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摘 要

随着文化比较的流行, 对中美新闻报道的对比研究受到越来越多的关注。灾难性新闻具有突发性、显著性、重要性和复杂性等特点。本文通过对《人民日报》和《纽约时报》关于汶川地震报道的对比研究发现，由于文化差异、人与自然关系的差异和价值取向的差异，两者在新闻观点，内容，主题和报道角度这四个方面存在不同。

通过探讨不同文化对灾难性新闻报道的影响，本文旨在探究一种更积极、更适合我国新闻媒介的灾难性新闻报道的方式：注重人文关怀；重视其他灾区的报道；避免一味“正面化”；抵制过分“血腥化”。

关键词：灾难性新闻报道；人民日报；纽约时报

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. A Case Study of Wen Chuan Earthquake 2

4. An Analysis of Chinese and American Disaster News Reports 4

4.1 Similarities 5

4.2 Differences 5

5. Reasons for Differences between Two Countries’ Disaster News Reports 6

5.1 Different Cultures Reflected in News Reports 6

5.2 Different Viewpoints upon the Relations of Nature and Human 6

5.3 Different Values and Orientation 7

6. Strategies to Improve Chinese Disaster News Reports 8

6.1 Emphasizing the Humanistic Care 8

6.2 Valuing the Report on Other Disaster Areas 8

6.3 Avoiding Blindly “Positive” 9

6.4 Avoiding Excessively “Bloody” 10

7. Conclusion 10

Works Cited 12

1. Introduction

News reports have played an important role in people’s daily life. With the frequent occurrence of natural disasters at home and abroad in recent years, more and more people begin to pay great attention to disaster news. Disasters are always abnormal, unexpected, destructive and closely related to people’s life. It has been the focus of public opinion. The so-called disaster news refers to the reports on events that bring disaster to human. Disasters mean a large number of human and animal casualties and material damage. They are caused by uncontrollable and unpredictable destructive factors, and the region disaster prevention can’t solve them. From the current literature, the disaster events generally can be divided into two kinds: natural disaster and social emergency.

Natural disaster refers to the abnormal phenomenon in the nature, which has caused great damage to social economy. They include geological disasters like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, dust, weather disasters like flood, typhoon, tsunami, drought, and environmental disasters caused by human activity like water pollution, soil erosion, acid rain. Social emergency refers to various kinds of sudden accidents due to human factor or various social contradictions, such as traffic accident, fire, mine, plane crash and shipwreck, causing heavy casualties and property losses. For example, American “9 - 11” terrorist attack is the most serious social catastrophe.

Dr. Bill Bonney, a professor in the field of journalism, thinks that for the press media traffic accidents, flood, fire, earthquakes, murders, wars and casualties and damages have the greatest market value. (Bonney, 1983: 317) Disaster events become a hot issue which the national and international news media pay great attention to and report a lot because of its abruptness, timeliness and importance. This kind of news has great news value and often attracts many readers’ attention due to the unpredictability and wide influence. Disasters, such as earthquake, flood, typhoon, aircraft accident, shipwreck and snowstorm, directly affect human lives and property safety, and are related to social stability and development. China is the earliest country to report disastrous news; whereas, after a long period of development, the western media behave relatively mature in the field of disaster events report.

People"s Daily and New York Times are the most influential newspapers in China and the United States. This paper chooses the disastrous reports as a case, by comparing People"s Daily and New York Times to analyse the differences between Chinese and American disaster news reports. Then sum up the great achievements and existing problems in recent years China has in disaster news reports, and put forward the reform measures.

2. Literature Review

China has insisted on the policy “focus on the positive propaganda” for a long time, so in both theory and practice, disaster news reports are quite weak. In recent years, with the rapid development of democracy and legal system and communication technology, disastrous news becomes more and more important. However, the lag of theory and cognition hamper the healthy development of disastrous news.

