This study uses discourse analysis to investigate and compare the coverage of America in two Chinese official newspapers, the Chinese language People’s Daily and the English language China Daily in January in 1989, 1999, and 2009. This study compares the two newspapers in four aspects of the texts: topic selection, headline design, writing tactics, and visual components use, to find any differences in reporting tactics according to their different readerships. People’s Daily employed a constant editorial preference for political content and a provocative reporting tactics. Meanwhile, China Daily used a more global editorial approach. Its content and its reports were increasingly consistent with Western journalism criteria: accurate, brief, and clear.

In 2001, Syria opened its media outlets to private ownership for the first time in over forty years. This thesis conducts a critical discourse analysis of the economic coverage of the sole Syrian political daily newspaper al-Watan and asks how media liberalization in Syria is more so emblematic of pro-market economic reforms as opposed to media reform. In this sense, it is the economic content of al-Watan that signifies how a private media outlet – under the guiding force of “red lines” and other regulatory mechanisms, yet financially “liberated” via advertising revenue and wealthy regime-friendly backers – can demonstrate its utility to the regime by providing a reiteration of its social-market economic policies all the while existing as a public embodiment of the regime’s willingness to embrace a marketized Syrian society. Simply put, al-Watan is a perfect vehicle for propagating the regime’s gradualist pro-market reforms in the public sphere. / text

The thesis explores the evolution of Chinese travel journalism since 1978, the year China launched its economic reforms and opened to the international community and examines its role in facilitating social changes. Discussion is based on texts from the print, television and online media. Four case studies illustrate how Chinese media are influenced by the state, the market and readerships. The central argument of this thesis is that Chinese travel journalism has established itself as a recognised genre of popular journalism due to rapid growth in tourism along with market-driven reforms. Travel journalism has developed within the official media (the Party press), negotiated media (commercially oriented) and flexible (online) media. These divisions promote a range of information, advice and discussion available to travellers and tourists. In the case of the official media, the information is framed by concerns to regulate; in the case of the negotiated media, there is more scope for commercial promotions; the flexible online media allows non-professional participation. As such, the development of travel journalism reflects the evolution of Chinese media from a propaganda institution to a modernising media industry, and more recently, to a platform for personal expression and alternative voices. The government support for the development of the tourism market has been a strong spur for the growth of travel journalism, and the discourses of Chinese modernisation are carried through the popularisation of travel as a subject in the media. Chinese travel journalism provides advice on social conduct for travellers, both in domestic and international situations, and it influences national self-perceptions and international outlook. Developing in the broader context of social, economic and cultural changes, travel journalism provides a valuable gauge for the study of transformations in Chinese society and Chinese lifestyles.