中西方新闻媒体对高铁品牌形象的构建

本文是文学论文，Firstly, the sources of media reports are limited. As the study attempts to reveal the actual brand image of China’s HSR in both home and abroad, the source date should be collected around the world. But due to the language barriers, and the limited time, the author can only choose English-based media, especially those from UK and US. Therefore, the source date may not be able to reveal the whole picture of the brand image of China’s HSR. Secondly, the identification and analysis of the appraisal resources may not be absolutely correct. Although the author has invited other researchers to do cross identification of the appraisal resources, the result may not be completely perfect due to unavoidable mistakes. This research is only an exploratory trial on the study of the brand image of China’s HSR. In the future, more stimulating studies could be conducted. Firstly, the sources of media data should be enriched. Ideally, news reports in different languages and in different countries should be collected to analyze so as to present a more comprehensive study of the brand image of China’s HSR. Secondly, the identification of appraisal resources should be conducted by more experienced scholars so that the result will be more accurate. Lastly, the future research can also come up with more professional suggestions to the negative images of China’s HSR.

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

 As the HSR industry matures at home, China’s HSR has started to enter the international market. During the state visits in Central and Southeast Asian countries in 2013, President Xi Jinping proposed the initiative to build the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, known as the Belt and Road Initiative, which provides a blueprint for global economic development in the new world order and indicates the direction for Chinese companies to go global (Luan, 2017). On September 8th, 2014, in president Xi keynote speech: “Connectivity Spearheads Development Partnership Enables Cooperation”, he emphasizes that the transport infrastructure should be the key to the connectivity across Asia, and the establishment of railways between China and its neighboring countries should be of utmost importance. Xi also points out that financing should not be a barrier to the connectivity in Asia, thus Chinese government commits to invest $ 40 billion in establishing the Silk Road Fund (Huang, 2014). All of these provide huge opportunities for Chinese enterprises to go global. As the “golden business card” of China’s high-end equipment manufacturing industry and transport infrastructure, China’s HSR shoulders the responsibility of introducing Chinese high technology and innovative products to the whole world. And indeed, China’s HSR has made remarkable achievements in the international market thanks to its mastery of core technologies, years of innovation, and support from Chinese central government. Now China has established a cooperation with over 30 countries on HSR project, such as the United Kingdom, the Unites States, Indonesia and etc.

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CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW 

2.1 Previous Studies on Brand Image 

Brand image has been an important concept in consumer’s behavior research since its birth in 1950s (Dobni & Zinkhan, 1990). Influencedpostmodern philosophical thoughts and social theories emerged in post-World War II countries, especially in France, consumer behavior researchers often regard symbolic consumption as a prominent feature of postmodern consumer culture (Firat & Venkatesh, 1995). Inspired by this kind of thought and theory, more scholars have begun to admit that consumers, in addition to the function of the product, will purchase products for the image of the product, that is, the symbolic meaning of the product. Because brand image is of great significance for product sales and market success, brand image management is regarded as a key marketing activity. The research on brand management also constitutes a core content of marketing and advertising research (Park & Jaworshi, 1986) As for the perceptive of personification, brand image researchers generally agree that brands have features similar to human’s personality. Only a relatively small number of scholars completely equate brand image to personality traits. Martincau (1957) states that brand image reflects consumers’ characteristics, and they purchase the brand to express themselves. Bettinger, Dawson and Wales (1979) believes that the personification of a product, which can be manifested as “adult” and “children”. Sirgy (1985) points out that image of the brand resembles human personality. As can be seen from the above discussion, the definitionof brand image that emphasizes consumer psychological elements contains the definition emphasizing meanings, which includes self-meaning. And the concept emphasizing self-meaning also includes concept of brand image emphasizing “personality”.Therefore, there is no absolute contradiction among the three kinds of definitions. 

2.2 Literature on Brand Image of China’s HSR 

China’s HSR has been burgeoning in recent years, which have attracted scholars home and abroad to do research in this field. The previous researches on China’s HSR mainly focus on HSR technology, HSR economy, its significance, advantages and disadvantages of China’s HSR going global; however, very few of them have tried to explore the brand image of China’s HSR. Thus, the literature on brand image of China’s HSR is insufficient. Many scholars have conducted research on the brand image of China’s HSR from the perspective of the HSR diplomacy. Gan and Mao (2010) in their research on China’s HSR diplomacy greatly praise that China’s HSR technology is at the cutting edge of the world. They point out that China’s HSR fuels domestic economic development, and boosts political and cultural communication between China and the rest of the world. Plavlicevicand Smith study China’s HSR diplomacy and admits that China’s HSR has helped boost the country’s diplomatic ties when going global. In this regard, China’s HSR has presented a positive brand image. Renner and Gardner (2010) points out a controversial part in the brand image of China’s HSR. They indicate China’s HSR has been growing rapidly due to the support from Chinese central government, which makes China’s HSR highly politics-related. In this regard, China’s HSR has aroused some negative emotions in overseas market, which in return damages its brand image. Some scholars focus on the compacity of China’s HSR. Han and Zhang (2013) concludes that the positive brand image of China’s HSR lies to its sophisticate technology, safety, and low manufacturing cost. Li (2015) reaches the similar conclusion and adds that China’s profound experience in HSR operations and management contributes to its good reputation. Li (2014) studies China’s HSR competence in the basis of competence theory. Li admits that China’s HSR has developed rapidly as it is backed up by powerful Chinese government and outstanding companies. He says that China is adept at integrating various resources in marketing, while outstanding companies related to HSR have profound experience and capability in construction, financing and project management. All of these contribute to a good image of HSR country and HSR company.

