China Media Research,
Volume 3 No.
1
Special Section: Reporting China in the British Media
The image of
China in the West has always been complex, changing and
controversial. With the recent phenomenal growth of the
Chinese economy, China's potential as a global power is
increasingly felt in the international world. However, China
generates both excitement and anxieties by its capacity to
create economic dynamism and the potential to alter the
existing structures of balance of power. China's radically
different cultural and political traditions and realities
only add to the complexities of interpreting China's
extraordinary changes in many different dimensions. To seek
to understand structural issues in reporting China in the
West is both critical and most relevant, because changes in
China at the public level are largely seen through the
interpretations by the mass media. The current special
section brings together academics and media practitioners to
reflect upon Western reporting of China with a focus on the
United Kingdom. It aims to present a critical analysis and
assessment of the media coverage of Chinese affairs, to make
a unique contribution to the on-going debate on the
challenges of interpreting China, to examine the role of the
mass media in mediating the popular knowledge of China, and
to explore ways in which the reporting of China could be
improved. In particular, the section seeks to understand the
process of reporting China at the practical level.
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