Comparison Essay

Shuang Li (Yolanda)

Comparison/Contrast Essay.

9174-Section 02

Jelani Wilson

11/11/2015

China’s President Xi Jinping made a successful state visit to Britain last month, from October 19th to 23th for five days, which was not only valued by Britain's political leaders, but also drew extensive attention from the country's media, scholars and the public. The UK and China were becoming more interdependent and a "community of shared interests," China's President Xi Jinping said on the first full day of his four-day visit. At a Buckingham Palace banquet, the Queen said this was a "very special year for our bilateral relationship". Therefore, we can see two perspectives of country’s leader and we can believe that there could have a lot similar and differences between eastern and western viewpoints.

Media coverage for major international events is subject to cultural background, political environment, and the impact of social cognition. Therefore, the position and attitude of eastern and western media in the organization and implementation of Xi Jinping’s visit of UK are different. Through comparative analysis of Chinese mainstream media – China Daily’s new “Big power diplomacy: China, Britain enhance trust and trade” and British mainstream media-" BBC News " about " Xi Jinping UK visit roundup: red flags, red carpets and Greene King", both article talk about the activities that President Xi took part in and the influence that he made in UK. Therefore, we can explore the differences of title, contents, and comments between two news reports and the reasons for differences behind them.

The reporter from China usually good at conduct magnificent wide view description, on the other side, Western reporters attention to describe from subtle facts and details. The title of two news gave people a good example. Chinese report use “Big power diplomacy” to emphasize it was a really big issue of two country, but British report through specific characters and events to describe this visiting by using “red flags, red carpets and Greene King”. The word “red” is a small entry point to explain the whole country changes to China’s red style, which point out that Xi’s visit is a big issue for Britain. Also, it implicitly expressed that as the host, the UK change a lot for this visiting may be was too much.

From this compared of title we can see as the mainstream media, the China Daily and the BBC News are representing their national interests, so the starting point is the theme of the report from their own interests. Good or bad criteria, not by over-practice-tested truth but by their own opinions. Hence, their news values are vastly different.

Furthermore, Chinese media always use reported tone in news, and they like picking speeches contents from leaders, while Western media would like to report with vivid language, and sometimes with humor.