Framing China: Media Images and Political Debates in Britain, the USA and Switzerland, 1900-1950

This book examines how the media in Britain, the USA and Switzerland framed events in China in the first half of the twentieth century. It analyses how national interests, perceptions and issues influenced the way China was portrayed in the press in each country and looks at the political, economic, cultural and social context that led to the construction of the particular media images of China in each country. Analysing the transnational circulation of images, the author also shows how media images of China both reflected and contributed to the discursive construction of nationhood in each country. Until the early twentieth century, Britain dominated foreign relations with China and continued to be associated with the aggression of imperial powers in China. The fact that Britain was an imperial power had the effect that the British press tended to focus on the British Empire to frame events in China. Contrarily, the USA had no obvious sphere of interest in China, aside from the largest foreign missionary presence in the country. Switzerland had even less vested interest in China and is included here as a useful comparison. The book not only analyses the variety of China images constructed by the press in each country at a specific time but also identifies which images were not used in a certain country or by publications of a specific political orientation, and attempts to explain why this was the case by looking at social, political, and economic factors that influenced the frames used by the media.