A STUDY OF SHANGHAI'S CITY IMAGE PORTRAYED BY JAPANESE MAINSTREAM MEDIA

Shanghai, as a microcosm of China's urbanization development, has received much attention from international media. Previous studies, based on world systems theory, agenda-setting theory and framing theory, have explored the influencing factors in Shanghai’s city image and its media representation with a focus on the U.S. or other Western countries and little mention of Asian countries. This study used data collection software and captured 196 piece of news from Google platforms with a keyword of "Shanghai" between January 1, 2018 and December 30, 2020 from five Japanese mainstream media, and used content analysis to show how five major Japanese mainstream media portray “Shanghai” and explore the frames that Japanese media used in their Shanghai coverage. The study finds that the Japanese mainstream media have a clear tendency to interpret Shanghai's political and social image negatively and confrontationally, present its cultural and scientific image understandingly and approvingly, and fill its economic image with uncertainty and oscillation. Based on these findings, this paper suggests that shared development should be used as common ground to improve how media from other countries interpret China's city image, and that Chinese media should also take the initiative to set the public agenda, respond to popular international issues timely, and shape Shanghai's city image.