Pursuit of Power: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the CNN and China Daily South China Sea Reports

Abstract

With the value of news report prominently increasing, the issue of South China Sea has drawn attention from plenty western media and the public and consequently become a hot topic reported by presses around the globe. CNN and China Daily, the two representative English-language presses from the U.S. and China, tend to adopt different dictions while they report the same event or news from the same source, in order to convey their own attitudes to readers and inculcate different value judgments in an imperceptible way. In this article, with relevant theories and methods of Critical Discourse Analysis and from the perspective of word selection, the author compared and analyzed two pieces of typical news in seven aspects, revealed the inconspicuous ideologies and power factors in the texts so as to help readers cultivate their rational thinking and take critical reading of news reports.