Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Entertainment news is one of the most popular forms of online news in contemporary China. It serves not only to convey information about the entertainment industry and its products, but also to entertain its readers. Metaphor, a salient linguistic feature of this news genre, is the object of investigation in this study. Adopting an adapted version of Charteris-Black’s (2004, 2005) model of Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA) as the analytical framework, this study aims to demonstrate that metaphors are a powerful linguistic means of explaining and embellishing abstract concepts, an ideological tool for describing and evaluating people and situations in discourse, and a conceptual force that both reflects and potentially influences people’s perception of their world. This study also shows that China’s changing media ecology has affected the way that metaphors emerge into discourse, are communicated, and interact with each other. I argue that when used in a specific context, metaphor is at once linguistic, rhetorical, affective and conceptual; it emerges from, and may mediate in the dynamic interaction of cognition and communication, as well as reflecting physical and socio-cultural experience. This argument is supported by a three-step investigation in which the taxonomy, the use, the rhetorical purpose and potential effects of metaphors in Chinese entertainment news are analysed. The findings are based on the exploration of a general corpus of Chinese online entertainment news: 1016 full-length news items, totalling 856,374 Chinese characters, collected from May to June in 2007 in online news sources from China. Popular source domains of metaphors (war, martial arts, fire, wind, etc.) and target domains (conflict, celebrity, etc.) are identified, as well as the patterns of interaction and the functions of metaphors in Chinese entertainment news. In a second step, the significance of these metaphorical domains (e.g. war, fire, etc.) is compared across three news genres: entertainment, sports and political news. This is an attempt a) to identify the genre-specific metaphors, and b) to determine the reasons that contribute to the preferences for using particular types of metaphors across sub-genres. In a third step, a case study of a popular Chinese TV talent show Super Girl is presented. It discusses metaphors and their semantic associations constructed in and through the Internet media’s coverage of this activity, and reveals how the choice of metaphors reflects the different interests and ideologies of three distinctive groups of people: the entertainment news media, some high-ranking officials, and audience members who comment online. The study concludes with a call for increasing our awareness of and critical stance towards the impact of entertainment news and its use of metaphor.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Entertainment news is one of the most popular forms of online news in contemporary China. It serves not only to convey information about the entertainment industry and its products, but also to entertain its readers. Metaphor, a salient linguistic feature of this news genre, is the object of investigation in this study. Adopting an adapted version of Charteris-Black’s (2004, 2005) model of Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA) as the analytical framework, this study aims to demonstrate that metaphors are a powerful linguistic means of explaining and embellishing abstract concepts, an ideological tool for describing and evaluating people and situations in discourse, and a conceptual force that both reflects and potentially influences people’s perception of their world. This study also shows that China’s changing media ecology has affected the way that metaphors emerge into discourse, are communicated, and interact with each other. I argue that when used in a specific context, metaphor is at once linguistic, rhetorical, affective and conceptual; it emerges from, and may mediate in the dynamic interaction of cognition and communication, as well as reflecting physical and socio-cultural experience. This argument is supported by a three-step investigation in which the taxonomy, the use, the rhetorical purpose and potential effects of metaphors in Chinese entertainment news are analysed. The findings are based on the exploration of a general corpus of Chinese online entertainment news: 1016 full-length news items, totalling 856,374 Chinese characters, collected from May to June in 2007 in online news sources from China. Popular source domains of metaphors (war, martial arts, fire, wind, etc.) and target domains (conflict, celebrity, etc.) are identified, as well as the patterns of interaction and the functions of metaphors in Chinese entertainment news. In a second step, the significance of these metaphorical domains (e.g. war, fire, etc.) is compared across three news genres: entertainment, sports and political news. This is an attempt a) to identify the genre-specific metaphors, and b) to determine the reasons that contribute to the preferences for using particular types of metaphors across sub-genres. In a third step, a case study of a popular Chinese TV talent show Super Girl is presented. It discusses metaphors and their semantic associations constructed in and through the Internet media’s coverage of this activity, and reveals how the choice of metaphors reflects the different interests and ideologies of three distinctive groups of people: the entertainment news media, some high-ranking officials, and audience members who comment online. The study concludes with a call for increasing our awareness of and critical stance towards the impact of entertainment news and its use of metaphor.

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This thesis explores how U.S. newspapers framed the death of Captain America. Specifically, the presence of various frames and their classifications was determined via a content analysis of 139 newspaper articles. Additionally, this thesis explores relationships between frame substance and other frame classifications. Generic/recurring frames were more prevalent than issue-specific/recurring frames. Frames tended to be episodic more often than thematic. Frames were also most likely to be neutral in valence, though differences from this overall trend emerged in some individual frames. Frames tended to be ambiguous rather than substantive. No relationship emerged between frame substance and the classification of generic/issue-specific frames, nor did one emerge between frame substance and the episodic/thematic frame classification. However, frames possessing negative valence were more likely to be ambiguous than frames possessing positive valence. Implications for framing theory and the news coverage's treatment of Captain America's death as an indicator of post-9/11 American identity are also discussed. Limitations of this study and opportunities for future research are acknowledged. / Master of Arts

This dissertation addresses the industrial history of American-based celebrity gossip over century, beginning with the first Hollywood stars in the 1910s and reaching into “celebrified” culture of the 2010s. Gossip, broadly defined as discourse about a public figure produced and distributed for profit, can operate within the star’s good graces or completely outside of the Hollywood machine; it can be published in “old media” print and broadcast forms or online and on a phone. Regardless of form, tone, and content, gossip remains a crucial component of the ways in which star images are produced and consumed. The dissertation thus asks: how has the relationship between the gossip industry and Hollywood in general changed over the last century? And what implications do those changes have for stars, those who exploit their images, and media industries at large? / Not available / text