At present, there are many research achievements about disastrous news. Ma Shoumin and Chai Yan focus on the comparison between China and the West. They study the insufficient of the current disaster news reports and provide references for them through the comparison of Chinese and Western disaster news reports. (Ma Shoumin amp; Chai Yan, 1999: 013) Deng Linyi discovers disaster news value from the psychological and aesthetic aspects. (Deng Linyi, 2000: 36-37) Shen Zhengfu puts up that it is a basic principle to report disaster news positively, timely and adequately. Another principle that he proposes is to report disaster news properly and cautiously. (Shen Zhengfu, 2003: 26-28) Li Wei emphasizes the view that the media should pay much attention to the psychology of the victims as well as the disasters themselves. (Li Wei, 2005: 5-6) Zhang Jian claims that disaster news has its own features on the title,lead and the choice of words. Disaster news reports possess more short and simple titles. (Zhang Jian, 2007: 47-52)

However, a lot of researches basically still stay in sporadical level, lacking systematic thinking about the defects of disaster news. So far, the works of domestic research about disaster news have only one. Tian Zhongchu analyzes Chinese disaster news from the perspective of political control, and there is a little space concerning the defects of contemporary disaster news. As for the remedy measures, they are rarely involved. (Tian Zhongchu, 2005:24). Seen from the above situations, in China, paper which studies coping strategies on defects of disaster news hasn’t shown up. However, the coverage rate, coverage level and research level of disaster news make up a significant proportion in the foreign press. Nowadays, the research of Chinese and American disaster news reports between has strong pertinence.

3. A Case Study of Wen Chuan Earthquake

Domestic news of natural disasters is usually reported in the home page in People’s Daily. If a serious earthquake happens, such as the Wenchuan earthquake, Qinghai earthquake in Yushu, it is usually reported in detail in the form of special issues, occupying most of the pages. In People’s Daily, the news theme is often about relief and policy, and its news selection principle is to promote stability. The headlines often publish news like policy deployment, disaster relief or leaders’ visit. It usually stands in the global perspective to look at the news. It often reports behaviors like the leaders’ visit to the disaster area, volunteer service, people’s caring behavior from all walks of life. Reports about earthquake disaster abroad are relatively less. And when severe earthquake occurs, it is posted in overseas layout, to inform the audience of the earthquake. Its report covers most that leaders in our country send condolences to the earthquake disaster country.

In New York Times, when reporting the seriousness of the disaster, it is not just a general statement. It shows the victims’ living conditions and reveals the seriousness of the disaster through the description of their eyes, action, mental outlook and dwelling place. It is so-called peep one spot and see whole picture. The major content of disaster news reports is about the victims, disaster scenarios and the destroyed houses and bridges in the earthquake. These reports provide information for the victims, and inform them the present situation and the number of casualties. They just report the activities during disaster relief, and seldom mention the appearance of the leadership, the amount of the donation and volunteer service. These can reflect that American media are more accurate when reporting disaster news and they fully show the details of the disaster.

In May 12, 2008, a severe earthquake happened in China. People’s Daily and New York Times both timely reported that disaster. This paper aims to explore the differences between Chinese and American disaster news reports, by comparing the reports of the two newspapers from the perspective of cross culture.

From the point of news view, People’s Daily reports the news based on the whole event. However, New York Times focuses on the news value of the earthquake and highlights the consequences and miserable situation of the disaster, so as to attract the readers to pay attention to the earthquake itself and the consequences and supervise the government behavior. These can help the media firstly establish the “selling point” in the competition in order to obtain the biggest news interests. This is the result of different social systems between China and America.

From the point of news content, People’s Daily pays attention to the news propaganda duties and represents the interests of the masses. It aims to let the victims know the development and destruction of the disaster, and inspire the spiritual strength of overcoming the disaster. However, New York Times describes the development of the earthquake in detail, and presents the pains of the families of victims. Especially at the end of the report, the last call between the families and victims before the earthquake makes audience deeply feel the bitterness of families of the victims, which evokes sympathy for the victims and the families of missing persons.

From the point of news theme, People’s Daily focuses on government behaviors in disaster relief. The reports are mostly about the government"s policies, leader’s condolences and cadres work together, etc. Moreover, because our country is a socialist country, government is the main body of disaster relief, and it must emphasize the government’s relief measures. However, New York Times focuses on the reports on the number of casualties and psychological prevention, etc. It studies the earthquake disaster from the angle of the victims.

In the news reports of Wenchuan earthquake, in order to improve the circulation and obtain the biggest profit, New York Times reported Wenchuan Earthquake thoroughly and completely, and fully displayed the details of disaster.It involved many sensitive issues, such as human rights and politics several times, and promoted western values. People’s Daily selected news both beneficial to the society and the government. Its most important principle was to call on the whole people to do earthquake relief and ensure social stability. When reporting domestic negative news, it was very cautious and took a restrained attitude.

