Project One: Peer Article Review - Essay Example

in Yang). I chose an article that shows how, in recent years, China has moved away from that reputation. I will discuss about how the article was written, the topics used, the points made, and its impact for the future of the media in China. The article tackles two main events in China: the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2003, and the Sichuan quake of 2008. It aims to show the changes in media practices over the 5 years between the two crises. It tells about the changes in politics, journalism education, the increase in social awareness brought about by the internet, as well as all the small details that contributed to China’s shift in media practices.

It also seeks to differentiate between two types of media practices in China, and the way they framed the issues. These are the “party media and market-oriented media” (Yang). This is also significant because it points out that not all media in China is geared towards protecting the Government. The Party media (nationally represented by the People’s Daily) is generally regulated by the Chinese Communist Party and functions as the “‘mouthpiece’ of the central government” (Yang). The market-oriented media (The Nanfang Weekend was used in the article), on the other hand, generally appeals to the audience’s interests. . This is a “process which involves message construction, presentation, interpretation and has effects on the audience’s cognitive, affective and behavioral responses” (Yang).

The use of framing in the article was very fitting in that it clearly showed the changes and differences between the market-oriented media and the party media in 2003 and 2008. It simplified having to understand the usage of words and context in the presentation of the crises from the different media practices. The types of frames used (e.g. leadership, rescue, attribution, economic, human interest, etc.) also gave insight on the intention of the two media groups in their coverage of the crises, or how they wanted to communicate with the audience about the issue.

The article as a whole was interesting, well-supported, and had a compelling point. Using the events of the SARS outbreak and the Sichuan earthquake to show the shift in media practices, coupled with the mentioning of the significant events in between (e.g. change of presidents, internet, journalism education, etc.), gave a very clear picture as to how much the Chinese media has changed and improved without having to mention in detail the whole history of Chinese media. The hypotheses and research questions used were relevant and simple; the extensive list of references just goes to show how well-researched the article had been; and the tables used were clearly presented and showed a lot of relevant information.

The most useful part was the discussion wherein the three major findings were given subheadings and discussed individually. There were some areas of the article that were lacking. There were some grammar mistakes, especially in the introduction where the verb tenses were