CHAPTER THREE THERORETICAL FRAMEWORK ................................. 21 

3.1 BIEL’S BRAND IMAGE MODEL .......................................... 21 

3.2 MARTIN’S APPRAISAL THEORY ........................................ 24 

3.3 ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK FOR BRAND IMAGE OF CHINA’S HSR ............................ 35 

CHAPTER FOUR METHODOLOGY ......................... 39 

4.1 RESEARCH METHOD ............................................................. 39 

4.2 DATA COLLECTION ...................................... 40 

4.3 RESEARCH PROCEDURE ........................................................ 42 

CHAPTER FIVE TEXT ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION ....................................................................... 43
5.1 IDENTIFICATION AND ANALYSIS OF ATTITUDINAL RESOURCES ....................................... 43 

5.2 DISCUSSIONS OF THE BRAND IMAGE OF CHINA’S HSR .......... 71

CHAPTER FIVE TEXT ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 

5.1 Identification and Analysis of Attitudinal Resources

This section deals with the identification and analysis of attitudinal resources constructing the brand image of HSR. The identification of the attitudinal resources is strictly in accordance with the definition of the Appraisal Theory. Just as discussed in the Chapter Three, all of the attitudinal resources can be presented as individual word or stretches of language expressing a complete meaning. And all the items of attitudinal resources can be conveyed positively or negatively, directly or indirectly. Therefore, when identifying the evaluative items related to the brand image of China’s HSR, this thesis conducts an investigation into a wide range of language resources including words, phrases, clauses, and metaphors related to their properties: positive or negative, inscribed or invoked so as to present a more comprehensive analysis. In the following part, the thesis will present the identification and analysis of the evaluative items in the three sub-categories of attitude system: affect, judgement, and appreciation respectively in news reports. In order to mark the attitudinal resources more conveniently, the author uses “+” to represent the positive resources, while the “-” negative resources, and the attitudinal resources are underlined. All the news reports are numbered, for example, the 12 news reports from Reuters are numbered as Reuters 1 to 12. #p#分页标题#e#

5.2 Discussions of the Brand Image of China’s HSR 

According the theoretical framework presented in the Chapter Three, the brand image of China’s HSR will be analyzed on the basis of the two dimensions provided by Biel’s Brand Image Model, namely, the image of product, and country-of-origin image. In Biel’s Brand Image Model, the image of product and country-of-origin image are associated with both hard attributes and soft attributes. Hard attributes refer to people’s perception to the products’ tangible or functional attributes, while soft attributes refer to emotional implication of a brand on people’s perception. This section will elaborate the major factors concerning the brand image of China’s HSR under these two sets of categories. In terms of HSR product, the hard attributes include technology, safety, price and so on; soft attributes include service, design, color, style, implications and etc. In the following part, all the attributes constituting the image of product will be discussed in both Chinese and western news reports respectively, which are described by attitudinal resources. China boosts the longest HSR network in the world. One of the reasons behind its success lies to China’s advanced HSR technology. In most cases, both Chinese news reports and western news reports speak high of China’s HSR technology. The advanced HSR technology helps China to overcome the most challenging geographical difficulties and achieve the fastest speed of HSR in the world. The positive reporting of China’s HSR technology helps build a good image of product, especially for foreigners who may have never experienced the product. For example

CHAPTER SIX CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 

To answer the first two research questions, this thesis probes into the attitudinal resources related to the brand image of China’s HSR among all selected news reports through coding, categorizing and calculating. In western news reports, writers mainly apply negative attitudinal resources to describe the brand image of China’s HSR. Firstly, judgement resources are most frequently used to describe the brand image of China’s HSR. And among all the judgement resources, tenacity and propriety resources are most frequently utilized. Secondly, as for appreciation resources, the use of negative attitudinal resources is more than that of positive resources; however, the gap between the amount of positive and negative attitudinal resources is not big. Among all the appreciation resources, the use of valuation resources is most frequently. In Chinese news reports, the general evaluation of the brand image of China’s HSR is positive. Chinese news writers also frequently adopt appreciation and judgement resources to describe the brand image of China’s HSR. Firstly, in terms of the use of judgement resources, writers most frequently utilize “capacity” resources to build a positive country-of-origin image. However, under the category of judgement, there are also some negative comments on the ethics of China’s rail ministry. Secondly, writers generally use positive appreciation sources to describe the image of product, with valuation resources used most frequently. As is shown in the table 18 above, Chinese news media believe that China’s HSR has state-of-art technology, thoughtful service, is environmental-friendly and brings positive economic benefits. Although it has safety issues before, China’s HSR has made a lot of improvements. As for the ticket price, Chinese news media believe it is a little expensive. Western news media believe that China’s HSR is advanced in technology, great in its service, environmental-friendly. But they still have concerns over the safety issues, and believe that HSR ticket price is expensive and brings mixed economic implications. As for the country-of-origin image, the evaluations of both kinds of media are as follows
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