An Analysis of Article Layout and Differences in Opinions of Articles from The Guardian, Bloomberg and Financial Times

邬盈盈

Abstract

In 2020, China reported only 12 million births, the fourth consecutive annual decline. The fertility rate for the year, 1.3 children per woman, was far below the level 2.1 needed just to maintain the population. Therefore, at the end of May, Chinese government announced a new three-child policy to further relax population controls, which aroused heated debate at home and abroad. This paper aims to analyze foreign media’s narrative styles and attitudes on the topic, through a case study of three selected articles from The Guardian, Bloomberg and Financial Times.

Key words: three-child policy; The Guardian; Bloomberg; Financial Times

Introduction

Since 1979, China has implemented the one-child policy, leading to a declining population and a rapidly ageing society. In order to slow down the trend of population ageing, the CCP in 2015 officially launched the two-child policy. However, the policy did not result in the expected wave of births. In this regard, the three-child policy was announced during the 2020 NPC session. In the thesis, three articles on the same topic have been selected from The Guardian, Bloomberg and Financial Times. By discussing their differences in structures and opinions, it is going to give a brief explanation of the reasons behind.

An Analysis of Article Layout and Differences in Opinions of Articles from The Guardian, Bloomberg and Financial Times

Chapter 1 Different Article Layouts of the Three Selected Articles

From the perspective of article layout, The Guardian focuses the most on expressing opinions but the least on describing facts, with Bloomberg being the opposite and Financial Times lying in between. Specifically speaking, the majority of the article taken from The Guardian reviews China’s Three-Child Policy from its background and potential impacts, and brings forward possible solutions and certain predictions. For example, the background mentioned in the article is China’s one-child policy, which was enacted due to “China’s apparent demographic travails” as “an existential threat to the country’s economic and geopolitical future”. And the viable solutions put forward in the article are that China should resort to talent pidend (rencai hongli) instead of demographic pidend (renkou hongli) in the future, or “learn from the mistakes of other countries that have already aged, and build ever-more resilient social and economic institutions to support elderly people”.

Chapter 2 Differences in Opinions of the Three Selected Articles

Among the three articles, the one from The Guardian holds the most intense viewpoints, then Financial Times, the last being Bloomberg. To illustrate this, there are two aspects to judge from--the first is their attitudes toward China’s one-child policy; the second is their comments on nowadays’ three-child policy. Initially, it is commonly known that China’s one-child policy is designed to control the size of the rapidly growing population, existing for over 30 years from 1979 to 2015. Bloomberg describes it as the “birth restriction”, meaning “the government encouraged rural women to have fewer children”, and that was when China’s fertility rate decline “culminates”; more critical is Financial Times, which harshly points out that “the one-child policy has led to so much state intrusion into women’s bodies that the trauma is still far from being aired”; The Guardian refers to the policy as a “carrot and stick” approach, and poignantly states that “to completely abandon the birth restriction policy would be a remarkable U-turn that would be perceived as an implicit statement about the wisdom and efficacy of China’s original one-child policy”, tinged with a little bit irony.

Chapter 3 Reasons for Different Article Layouts and Differences in Opinions of the Three Selected Articles

Apparently, the first reason for the three articles’ different layouts, is that they are published in three different media, with their own historical origins and focuses respectively. Founded in 1821 by a cotton merchant John Edward Taylor with a group of non-conformist businessmen, The Guardian is a British daily newspaper, reported to be the most-read of the UK’s “quality newsbrands”. More than 60 years later, Financial Times was founded in 1888, seeking to report on city business opposite the Financial News. It was not until September 1929 that the youngest among the three--Bloomberg Businessweek was first published in 

New York City, weeks before the stock market crash of 1929. With the other two--Financial Times and Bloomberg being more business-oriented, The Guardian, in pursuit of financial and editorial independence, journalistic freedom and liberal values, is more expressive, acute and penetrating. In comparison, Bloomberg and Financial Times, thus, become more conservative and objective.

Conclusion

After probing into the structures and opinions of the three articles from The Guardian, Bloomberg, and Financial Times, the paper is able to draw the following conclusions. First and foremost, most part of The Guardian’s article is giving opinions, while two-thirds of Financial Times’s article is expressing views, and most content in Bloomberg’s article is stating facts. Secondly, The Guardian’s opinions are the most thought-provoking and comprehensive among the three, and those made by Financial Times are to the point, Bloomberg still remaining relatively objective. Last but not least, on the one hand the causes are that the three foreign media in question have different origins and focuses; on the other hand, the three take their own distinctive stances, therefore, in combination with Fairclough’s three patterns in discourse, it is clear to understand their differences in article layout and viewpoints.

Bibliography

1. Stuart Gietel-Basten. China’s New Three-Child Policy Won’t Fix Its Economy--But It Could Change Lives[N]. The Guardian. June 2, 2021.

2. Tom Hancock, Yujing Liu, Kari Soo Lindberg, James Mayger, Philip Glamann. China Moves to Three-Child Policy to Boost Falling Birthrate[J]. Bloomberg. May 31, 2021.

Yuan Yang. China’s Three-Child Policy May Not Halt the Demographic Free Fall[N]. Financial Times. June 1, 2021.邬盈盈17816118696浙江省杭州市滨江区南岸晶都花园18号楼2单元1101室（1本）