A Comparative Study of Discursive Constructions of Chinese Smog Documentary in American and Chinese News coverage

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.