News discourse of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) in Taiwan’s three English newspapers

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 國際傳播英語碩士學位學程(IMICS) === 99 === This thesis examines how Taiwan's three English language newspapers covered the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) signed between the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People’s Republic of China (China). By gaining an understanding...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: David Williams, 魏大瑋
Other Authors: L. Chu
Format: Others
Language:zh-TW
Published: 2011
Online Access:http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/n7efhd
Description
Summary:碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 國際傳播英語碩士學位學程(IMICS) === 99 === This thesis examines how Taiwan's three English language newspapers covered the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) signed between the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People’s Republic of China (China). By gaining an understanding of the discourse structure of how these newspapers reported ECFA will demonstrate the role they play in either trying to create a nationalistic Taiwanese or pan-Chinese identity to their English speaking audience. This identity construction is important because it will add legitimacy to whichever direction Taiwan eventually sets its social and political course towards. Examining how the Taipei Times, The China Post and The Taiwan New use discourse in their headlines, articles and editorials when reporting and interpreting ECFA, the thesis has found that they all use similar strategies to present their respective position. These strategies can be broken down into the omission of only reporting either the pros or cons of the agreement, the exclusion of the public voice, and the dominant voice of the elite who either support or oppose ECFA. The Taipei Times and The Taiwan News appear to both structure their dominant discourses around overlapping themes that ECFA is a highly controversial agreement that will quickly lead an irreversible loss of sovereignty in Taiwan. In contrast, The China Post establishes a dominant discourse around ECFA’s economic benefits, while ignoring the negative aspects of the agreement.