探析美国媒体与政府外交决策的关系

【作者】 王永芹；

【导师】 王玮；

【作者基本信息】 山东师范大学 ， 世界史， 2004， 硕士

【摘要】 美国外交决策过程是十分复杂的，在这一过程中有很多参与因素，包括政府内和政府外的各种因素，媒体便是其中之一。本文试图通过对美国媒体国际事务报道的分析，初步揭示媒体与政府外交决策之间的关系。这一研究对理解美国对华政策的国内政治过程，特别是美国式民主和外交的关系以及理解中国所处的国际舆论环境以及中美关系和美国对华政策中的一些现实问题有所助益。 本文包括四个部分，第一部分是媒体、政府与国家外交政策。媒体能够影响政府外交决策，其方式有：为政府提供国际信息；通过影响舆论进而影响政府的外交政策；监督政府的外交行为；设置政府的外交议程。但是在一定程度上，政府也能控制和操纵媒体，两者相互依赖，而且媒体与政府所代表的思想、价值观和根本利益从本质上讲是一致的。 第二部分是媒体与舆论的关系。媒体是公众舆论与政府之间的桥梁。新闻媒介是重要的社会舆论机构，可以充分反映舆论，引导舆论。通过媒体进行舆论宣传已成为国家保护自己形象或损害别国形象的重要武器。虽然媒体报道并不等同于公众舆论，媒体提供的多是来自国会、使馆以及官员们的消息，但是媒体可以通过自身的报道来影响公众舆论，进而影响政府外交决策。 第三部分探讨了美国媒体片面报道国际事务的缘由。虽然媒体标榜“公正”“客观”，但由于受到国内政治、经济、文化等因素的影响，媒体对国际事务的报道中多以负面为主，与政府的外交决策相一致，原因何在?首先，政府能控制和制造舆论为其外交决策服务，政府机构与新闻媒体之间存在着一种共生关系。其次，美国对外意识形态中占主导地位的是“种族优越感”和“天赋使命感”，提倡资本主义，视共产主义、社会主义为洪水猛兽，这些思想贯穿于美国的新闻判断中。最后，新闻行业的自身特征和商业利润的驱使也直接导致了美国媒体对国际事务的报道带有片面性。美媒体大都是私营的，为了吸引观众、听众和读者，美国媒体所强调的新闻是它的冲突性、刺激性和戏剧性。媒体把追求巨额利润远远地放在追求对社会的贡献之上。 第四部分是媒体对华报道分析。对华报道就很好地证明了以上论断。通过对1993-1998年《纽约时报》上对香港回归、人权和西藏问题的报道为案例进行分析，可以看出，媒体上的报道与当时的美国对华政策是相互呼应的，美国媒体是在妖魔化中国。由于影响新闻媒体报道的因素有很多，虽然媒体的作用是重大的，但不是决定性的，不能过于看重，也不能忽视。要想改变中国在美国媒体上的形象，决非一朝一夕能够做到的，但我们应多争取积极报道，树立良好的国际形象。更多还原

【Abstract】 The American diplomatic decision-making process is very complicated. There are a lot of participation factors in it, including those within and outside the government, one of which is the media. This thesis is expected to reveal the relation between the media and the foreign policy through the analysis of American media’ s world affair reports tentatively. The study is beneficial to understand the domestic politics process of sino-China policy, especially to understand the relation between the democracy of American type and foreign policy, the public opinion environment that China face and some realistic problem of the relation between China and America and sino-China policy.The whole thesis includes four parts. Part One focuses on the media, government and foreign policy. The media can influence the foreign policy of the government. The ways are as follows: Offering the international information for government; Influencing foreign policy of the government through public opinions; Supervising the diplomatic behavior of the government; Setting up the diplomatic agenda of the government. But to a certain extent, the government can control and handle the media too. They interdepend with each other, and they have the same ideology, values and interests substantially.Part Two describes the relation between the media and the public opinion. The media is the bridge between public opinions of masses and the government, and it is an important social organ of public opinion which can reflect and induct the public opinion. Propagating through the media has become some countries’ important weapons to protect themselves and to damage others’ images. Though the media report is not as same as the public opinions of masses, and what the media offer is mostly the news of coming from the Congress, embassy and officials, the media can influence the public opinions of masses through one’ s own report, and then influence the foreign policy.Part Three discusses the reasons why the media reports the world affairs negatively. Though the media brags about " just" and" objective", the report of the world affairs is mostly negative and compatible with foreign policy of the government, Why? First of all, the government can control and fabricate public opinion to serve its foreign policy. There is a kind of relation between the government organs and news media. Secondly, what occupied a leading position is" sense of superiority of the race" and" sense of mission endowed by nature" in American foreign ideology. It is capitalism to recommend, and communism, socialism are regarded as dreadful monsters, which runs through the news judgement. At last, the media’ s own characteristic and the commercial profit lead to the fact that there is one-sidedness at going in world affair report. Most of the medias are private and they emphasize the conflict in order to attract the audiences and readers. They pursue a large profit more than the contribution to the society.Part Four is the analysis of the media’ s report of china, the report of China proves the above judgement very well. Through the analysis of the reportsof the handover of Hong Kong, human rights and Tibet issue in the New York Times from1993 to 1998, We can find out that the report in the media and sino-China policy at that time echoed each other. The American media demonized China. Though the function of the media is great, it is not decisive, and we can’ t overemphasize or neglect it. The China’ s image in the American media can’ t be changed overnight. But we should strive for more positive reports and establish a better international image.更多还原