Previous research on national image has shown a bias towards urban-centric perspec-tives,with rural issues receiving little attention in the field of international communication.This study focuses on 506 reports on Chinese rural areas published by overseas English newspapers from 1982 to 2023,using content analysis to depict the attention given to Chinese rural issues in international cover-age.The study finds that:firstly,overseas English newspapers pay attention to Chinese rural areas ex-hibited a fluctuating trend over the forty-years period,with distinct phases;secondly,overseas English newspapers focus primarily on China's economic development and social issues,utilizing two main re-porting frameworks:the"development framework"and the"inequality framework";thirdly,rooted in the nation's modernization process,the rural image presented by overseas English newspapers under-went transitions in three stages:"slow innovation in backwardness""difficult transformation amid tur-moil"and"poverty eradication in development".The study argues that identifying the rural image as a component of national image,balancing the urban centrism prevalent in previous research,helps con-structing the autonomy of the international communication research.
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