People’s Daily and New York Times are media with highly-developed social responsibility and professional ethics. The philosophy of people-oriented was throughout the reports. In report language, the two media highlighted the humanity, in the choice of news sources, they gave full consideration to the affected people’s voice. People’s Daily balanced the sources from the government and affected people, while New York Times focused on the sources of victims and highlighted the theme of “survival conditions of victims”. Focusing on the affected body reflects the attention to the whole society and respect for human life.

In New York Times, in addition to following the characteristics of news reports value, it also made positive reports. In disaster relief, the “people-oriented” concept, respect for others and care for life shown by Chinese government were in accordance with American “humanism” values and “the emphasis on individual” cultural pattern, which was sufficient to arouse American social resonance. The report about the earthquake highlighted the spirit of humanitarianism, but also highlighted American humanism and the spirit of internationalism, which was in line with its national interests.

4. An Analysis of Chinese and American Disaster News Reports

News reports are affected by the political system of the countries. Lasswell, professor in Yale University proposed: News has three functions “watch the environment, contact the society and convey the cultural heritage”（Lasswell, 1948: 37). News is a social product, and the content of the report reflects the social reality behind the news; the news is also the product made by professional news media within social system. Therefore, in fact, news reports are easily affected by external social structure, and related to politics, economy, culture and other social mechanism.

4.1 Similarities

Both Chinese and American disaster news reports pay attention to humanistic care. Disasters often bring people a huge loss of property. In the face of disaster, life is fragile and capricious. Mr. Lu Xun once said that only the spirit of the people was valuable. (Lu Xun, 1926) As a result, disaster news reports should reflect the deep grief and mourn for the victims. But it is more important to pay attention to the survivors and the families of the victims, calling for social sympathy for them, so as to comfort their souls and heal their trauma. Catastrophic events bring people grief, decadence, anxiety and panic, but the proper handling of the disastrous news can change these negative feelings and emotions of the audiences, which will have a positive and healthy influence.

4.2 Differences

Because the political system, economic system and cultural background of China and America are different, their report angles in disaster news are quite different. In the report angle, American disaster news report is good at focusing on the individual, capturing the details, and reflecting the whole through the individual. On the contrary, Chinese disaster news report focuses on the overall situation, and then reflects individual situation.

The images selected to report Chinese and American disaster news are different. When using images to report disaster news, Chinese news media often select government behavior as the body of the report. On the contrary, the selection of images made by the American news media is more persuasive. The images can more objectively reflect the situation of the disaster areas and the victims’ pain. This is because the domestic media have long insisted a positive coverage as the mainstream of news reports. Domestic media tend to choose a lot of pictures of disaster relief, to show the response and action of the government, the rescue and relief efforts. The media play a role of public opinion guidance. On the contrary, media in America focus on reporting objective facts. They pay attention to victims’ destiny, the social order after the disaster and the existing problems and so on.

5. Reasons for Differences between Two Countries’ Disaster News Reports

5.1 Different Cultures Reflected in News Reports

Culture is the sum of material and spiritual wealth created by a nation in the process of social and historical development, which includes knowledge, beliefs, values, customs and so on, affecting and restricting all human social behaviour. Chinese culture has a close contact with Confucianism, mainly for the Confucius “benevolence” and “courtesy”. With the development of the society, Chinese culture also develops in the change. Justice in ethics is man"s social norms, and man’s social value is to service our country and people. The cultural traditions make news reports focus on major issues and report significant issues. They connect the news reports with the country’s politics, economy and culture. People’s Daily protrudes positive stories and pays attention to government dominant behavior. Government is the main body of disaster relief. It stresses government relief measures.

The political culture in America is different. It believes in freedom and the rule of law. In USA, people’s social relationship is the relationship between the individual and the law; people’s social value is the realization of individual self-expression and personal best interests. People like new things in order to be different, and they pursuit personal enjoyment and free development. They seek to obtain the best social effect and the maximum self interest.in the premise of not violating the regulations. Report contents of disaster events in New York Times are rich. The reports are in great detail. They focus on the consequences of the earthquake, show the miserable victims and severe earthquake, let the audience to understand the disaster and release their discontent, and urge the government to take measures.

