United Kingdom and Chinese newspaper coverage of BP Oil spill
British Petroleum came under severe criticism from around the world when in April 2010 the company lost control of marine drilling operations and caused a major oil spill in Gulf of Mexico. The disaster claimed 11 lives and injured many others. Apart from human loss, the oil spill also resulted in massive loss of precious oil as 205.8 million gallons of crude oil gushed out of the well and no amount of effort worked to cap the well.[Maureen, 2010] The well with active resources of oil was losing 53,000 barrels per day when it was finally closed in July-august 2010. But by then the oil spill had caused major damage to life and property, and it continues to cause problems for sea life in Gulf of Mexico as the latest deaths of dolphins is found connected with BP oil spill.
The world media got actively involved in the story as soon as it came out. Over the period of next few months, it followed every move made by BP to cap the well. However while the UK and Chinese media reported the events as they happened without twisting the facts, there was still some difference that could be seen in the reports from two countries. These differences were more due to cultural and political influences than journalistic quality and expertise.
While China focused on the possible consequences, UK was more interested in looking for the responsible party in the matter. It showed cultural influences because Chinese people do not believe in questioning the authority and hence the style they adopted was non-confrontational. United Kingdom media on the other hand showed sentimental and emotional attachment to one of its biggest organizations by treating it slightly more objectively and staying conservative on the issue of damage caused by the spill.
Introduction:
This paper compares how the media in China and United Kingdom presented the news of BP oil spills to the public. In any news coverage, there are bound to be some cultural influences, which can account for the difference in stories or their interpretation with the audience. BP oil spill 2010 was a national disaster for UK even though it did not happen in the UK but British Petroleum being one of the biggest assets of UK; it was naturally treated as a national problem when BP came under serious attack for its lack of responsible behavior in offshore drilling. For china on the other hand, there was no such sentimental or emotional attachment to British Petroleum and hence it could present a more objective view.
Analysis:
BP oil spill caused major furor in the news world because of varieties of reasons including possible loss of life and property. When media began reporting, some differences could be seen in the use of language, contents and placement of burden issues. United Kingdom media with the exception of the Independent was mostly sympathetic to BP because of this organization being one of the greatest to carry the name of Britain around the world. Chinese media had no such sympathy but it was mostly non-confrontational in style. It focused more on the events, their description and possible consequences. Analysis and interpretation were largely missing from news presented by Chinese media. UK media was more analytical in its approach but looked for someone other than BP to blame. China had its own judgment issues which were influenced by political matters and cultural conditioning. The influences that could most obviously cloud the judgment of Chinese media were grounded in years of rivalry between Chinese and English imperial forces and the fear of world domination by the western powers. China is no doubt a major power in the world now and is in a comfortable position to dominate the world but it cannot shrug off the struggle for domination by western powers which had resulted in many wars and many international conflicts. Hence Chinese media could very easily misconstrue the whole story even though the media often tries to stay objective. It was still not possible for China to completely ignore the west and its power hunger during the coverage of this story.
Apart from those political influences, there are some cultural influences as well. For example China focused more on risk management and
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