West Meets East: A Discourse Analysis of News About Adopted Chinese Children in American Families.

Along with the wave of Chinese adoptions in the United States, narratives of the complexities and emotional turbulence experienced in the process of transracial, international adoptions have appeared in media with increasing frequency. Discourses in the new media about adopted Chinese in American families may reveal an underlying power struggle and what shapes the current culture of Chinese adoption in the United States. The purpose of research for this paper was to explore coverage of Chinese transnational adoptions in selected media - the Washington Post and the New York Times since 1992. It is believed that coverage in the last 15 years may reflect significant social change in attitudes about adoptions and perhaps about the attitude toward Chinese government in the United States. Three patens of discourses regarding adoptive parents- adoptees relationship, adotees' identities and the role played by the Chinese government in the adoption process were found in this research. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]