AN EXAMINATION OF THE FIRST- AND SECOND-LEVEL OF AGENDA BUILDING WITH THE IMAGE OF CHINA'S PRESIDENT XI JINPING IN XINHUA AND FOUR U.S. NEWS OUTLETS

Sources provide information subsidies to journalists at a low cost with the intention of passing on their agendas by providing the information subsidies to the media. This process is called agenda building, serving as the theoretical framework guiding this study.Many studies have examined agenda building in political campaigns, while others have looked at it in a business context. This study tries to further test agenda building by investigating in the context of mediated public diplomacy to see how foreign leaders use the news to build images in another country. Such image building efforts have the potential to influence the perceptions of foreign nations and political figures.On November 15, 2012, China welcomed a new chairman, Xi Jinping. This study examines how the Xinhua News Agency utilizes news releases for building the image of President Xi in the US. The issue and attribute agendas of four of the elite U.S. media outlets, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and the Associated Press were compared to those of the Xinhua News Agency in regards to President Xi. The sampling periods are from November 2012 to March 2013 and from November 2013 to March 2014.The results show that the Xinhua News Agency had an impact on the issue agenda of The New York Times. No evidence was found for the second-level agenda building. However, the direction of the agenda building effect was proved to be from the Xinhua to the U.S. news media. Consistency of the issue and attribute agendas found among the U.S. news outlets implied inter-media agenda setting effects.