Study of Western Culture and Values Representation in Chinese Media

Dissertation
Agreed Dissertation Proposal Form
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Proposed Title of Dissertation
Critical Discourse Study of Western Culture and Values Representation in Chinese Media
Research question
How are the views and attitudes towards Western (American) foreign policy, democracy, LGBT diversity and inclusion, protection of human rights, market structure, and filmmaking represented in Chinese media?
Brief outline of research objectives and proposed methodology (two or three paragraphs):

Critical Discourse Study of Western Culture and Values Representation in Chinese Media

Research question

How are the views and attitudes towards Western (American) foreign policy, democracy, LGBT diversity and inclusion, protection of human rights, market structure, and filmmaking represented in Chinese media?

Brief outline of research objectives and proposed methodology (two or three paragraphs):

While globalization has been hailed for facilitating the integration of regional cultures and transfer of social beliefs and values between states, Western (American) foreign policy, democracy, LGBT diversity and inclusion, protection of human rights, market structure, and filmmaking have been blamed for negatively impacting the traditional values, life styles, and identities of other countries. It is therefore not unusual that some nations tend to see culture as a crucial battleground and work to protect their values and beliefs against the infiltration of outside Western ideologies (CNN, 2012). China has been particularly wary of keeping away contrary cultural beliefs and values in schools and the broader society by actively promoting traditional norms and virtues. Understanding how Western (American) foreign policy, democracy, LGBT diversity and inclusion, protection of human rights, market structure, and filmmaking are portrayed in Chinese media is critical to uncovering cultural bias and profiling in the country’s media and even countering the negative effects of the same among EFL learners. I chose Western (American) foreign policy as one of the domains because of the current strategic competition between America and China as an emerging global superpower. I selected democracy as another divisive domain: Western countries are relatively democratic while China can be categorized as an authoritarian state. Moreover, unlike Western countries that promote LGBT diversity and inclusion, China has been largely belligerent towards the group. On the other hand, Western countries and China have accused one another of violating human rights: China has accused the West of human crisis disasters from unnecessary military invasions while the latter has accused the former of human rights abuses against the Uighurs Muslims. On the other hand, Western countries are wholly capitalistic while China is socialist. China has also cracked down on the entertainment industry and restricted the importation of Western films for promoting immorality and values contrary to Chinese Confucianism. On the whole, the study was looking for those areas of conflict between Western and Chinese culture and values in order to understand the former’s representat...