5.2 Different Viewpoints upon the Relations of Nature and Human

People’s Daily introduces the occurrence of the earthquake and focuses on disaster assistance. This is consistent with our country"s news guidelines--promote the national spirit，and focus on the positive publicity. From the cultural essence, Chinese culture emphasizes harmony, which is associated with the doctrine of moderation in China. Harmony is the highest ideal of Chinese culture. From the pre Qin Confucianism, Taoism, after the development of Dong Zhongshu in Han Dynasty, to the Song Ming Neo Confucianism, “the unity of heaven and man” becomes a system. “The unity of heaven and man” emphasizes the relationship between human and nature, and connects the change of nature with people’s life. It stresses that human should live in harmony with the nature. Therefore, in People’s Daily, the report affirms the spiritual strength people fight against the disaster and protrudes disaster relief.

American culture advocates the “Separation of nature and human” and thinks all things in the world are opposite, such as human and nature, material and spirit, society and nature. Disaster is a reflection of separation. Therefore, when reporting news, New York Times focuses on the devastation and severity of disaster, the destruction and devastation on human’s life, and highlights the victims in the earthquake and their families. It is concerned about the weakness and suffering of people in front of the earthquake, using pictures to show suffering scene of “Separation of nature and human”.

5.3 Different Values and Orientation

According to Hofstede, five elements can be used to portrait a country’s cultural value. They are individualistic/collectivist, power distance, long-term/short-term oriented, uncertainty avoidance and masculine/feminine. American culture is individualistic, low power distance and short-term oriented; while Chinese culture is collectivist, high power distance and long-term oriented (Hofstede, 1980:15-41). Collectivism value in China advocates that national society and national interests are the most important things. Personal interests can be ignored and sacrificed when necessary. As the saying goes, “Be the first to bear hardships, and the last to enjoy comforts”. Therefore, in disaster news reports, they show the interests of the state, nation and people. They inquire the people to unite and confront the disaster together, and highlight the optimistic spirit of people when overcoming the disaster. However, individualism is the most important value orientation in America, emphasizing the supreme of individual interests. All values, rights and responsibilities are derived from individual. Individualism dominates American culture. Therefore, in disaster news reports, they highlight the individual, the catastrophe of the disaster and the tragedy of victims. In addition, they supervise all the disaster relief behavior and rescue measures of the government. Once omissions occur, they will put forward the harsh criticism of the government, and then make the disaster news reports influential and powerful.

6. Strategies to Improve Chinese Disaster News Reports

In order to make the disaster news reports develop better in China, news practitioners and scholars need to make further efforts and exploration. To sum up, they can be summarized as follows：

6.1 Emphasizing the Humanistic Care

The most important aspect in disaster news reports is to show the humanistic care. After the disaster, people feel pity for the victims in the disaster. People in the disaster areas are full of longing and expectation to rebuild their homes, which requires the media to use the report way with humanization to concern the living condition of vulnerable groups in the disaster, giving the victims emotional comfort needed. Therefore, media have to pay attention to humanistic care in disaster news reports. When reporting disaster news, the media should change the concept initiatively, consider the value of human life, respect the audience’s right to know, and respect the dead and the families of the victims; grasp the right time to interview during the process to interview, minimize the shooting and description of the bloody scene of the disaster; pay attention to vulnerable groups, pour more humanistic care to comfort the people in the disaster.

6.2 Valuing the Report on Other Disaster Areas

In China, when severe disasters happen, the media reports will have some problems: after the centralized media reports, rescue forces will be concentrated on the areas media reported mainly, and the disaster areas unreported become “blind spots” of the disaster relief, leading to uneven distribution of disaster relief efforts. In the WenChuan Earthquake in 2008, the late report of the disaster Longnan town in ShanXi is a typical example. Although the earthquake happened in Wenchuan, ShanXi, the neighboring province of SiChuan, was also affected by the earthquake. At that time, the focus of domestic media reports was concentrated on SiChuan, and the media constantly updated the disaster information. However, the development of the earthquake in Longnan was reported five days after the earthquake, and then the rescue forces began disaster relief, which seriously affected the rescue operation.

Another example also can explain this problem. In March 10, 2011, an earthquake occurred in Yunnan Yingjiang, second day after the earthquake in Japan. However, at that time the domestic media focused on the earthquake in Japan and broadcast the situation of the earthquake actively. There were few reports on Yingjiang earthquake. Although the Yingjiang earthquake was inferior to the Japanese earthquake from the magnitude, loss and influence, we could see that the media went after resounding effect blindly, ignoring the reports on less affected areas.

