Abstract
This article investigates the corpus-based discourse study of the representations of smog documentary Under the Dome in five Chinese media (Xinhua News, People’s Daily, China News, Guangming Daily and Caijing Net) and four American media (The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and USA Today). It is found that dialectical relationship between discourse and culture, discourse and politics as exemplified by the historical issues, various linguistic forms and discursive strategies. The findings suggest that Chinese media discourse about Chai’s smog documentary tends to be unitary, while American media discourse focuses on the whole story of the event and constructs an integrated discourse event with diverse perspectives. American news reports inclined to take a determinative attitude to accuse Chinese government’ censorship while Chinese news report focuses on expressing people’s emotion and opinion toward the smog documentary and Chai Jing.
Highlights
IntroductionUnder the Dome (Smog Investigation: Under the Dome, the Same Breath and a Common Destiny) issued by Chai Jing, a former journalist of CCTV, about air pollution in China on the Internet on February 28, 2015 had garnered six million hits and over 12,000 online comments on various social media platforms within 12 hours
This study aims to contribute to the growing literature of China’s environmental communication studies through a comparative research of the representations of China’s smog news about Chai Jing’s Under the Dome reported in Chinese and American newspapers, unveiling the social, cultural and political motivation in the news reports and elaborate the different discourse between Chinese and American media
On the basis of different social status, they are categorized into seven groups: government department, state officials, non-government organizations of environmental protection, representatives of company, media and journalists, ordinary people, experts and scholars
Summary
Under the Dome (Smog Investigation: Under the Dome, the Same Breath and a Common Destiny) issued by Chai Jing, a former journalist of CCTV, about air pollution in China on the Internet on February 28, 2015 had garnered six million hits and over 12,000 online comments on various social media platforms within 12 hours. It aroused an unexpectedly extensive discussion on the Internet about the air pollution, PM 2.5, the government, Chai Jing’s purpose and capital source and etc. On March 2, the central publicity Department ordered major Chinese outlets to remove the video and its coverage from the spotlight (Pan, 2015). This documentary attracts tremendous attention from various news media. The film attracted public’s attention, and triggered hot debates, and produced a certain impact in a very short time
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