Reading the other: narrative constructions of Japan in the Australian and Chinese press

This study is concerned with the way in which discourses of the Other are deployed in the media's narrative constructions of national imaginary. Operating on the assumption that news provides techniques and devices which enable the nation and its Other to be narrated and imagined, the analysis focuses on the structures and processes by which Japan is constructed in the news stories in some Australian and Chinese printed media. The analysis finds that othering is a dynamic and complex process engaged in by both the East and the West, for purposes of both cultural domination and cultural negotiation, and to serve both external and domestic political ends. The study shows that what seems to be an essential distinction between the Orient, or the East, and the Occident, or the West, in the discourses of the Other is constantly shifting, fluid and context-specific. The investigation points to the need of forsaking a framework of understanding media and identity which is based on a truth vs propaganda, or information vs entertainment dichotomy, and adopting an approach that takes into account the particularities of the cultural practices of each media syste