Cover Sheet for Research Proposal and Final Dissertation
Students MUST complete this cover sheet to accompany each piece of coursework
submitted.
Student Name:
Yuehua Luan
Student Number:
B918745
Programme Title:
Diplomacy,Business,and Trade
Dissertation Title:
The influence of media on China-US trade relations(20082018)
Word Count
1376
Academic Supervisor:
Cristian Nitoiu
Standard research ☐
Project ☐
Internship ☐
Declaration
By making this submission I confirm that the attached coursework is my own work
and that anything taken from or based upon the work of others – or previous work
of mine – has its source clearly and explicitly cited; I understand that failure to do
so may constitute Academic Misconduct.
I have read the ‘Coursework Code of Practice’, the ‘Marking Descriptors’ and the
‘Plagiarism as Academic Misconduct’ section of the Dissertation and Programme
Handbook as well as the learning outcomes for the Dissertation and the
programme, as available on Learn and set out in the Dissertation and Programme
Handbook.
The copyright in this dissertation is owned by me, the author. Any quotation from
the dissertation or use of any of the information contained in it must acknowledge
this dissertation as the source. I hereby give Loughborough University the right to
use such copyright for any administrative, promotional, educational and/or teaching
purposes. Copies of this dissertation, either in full or in extracts, may be made only
in accordance with Loughborough University regulations. This page must form part
of any such copies made.
Tick this box if you do not wish Loughborough University to use your dissertation
for administrative, promotional, educational and/or teaching purposes.
Signature:
Date:
Loughborough University
Institute for Diplomacy and International Governance
Dissertation proposal
The proposal of the influence of media on
China-US trade relations(2008-2018)
Student ID: B918745
Research question
In my dissertation, the research question is whether the media has an influence on China-US
trade relations from 2008 to 2018. This research question will be answered in two parts, the first
one is whether the Chinese media affect China’s trade policy with the United States, the second
one is whether the American media affect the U. S. trade policy between with China.
Introduction
The topic of my dissertation is the influence of media on China-US trade relations(2008-2018).
This research aims to explore whether the media has an influence on China-US trade relations
from 2008 to 2018. There are two objectives of this study. One is testing whether CNN Effect is
applicable in China-US trade relations(2008-2018), the other is trying to provide useful
enlightenment for the development of China-US trade relations.
Literature review
Media-State Relations
There were a large amount of discussions about media-state relations, and researchers hold
different views. A few commentators claimed that the news media have enormous power and
could ‘move and shake governments’ （ Cohen,1994:9). At the same time, politicians also
agreed on such views and asserted the importance of media in shaping policy responses to
humanitarian crises (Blair, 1999; Holbrooke, 1999). However, other commentators and much
media theory continues to deny the possibility of media shaping or influencing government
policy-making (Chomsky and Herman, 1988; Hammond and Herman, 2000; Herman, 1993).
More mainstream accounts, represented by the work of Daniel Hallin (1986) and Lance Bennett
(1990), still maintain that media have little, if any, independent influence on elite policy debates
over foreign policy (Mermin, 1999; Zaller and Chui, 1996). CNN Effect coincides with the
former view that news media had an influence on government policy making.
CNN Effect
CNN effect refers to the fact that media reports can influence the foreign policy of the United
States, especially the decision of the United States to intervene during the humanitarian crisis
(Robinson, 2005). This term came from Ted Turner, CNN's boss, during the Gulf War. CNN
Effect model indicated that the media has an impact on the policy-making process and can drive
foreign policy-making in some way .
According to Hoge (1994), a series of conflict events after the Gulf War appeared to confirm
the enormous power that news media had when it came to shaping the government policy.
Besides, it is believed that the ill-fated attack that arrived in the Horn of Africa in 1992 was
actually imposed on the United States by media pressure (Shaw, 1993). However, working from
a realist perspective, critics generally decried the CNN effect and stressed the need for elite
control of the foreign policy making process (Robinson,1999).
Most of the existed literature on the CNN effect focuses on political events, and there are only
few economic and trade-related studies. Therefore, it might be necessary to explore whether
CNN Effect is applicable in foreign trade policy-making.
Factors affecting China-US trade relations
As Noland (1996) indicated, The United States and China may be the two largest economies in
the world. The relationship between the two countries is crucial to the future development of
the world economy. Thus, exploring the factors that affect China-US economic and trade
relations will be of great benefit to the future economic and trade relations between the two
sides, and even the world economic development.
The decade from 2008 to 2018 can be divided into the Obama administration and the trump
administration in the United States, and the two governments have very different trade policies
towards China. Similarly, in China, there were also two terms of presidents from 2008 to 2018.
A great amount of literature have studied the changes in China-US trade relations during this
period (Bergsten, 2009; Lu, 2018; Wang, 2017).
As for the factors affecting China-US trade relations, Morrison (2011) pointed out that China’s
currency policy has been a major factor in the size and growth of the U.S. trade deficit with
China. Lu (2018) examined the main factors shaping the China-US trade relations in 2018,
including structural difficulties in the US economy, the characteristics of the Chinese
institutional setting and policies that have become increasingly unacceptable to the US, the
specific personal beliefs and positions of President Trump and his main aides in the economic
and trade team, and short-term factors in the US internal political arena. Besides, Liu (2013) has
used the political economy methods to analyze the influence of interest groups on the U.S. trade
policy making towards China and to discuss the ways of interest groups participating in
American politics.
Research gap and innovations
Overall, although an increasing number of researchers paying attention to the factors which
affect China-US trade relations and the influence of media on government policy making, there
was still a lack of insight into the exploration of the influence of media on China-US trade
relations.
