This dissertation examines the public opinion-public policy nexus with regard to the making of U.S.-China policy during the Clinton administration (1992-2000). The researcher investigates how the mass media discourse on U.S.-China relations relates to the policy tradeoff between economic interdependence and confrontation on human rights. Particularly, the quantitative study of the media discourse is placed within a Communitarian perspective to determine: (1) whether the policy tradeoff can claim to have the support of public opinion; (2) whether the media discourse originated from the active civic participation; and (3) how the policy tradeoff broke its promise. As a result, the researcher concludes that the eclipse of co-operative inquiry of the U.S. public, the ascendancy of issue management of special stakeholders, and the entanglement between newsmaking and policy-making may have jeopardized the republican virtue of U.S. diplomacy.
First, the researcher contextualizes U.S.-China relations and relates it to the dynamics of U.S. foreign policy choices among four national interests: power, prosperity, principle, and peace. Then, the researcher sets the Communitarian theory of the press as a normative theory of media democracy and incorporates other positive theories of political communication to make sense of the dilemma of the current media democracy. Following that, a content analysis of the New York Times and Cable News Network examined: (1) who said what; (2) which perspective prevails; (3) the correlation between newsmaking and policy-making; and (4) the congruence/dissension between policy beltway and other social groups.
The finding suggests a significant correlation between/among the policy proposal, the author of that proposal, and the issue/frame espoused; on the other hand, the conspicuous differences among policy-makers, ordinary citizens (issue public), and professional communicators in regard to the policy trade-off indicates a low public accountability of the policy tradeoff. To explain the discrepancy, the investigator examined corporate America's issue management of U.S.-China trade and put the policy tradeoff into the perspective of capitalistic globalization theory. Finally, the lack of republican virtue is explained as a result of corporate-driven diplomacy and the media discourse short of civic participation. Henceforward, a Communitarian press becomes recommendable for the rejuvenation of media democracy.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-11122006-232902 |
| Date | 13 November 2006 |
| Creators | Chen, Xiaowei |
| Contributors | James R. Stoner, Jr., Ralph Izard, Irvin Peckham, Eileen R. Meehan, Robert Kirby Goidel |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-11122006-232902/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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