Ideology and Orientalism in American and Cuban news media : Representation of the Chinese government in foreign media during the Umbrella Revolution

Abstract: This study aims to examine the representation of the Chinese government in foreign media during the Umbrella Revolution along 2014. Hence, this paper analyzes The New York Times and Granma by using Critical Discourse Analysis along with Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis in order to reveal underlying ideology and Orientalism in their news discourse. Thus, this study aims to understand how influenced is their representation of the Chinese government by the ideology of their countries. In that way, ideology and Orientalism are the theories implemented in this research. Additionally, in order to understand the relationship between media and the establishment in United States and Cuba, the Liberal model and the Soviet Communist theory are respectively applied. Moreover, the Propaganda model is also implemented to study in depth the level of influence that the establishment has on the media. In this sense, the research reveals that the representation of Cuban and American media was influenced by the ideology of their countries and that both sides ‘othered’ each other. Hence, both constructions aimed to impose Capitalism or Communism as the most valid socio-economic system.