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Ricky Chen
History

Roxann Prazniak, Mentor

Media Representations of the 1989 Student Movement in Tiananmen Square

At its height, the1989 Chinese Student Movement attracted over one million supporters in Tiananmen Square. Media coverage of this movement was worldwide, and student leaders consciously played to media impact. This paper will examine the representations of the student movement in English-language print media, focusing on the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, London Times, and the South China Morning Post from March through September 1989. This is the first survey of its kind. The expected outcome is an analysis of the ways in which the student movement tailored itself to the media’s interpretations of events in 1989. To what extent did the movement shape its representation abroad, and, contrastingly, to what extent did the media influence the movement? These are the questions we expect to answer in this research.