| Summary: | This thesis explores the level of focus that major media outlets in both the US and China place on the emerging issue of digital piracy. By using a predetermined coding framework to perform a discourse analysis on intellectual property rights discourse in China Daily and The New York Times, it was discovered that each publication has a unique focus and amount of coverage on particular issues, and a noticeable discrepancy in coverage was established. The amount of digital piracy-related coverage in these two publications fluctuated between the years of 2007 and 2011, during which China hosted two major world events: The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics and the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. Surprisingly, discourse related to digital piracy specifically was not noticeably affected by either world event; rather discourse has picked up in the previous two years in greater amounts.
China’s section of the USTR Special 301 Report was also analyzed using the same coding framework to determine what areas of focus were most significant within its pages. There was no noticeable correlation throughout the five years in topical focus between elite media discourse and the USTR Special 301 Report other than a significant correlation between the focus on economic-related issues in the Special 301 Report and China Daily. The influence of the Special 301 Report on media discourse was negligible, as were the reported digital piracy rates.
In terms of journalistic valence, China Daily articles were generally a lot more positive about all groups that were included in this study, while The New York Times was mostly critical of China. One common thread of valence that both publications shared was that they both focused increasingly on positive business developments related to digital piracy, such as major business deals between US entertainment content providers and Chinese distributors.
In terms of national image, China is trying hard to boost its impression amongst other countries by both publishing large amounts of positive articles in its international papers such as China Dailiy, but also through increasing amounts of consultation with public relations firms. A good record on the issue of digital piracy is not only important in maintaining China’s national image, but also in preserving its trade relationships with other nations such as the US, who have IPR-related topics at the core of their concerns.
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