Framing health risk: How the U.S. and Chinese TV news covered H1N1 influenza

Abstract

The content analysis reveals significant differences in news frames and news sources between the two programs. Attribution of responsibility and human interest are the most visible frames in NBC Nightly News, while the attribution of responsibility frame is the dominant frame in CCTV Evening News. The visibility of the human interest, conflict, economic consequence and the prensence of all the frames in NBC Nightly News are higher than those in CCTV Evening News. Domestic government officials and citizens are the most popular sources cited by NBC Nightly News, followed by scientists and non-government organizations. While in CCTV Evening News, the most cited source is domestic government, followed by foreign governments and international organizations. Frames in both programs change through time. There are significant positive correlations between the attribution of responsibility frame and the using of domestic government as a source, the human interest frame and non-government organizations, citizens and victims in NBC Nightly News. There are significant positive correlations in CCTV Evening News between the attribution of responsibility frame and domestic government, human interest frame and both domestic government and citizens, conflict frame and scientists.

Framing food safety controversy in China: Online media vs. networked audience

“…When Luther and Zhou (2005) examined the different frames using by Chinese and U.S. media on the same topic of SARS, they analyzed responsibility, human interest, conflict and economic consequences frames. Liu (2012) Besides, some scholars paid attention to media coverage specifically of food safety related topics. Sun and Zhang (2010) analyzed the frames of reason/ blame, solutions and aftermath to compare the different coverage between two types of print media, China mainland and Taiwan, on the same topic, Sanlu contaminated milk powder incident.…”