern on human rights in China and The New York
Times minimal coverage of human rights in China during the two years are
consistent with the observation that both the U.S. government and U.S. media
marginalize dissent in friendly countries.
The pro-democracy movement in 1989 brought a remarkable change both in
presidential concern on human rights in China and Times' coverage of human
rights in China. Big increase was seen both in presidential concern and Times'
coverage. However, as the presidential concern went up from 1989 to 1990,
Times' coverage went down during the same period. The treatment of human rights
in China by the president and Times during the ten years showed no
synchronization of president agenda and media agenda, which confirmed Goodman's
findings that the administration was unsuccessful at setting the media agenda.
The findings for H2 have applications other than that government was not able
to set media agenda in foreign affair issues such as human rights in China.
First, it implies that the focus of national interest of government and media
may vary over time. During 1989 and 1990, president and The New York Times had
consensus in their priority on human rights in China. After 1990, the
president's priority concern among all issues regarding U.S.-China relations
shifted to U.S.-China trade, while The Times continue to see high priority in
reporting the issues regarding human rights in China.
Second, while the U.S. president has to transcend the ideological boundary when
considering U.S.-China relations, media tend not to. Under hegemonic
assumptions, ideology plays a significant role in Times news coverage of human
rights in China. Such a conclusion also would be consistent with the
Galtung-Ruge model of international information flows, which asserts that
ideological and cultural factors distort information about external reality as
it flows through dominant Western media organizations. Such distortions, under
Galtung-Ruge assumptions, are amplified through the patterned repetition of news
routines that are themselves reflections of institutionalized Western cultural
bias.
That H3 was supported is consistent with assumptions underlying hegemony
theory, the Galtung-Ruge model, and studies that have examined the symbiotic
relationship between news sources and reporters. Even as The Times sets a media
agenda for perception of human rights as an issue and as a source of conflict
both between the United States and China and within China, it does so by relying
primarily upon the statements and actions of U.S. officials. Wang suggests that
the assumptions that underlie the hegemony of ideology in foreign affairs
reporting must account for the position of journalists in relation to the
dominant class and the political bureaucracy in their own country.[28] That
suggestion would appear to hold true for how human rights in China is portrayed
in The Times.
Over 10 years, The Times tended to rely heavily but not exclusively on stories
from Washington for its coverage of human rights in China, which is consistent
with hegemony theory. It is also meaningful, however, that even though The Times
relied slightly more on stories with Beijing datelines than on stories with
Washington datelines, the views of U.S. officials on human rights in China
nevertheless remained more dominant in The Times over 10 years than the views of
Chinese officials, Chinese political dissidents, representatives of private
international human rights advocacy groups, and representatives of United
Nations agencies, including those responsible for enforcement of international
human rights agreements..
The results reported for H4 pose an interesting challenge. If 10 years
of coverage of human rights in China is aggregated, The Times
consistently made reference to human rights with substantially greater
frequency and in substantially greater proportion than it made
reference to trade between the United States and China. However, if the
data is disaggregated by year, reference to both human rights and trade
varied substantially. By year, both the frequency of reference and
proportion of reference to trade were greatest in 1994 when trade
relations was the main story topic, and human rights references also
increased substantially in that year when trade was the story topic.
Trade references in stories about human rights in China in both 1993
and 1994 exceeded references to both trade and human rights in all
preceding years, including during 1989 when the pro-democracy movement
in Beijing captured worldwide attention and in the three subsequent
years in which many Chinese dissidents were imprisoned or forced to
leave China.
The finding for H5 that neither presidential concern on human rights in China
increased significantly, nor Times news stories about human rights in China
appeared with greater frequency during U.S. presidential election years than in
non-presidential election years is not consistent with the views of human-rights
advocates. Under Galtung-Ruge assumptions, a domestic policy agenda may set both
a foreign policy and a media agenda. As the focus of national interest shifted,
president foreign policy agenda could be shaped by other transcending interests.
In failing to support H5, this study calls into question the views of human
rights advocates who argue that in U.S. electoral politics, human rights is an
issue popular with the American public and politicians. In this study, no
significant increase in presidential concern on human rights in China could be
attributed to other transcending interest in presidential agenda. No
significant increase in news coverage of human rights in China could be
attributed to presidential campaign speech-making. The study also found no
identifiable impact of campaign rhetoric on the frequency with which human
rights news stories were reported either from Beijing or Washington, which
suggests The Times' pattern of human rights coverage in the election years
constitute a media agenda independent of U.S. presidential electoral politics.
