TY - JOUR TI - CCTV-9’s coverage of the Iraq War and the evolution of English language television news in China DO - https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3MK6BG7 PY - 2013 AB - This research aims to find out how China Central Television (CCTV) International (CCTV-9) news programs shaped the presentation of the 2003 Iraq War, specifically how news making processes in China’s English-language TV channel influenced the content of the news. It examines how the news production team negotiated with its upper management and the Chinese government in producing TV news. By drawing on the visuals from Western news sources such as Reuters, Associated Press Television News (APTN) and CNN and targeting an English-speaking audience, CCTV-9’s presentation of foreign news is quite different from the CCTV domestic channels, all of which are controlled by the Chinese government. The research methods used in the study include in-depth interviews with the news production team together with textual analysis of the news line-ups and transcripts of news stories and semiotic analysis of promotional spot visuals. The research finds that the CCTV-9 news team developed concepts of “objectivity” and “balance reporting” different from those of the Western media channels. This research also finds that despite its position in a top-down hierarchy within the CCTV operation, the channel’s news production team sought to achieve both its and the government’s goal of producing news stories which would challenge BBC and CNN. They were, however, able to employ the “tactics” delineated in Michel de Certeau’s resistance model and conceptualized by the researcher as “color adaptation,” based on the processes used in the Chinese English-language newsroom. Thus, it is feasible for the weaker party in the hierarchy to successfully confront the higher power, a task that proved difficult yet not impossible. From a broader international politics perspective, this dissertation examines CCTV-9 and its subsequent relaunches after the Iraq War in 2003. In conclusion, government control would constrain the English-language channel’s potential to be positioned as a competitor of BBC or CNN. Based on its pioneering example as an instrument of building up China’s “soft power,” the researcher develops a new model of regulated system, referred to as Special Media Zone (SMZ), which guarantees the news channel’s independence from the government interference. KW - Communication, Information and Library Studies KW - Television broadcasting of news--China KW - Iraq War, 2003-2011--Press coverage KW - Television and politics--China KW - Foreign language television programs--China KW - Hegemony--China LA - eng ER -