The Image of Chinese Tourists in Taiwan’s Newspapers

The purpose of this study was to investigate the image of Chinese tourists in Taiwan’s newspapers. The aim was to find out how the imagination of “others” changed with the different group consciousness in Taiwan’s society. The study focused on United Daily News, Apple Daily, and The Liberty Times, analyzed the news reports which have “Chinese tourists” in the titles during July 18th, 2008 to November 7th, 2015. Differs from the studies in the past, this study brought Apple Daily into consideration. The results in the content analysis and discourse analysis both indicated that there were some continuous axes existed despite the different political stands. For example, In three newspapers, the amounts of positive image in the economic-related reports decreased with time went on; and on the other side, the amounts of literacy-related reports increased. And in the course analysis part, it was found that the process of how the Chinese tourists’ image changed, the three newspapers had highly similarity in the developments. One conclusion was that the Chinese tourists issue was not only a political issue, either an economical issue, but also a cultural issue, which cannot be ignored, since Chinese tourists had become a distinct “others”. This conclusion was also a reflection that China and Taiwan are growing further apart, not coming closer together.