One problem with my idea of measuring nationalism indicators in Xinhua coverage pertains to the purpose of the Xinhua English service, which is different than that of the domestic Chinese language service.
The copy that Xinhua produces for Chinese newspapers and broadcast media has a propoganda mission. The Xinhua foreign language services try to let foreigners understand China, promote China's progress and the struggles it faces, and, when it comes to foreign news, to uphold China’s national independence, territorial integrity, and sovereignty. Therefore, the mix of stories that are aimed at these two audiences should be different. The gatekeepers for the English service -- the editors, translators, and reporters -- may dump a lot of the nationalism-themed stories, because they think it will not appeal to the audience they are targeting.
On the other hand, there are two reasons why Xinhua's English service may actually be quite similar to the Chinese service. One relates to the source material for the English service, which largely consists of translations of stories from the Chinese service. Still, it's not a one-to-one translation of Chinese material -- the English service apparently tries to match the "inverted pyramid" style of newswriting, which not only means Chinese stories are restructured, but also means additional sources are consulted to fill in the details that foreigners might expect to see. This correlates with my own experience working in English-language media in Taiwan -- almost all of the stories that I worked on that were based on translations from Chinese articles had to be beefed up considerably to fill in various details, ranging from getting the full names of people mentioned in the story, to answering the "whys" of a particular event. Why did this happen? Why did he or she say that, or do that? It drove the translators crazy, and often the original reporters, too, who were sometimes summoned from sleep to answer these questions. We also consulted other newspapers, foreign wire service reports, and occasionally the original sources of the news, especially police, government offices, or places of business where a certain event took place.
But I digress. The other reason Xinhua may include nationalism-themed stories is because these stories will help fulfill Xinhua's mission of giving foreigners a better understanding of Chinese popular and official sentiment.
These things should be considered, as I conduct more preliminary tests. I am also thinking about another tack to take for my thesis -- expanding upon the research I did for last semester's class, Chinese Emigration in Modern Times. I describe the research here, and you can read the paper here.
My idea for expanding the thesis is to analyze Xinhua coverage of Vietnam and issues relating to Vietnam/Chinese relations over a longer period of time. My original research only covered 1977, 1978, and 1979, but in the 1980s and 1990s there were several other developments in bilateral relations, and patterns in Xinhua coverage might be dissected to let us better understand China's policies.
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