Framing a Crisis: Xinhua’s Portrayal of the 2009 Urumqi Riots to the International Community
Open Access
- Author:
- Mark, Elyse Gwendolyn
- Area of Honors:
- Interdisciplinary in Chinese and English
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Dr. Xiaoye You, Thesis Supervisor
Dr. Xiaoye You, Thesis Honors Advisor
Dr. Marcy Lynne North, Faculty Reader
Nicolai Martin Volland, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Urumqi riots
Xinjiang riots
Xinhua
frame analysis
source attribution - Abstract:
- This study examines the media frames used by the Xinhua News Agency in its coverage of the 2009 Urumqi riots. Contemporary scholarship on riot coverage primarily targets countries in the Western world, while comparatively little scholarly effort addresses riot rhetoric in the developing world. The July 2009 riots drew scholarly attention to China in part because the Chinese government broke precedent in allowing the international media greater reporting freedom in Urumqi. At the same time, the Chinese government provided its own English-language coverage through Xinhua, the state press agency, thus defining an official governmental view of the crisis. Other scholars have conducted cross-cultural comparative studies on Chinese and Western coverage of the event, but have paid less attention to the rhetorical patterns and ideological goals underlying the Xinhua coverage itself. This article uses frame analysis to provide a detailed examination of how Xinhua portrayed the 2009 Urumqi riots to an international audience in the initial aftermath of the event. This study analyzes the body of web-based Xinhua riot coverage over a ten-day period (109 articles), beginning with the initial riot on the night of July 5. Findings reveal that Xinhua relied heavily on both governmental sources and citizen interviews to bolster the authority of its reports, as well covering the event using a variety of regional, national, and international geographic frames. Further analysis shows that specific attributions of blame to Rebiya Kadeer and the World Uyghur Congress were part of a larger ideological strategy to downplay the influence of ethnic separatism in Xinjiang and domestic China.