A Brief Introduction to the Data Collection and Analysis

According to the reviews and discussions in the previous chapters, there are different frames about China's image and policy issues on the Chinese and Australian sides. The image the Chinese side has been promoting for decades, although it has changed with time, is from a progressing to an accomplished country, one that is a cooperative, peace- loving responsible world citizen growing from a low- profile developing country to a big economic power wishing to take on a greater share of global responsibility and contribute to global governance. Chinese mainstream discourse identifies China's struggle through public diplomacy initiatives to counter its unbalanced information status, the bias in other countries’ framing of China and to narrate more accurate Chinese stories with the purpose of creating a better understanding, while in the mainstream framing of the Australians, China's culture and political system is at the two ends of the preference scale with the former in the favourable position. Over the decades, China has grown from a backward country to an aggressive threat to Australia. This incongruence in frames of the two sides often leaves individuals as well as policymakers puzzled. For example, having experienced living in both countries, individuals from China always have the impression that at the policy level, Australian policymakers seem to rely on merely their own stereotyped imagination of the ‘authoritarian regime’, ‘lack of freedom’ – far from China's reality. On the other side, having given millions of students and immigrants from China the opportunities to be immersed in the Western system, the West witnessed that a growing Chinese middle class failed to push China into becoming a more democratic country as the West had expected. On the contrary, there are an increasing number of patriots in China both among those who reside and those who return to China for convenience of life and prospective opportunities for individual career development. What has caused the difference in their framing? International broadcasting has been employed as a crucial tool to address this problem. What role can it play in this communicative process? This chapter is going to explore these questions by presenting findings through in- depth interviews with public diplomacy elites from the two countries.