During the Wenchuan earthquake, civil rescue forces play an important role, especially when the official power is in shortage. However, the access to the disaster of civil rescue forces is not very diverse, and the majority is obtained from the media. If the media can play the role of “guide dog”, it will have a very important positive effect on the civil relief.

6.3 Avoiding Blindly “Positive”

There is a huge difference on the choice of subject between Chinese and American disaster news reports: the American media regard victims of the disaster as the main body of the report; while domestic media regard the rescue from the parties and government as the main body. In disaster news reports, the American media try to let the audience obtain information on the disaster itself and understand the existing state of victims in the disaster through the description of individual victims. In the report, they use methods such as comparison, contrast and metonymy to maximize the meaning and connotation outside the disaster itself, wake up the audience on the thinking of life, and give a person a kind of spiritual sublimation. While the domestic media consider the government and social behavior,namely disaster relief as the report subject, involving little or no victims of the catastrophic events. They just emphasize the guidance and education to audience, with little consideration to the needs of the audience. And the ways of reports are single and rigid. The audience can only know the information of the disaster abstractly from the media. The information about the living conditions of the victims is nearly zero.

On the other hand, live documentary of disaster news in China is seen as “negative reports”, because the contents of these reports are frustrating and sad news. It not only makes people unable to accept psychologically, but also not conducive to the stability of the society. However everything has two sides, we can not only see the negative effect caused by “negative reports”, but also see the positive side. When the audience of the unaffected area see such reports, they will generate sympathy for the victims, produce great satisfaction to their own superiority, and cherish the present life. At the same time, it can also impress the audience’s heart, let the audience get involved in disaster relief instinctively and consciously.

On the contrary, disaster news reports will be spurned by the audience if just reporting positively, turning a deaf ear to disaster events, and one-sided focusing on the official whereabouts and indication.

6.4 Avoiding Excessively “Bloody”

Unlike other news reports, disaster news is often with the most abundant emotion. The general audience will have a reverence for nature power from the disaster news, regret and anger for behavior to damage nature, and feel sympathy for the victims,etc. However, the causes of the disaster are complex and the event itself is changeable. Disaster news reports and people’s emotional reaction to reports also have the corresponding uncertainty. If excessively describing disaster news, readers will form cognition like “world is in a disaster”, “human sitting on a volcano life”. If this fear cognition becomes more and more deep, it will become a threat to social stability. Therefore, media with the sense of responsibility can"t blindly pursuit the sensationalism when reporting disaster news. They should fully consider the psychological reaction of the audience after reporting. In general, the disaster scene, the scene of the crime, the situation of the killed or injured, or cruel degree of criminals need to be summarized and the text display should be acceptable by most readers.

7. Conclusion

Since the establishment of People’s Republic of China, disaster news report has gradually liberated from the restricted area along with the reform and development of our country’s journalism. Although disaster news reports in our country have taken many detours in the development, it has made great progress. However, we can obviously see the problem through the comparison with American disaster news reports on various aspects. The means of communication and expression skills and other aspects are still immature. The breadth and depth of reflection is slightly insufficient. The quality of journalists is uneven.

In addition, Chinese disaster news reports are still relatively lack of experience. For the development of our country’s disaster news reports in the future, we need to “discard the dross and select the essence”. Because China is a socialist country, there are many differences in social culture, system and national conditions. So after selecting the essence, we need to improve it, thus to adapt to our national conditions, improve the quality of disaster news reports and strengthen the authority of information dissemination.

All in all, in the disaster news reports, media in China claim people-oriented, and they transfer love and hope. In the face of disaster, million people unites as one man to tide over the crisis and achieve the harmony between people and society. In America, the news reports adhere to the “news first” principle, give priority to compete “selling point”, pass the seriousness and cruelty of the disaster, guide the audience’s attention to disaster and supervise the government behavior. Chinese and American Disaster news reports both have generality, and highlight the personality. They not only enable us to understand the cultural differences between the two countries, but also help us to develop together.

Works Cited

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[9] 田中初.《新闻实践与政治控制: 以当代中国灾难新闻为视阈》. 山东：山东人民出版社, 2005.

[10] 张健.《英语报刊灾祸新闻写作特点例析》. 外国语，2007(3): 47-52.

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