In order to fill this gap, my dissertation will explore whether the media has an influence on
China-US trade relations from 2008 to 2018.
Research design and methods
Methods
Mixed methods will be used in this dissertation, which refers to ‘Integrating quantitative and
qualitative data collection and analysis in a single study or a program of enquiry.’(Creswell &
Plano Clark, 2011) Bazeley (2017) indicated that any research that involves multiple sources
and types of data and/or multiple approaches to analysis of those data, in which integration of
data and analyses occurs prior to drawing final conclusions about the topic of the investigation.
This methodology is suitable for the study with multiple steps or stages, and it could enhance a
study with a second method. In my dissertation, when analysing news media, not only the
number of reports but their position on the page will be taken into consideration. The data of the
former is in numberical form, while the latter is in non-number form. For this reason, it may be
better to use both quantitative research and qualitative research.
Sampling
The main sampling strategy will be convenience sampling. As Urdan (2010) stated, researchers
usually select participants on the basis of proximity, ease-of-access, and willingness to
participate in convenience sampling. According to the limited time and funding, this method
seems to be the best choice because it is extremely speedy, readily available, and cost-effective
(Henry, 1990).
As for the research population, there will be no human participants in this study, instead, the
literature will be used as the research object. The reason for this is that in the current research
stage, it is difficult to find government officials who are willing to be interviewed. However, it
might be a shortcoming of this dissertation, as no human participants voice will be involved.
Taking into account the diversity of samples, a total of four news media were selected, one
from China and the other three from the United States. From a political perspective, in China,
only the most authoritative media was selected, while the three selected American news media
come from different political camps.
Methods of analysis
In my dissertation, there will be two stages for analysing the data. In the first stage, the data to
be analyzed is the number of news reports from the selected media, which is numerical
variables (Pearson, 1900). Therefore, I will firstly use Excel to screen and clean the collected
data, and then the inferential statistic analysis will be carried out in R. In the second part, the
position of the reports on the page will be analysed. An analysis software called NVivo will be
used in this stage, as it is useful for managing large amounts of qualitative data.
Timetable
The table below shows the tasks I need to complete and the corresponding timeline in the
process of writing my dissertation. This timeline will be strictly followed to ensure each task to
be completed within a given time frame, and to make sure the submission of the final
dissertation is with schedule.
Jobs to do
May
June July
August
Submission of the research proposal
Research design: data collection from the chosen news media
Complete the literature review
Data analysis
Complete the first draft of the dissertation
Submission of the final dissertation
References
Bazeley, P. (2017). Integrating analyses in mixed methods research. Sage.
Bennett, Lance W. (1990) ‘Toward a Theory of Press–State Relations in the
United States’, Journal of Communication 40(2): 103–25.
Bergsten, C. F. (2009). The United States-China Economic Relationship and the Strategic and
Economic Dialogue. testimony before the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global
Environment, Committee on Foreign Affairs, US House of Representatives, 10.
Blair, Tony (1999) Speech by the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to the Economic
Club of Chicago, Hilton Hotel, Chicago, IL, 22 April; available at:
www/feo.gov.uk/news (downloaded May 1999).
Chomsky, Noam and Edward Herman (1988) Manufacturing Consent. New York:
Pantheon.
Cohen, Bernard (1994) ‘The View from the Academy’, pp. 8–11 in W.L. Bennett
and D.L. Paletz (eds) Taken by Storm: The Media, Public Opinion and US
Foreign Policy in the Gulf War. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Creswell, J. W., Klassen, A. C., Plano Clark, V. L., & Smith, K. C. (2011). Best practices for
mixed methods research in the health sciences. Bethesda (Maryland): National Institutes of
Health, 2013, 541-545.
Hallin, Daniel (1986) The Uncensored War. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Henry, G. T. (1990). Practical sampling (Vol. 21). Sage.
Hammond, Phil and Edward Herman (eds) (2000) Degraded Capability: The
Media and the Kosovo Crisis. London: Pluto Press.
Herman, Edward (1993) ‘The Media’s Role in US Foreign Policy’, Journal of
International Affairs 47(1): 23–45.
Hoge Jr, J. F. (1994). Media Pervasivness. Foreign Aff., 73, 136.
Holbrooke, Richard (1999) ‘No Media – No War’, Index on Censorship 28(3):
20–1.
Lu, F. (2018). China–US Trade Disputes in 2018: An Overview. China & World
Economy, 26(5), 83-103.
Mermin, Jonathan (1999) Debating War and Peace. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Morrison, W. M. (2011). China-US trade issues.
Noland, M. (1996). US-China Economic Relations (No. 96). Washington DC: Institute for
International Economics.
Pearson, K. (1900). X. On the criterion that a given system of deviations from the probable in
the case of a correlated system of variables is such that it can be reasonably supposed to have
arisen from random sampling. The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine
and Journal of Science, 50(302), 157-175.
Robinson, P. (1999). The CNN effect: can the news media drive foreign policy?. Review of
international studies, 25(2), 301-309.
Robinson, P. (2005). The CNN effect: The myth of news, foreign policy and intervention.
Routledge.
Shaw (1993). Civil Society and Media in Global Crises. London: St Martin’s Press, p. 88
Urdan, T. C. (2010). Statistics in plain English. Routledge.
Zaller, John and Dennis Chui (1996) ‘Government’s Little Helper: US Press
Coverage of Foreign Policy Crises, 1945–1991’, Political Communication 13:
385–405.