Conclusion
A content analysis of 10 years of New York Times coverage of human
rights in China is consistent with the direction agenda-setting
research has taken. Rogers and Dearing in 1988 noted that scholars
should more critically examine how one media agenda item is entwined
with other items on the media agenda.[29] Reese subsequently encouraged
examination of the multiple factors that influence media content.[30]
A common assumption has been that the media agenda, public agenda, and policy
agenda are consistently interrelated. Each is believed to routinely affect the
other. Yet in the context of The Times' coverage of human rights in China, the
failure to support H5 challenges the assumption of consistent agenda
interrelatedness. The evidence over 10 years suggests that despite a relatively
independent rate of production of human rights news stories by The Times,
neither incumbent presidents nor their opponents treated human rights as a
high-visibility, independent issue or as a separate issue in foreign policy.
Instead, references to human rights were consistently entwined with other
issues, both foreign and domestic. Moreover, the field stories focused on human
rights conditions in China and the official human rights record of China was the
content orientation least likely to appear in Times stories.
As more research is conducted, key questions might be: What are the factors
that kept Times coverage apart from what U.S. President concerned most for a
large part of the ten year period? Further research is also needed to answer
the following questions: Why does The Times tacitly rely on cues about human
rights provided by U.S. and other Western officials more than on cues from
either Chinese dissident sources or official Chinese sources? What are the
effects of such source reliance on media content and public perception about
human rights issues? What factors might explain the variation over time in how
The Times links human rights in China with other issues, both foreign and
domestic, in American politics? And how and why do such issue linkages not only
vary over time but also displace or replace each other on The Times' agenda?
Research findings related to these and other agenda-setting questions could
prove useful in understanding the relationship between the media and government
agenda, and expanding upon a core assumption of hegemony theory and the
Galtung-Ruge model; namely, that mass communication about issues of importance
to the West by an elite, dominant U.S. medium may in itself be an act of
hegemony.
Figure 1
Comparison of U.S. President Documents on Human Rights in China and
The New York Times Stories about Human Rights in China (1987-1996)
(The New York Times n=174)
Figure 2
Comparison of U.S. President Documents on U.S.-China Trade and
The New York Times Stories about Human Rights in China (1987-1996)
(The New York Times n=174)
Table 1
Comparison of Chinese Officials and U.S. Officials as
Sources of Stories about Human Rights in China
Percent of Total Stories (n=174)
Source
Frequency
Percentage
Sources by Country
Chinese Officials
74
43%*
US Officials Total
106
61%*
Source by Type **
White House
48
28%
Congress
33
19%
State Department
64
37%
US Officials
59
34%
International Organization
53
31%
Chinese Officials
74
43%
Chinese Dissident
25
14%
Anonymous
13
7.5%
Other
91
52%
* Difference of Proportion Test, Z score = 4.8, P < .01
** One story might contain more than one source. So the summing up of
percentage of source by type exceeds 100%.
Figure 1
Comparison of References to Trade and References to Human Rights
in Stories about Human Rights in China (1987-1996)
(n=174)
Total Reference of Trade = 381
Total Reference of Human Rights = 834
Table 2
Comparison of Stories and References to Human Rights
In New York Times' Coverage of Human Rights in China (1987-1996)
(N=616 n=174)
Year
Stories
Human Rights Ref
Mean per Story**
Std Err
1987
9
1.5%
26
3.1%
2.9
0.51
1988
9
1.5%
25
3.0%
2.8
0.49
1989
60
10%
57
6.8%
3.6
0.82
1990
34
5.5%
27
3.2%
2.7
0.54
1991
54
9%
57
6.8%
3.8
0.88
1992
60
10%
54
6.5%
3.9
0.48
1993
89
14%
128
15.3%
6.7
1.45
1994
128
21%
272
32.6%
7.2
0.8
1995
105
17%
113
13.5%
3.8
0.45
1996
68
11%
75
9.0%
5.4
1.3
Total
616
100%
834
100%
4.8
0.32
N = Population, all articles on Human Rights in China during 1987-1996.
n = Sample, 25% of articles on Human Rights in China during the time frame.
With oversampling in 1987 and 1988, n equals 28% of the population. The total
references of Human Rights in 1987 and 1988 are counted according to the
oversampling, and are about 4 times inflated in the graph comparing to other
years.
** One way ANOVA, F = 3.5, DF = 9, P < .01
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