Part1 Blog
To improve the online delivery of the news story China Rises in Global Soft Power Index from China Daily, I propose the following suggestions:
- Add links
Embed hyperlinks to the important information in the article, 2025 Global Soft Power Index by Brand Finance and Brand Finance Global 500, to provide readers with deeper background and reliable data sources, enriching the content and credibility of the article.
- Enhance visual effects
The article mentions a lot about the improvement of China’s ranking in economy, technology, culture, and tourism. Adding some relevant infographics can show this change more clearly. In addition, the article also mentions many Chinese brands, such as Huawei, BYD, TikTok, etc., charts showing them can be made to let readers quickly understand.
- Set titles
The current text logic is clear, but lacks regional division. Subheadings should be added appropriately to divide the text into several clearly themed sections, which will make it easier for readers to capture important information and make it easier to read.
These improvements only require a small amount of multimedia support and format adjustments based on the text. By integrating these elements, the story will be more attractive, easier to understand and easier to share.
(Word Count: 203)
Appendix
Brand Finance. (2025). Global soft power index 2025.
https://static.brandirectory.com/reports/brand-finance-soft-power-index-2025-digital.pdf
Brand Finance. (2024). Global 500 2024 report.
https://brandfinance.com/insights/global-500-2024-report
Part2 Comparative online journalism analysis
Introduction
The news industry has undergone various changes in the digital age. Traditional news brands and digital-born media are trying new ways to spread news on online platforms. This article selects the theme of “soft power” to analyze the online news reports of China Daily and Axios. From the perspective of their writing style, content production, online delivery, etc., analyzing how they have different narratives on the same topic under different institutional backgrounds and writing logics.
Comparison of context and audience
China Daily is an international mainstream online news publication from Beijing, China. It was founded in June 1981 and launched its online version in 1995. As a state-owned enterprise, it is affiliated with the Chinese Propaganda Department and is a “State Controlled Media” under the Chinese national media matrix.
China Daily’s main source of funding is government subsidies, supplemented by a small amount of advertising that serves the national narrative. In fact, readers rarely see or feel the existence of advertisements while browsing the website.
The news it publishes focuses on political news in China and the world, and conveys China’s official position in its reports. It also provides information on economy, culture, and society, and always maintains the tone of highlighting Chinese values and shaping China’s image.
China Daily said that more than 36 million readers from 180 countries have downloaded the China Daily client, mainly high-end groups such as diplomats, international organizations, journalists and foreign tourists. According to similarweb data, 58.83% of readers who bring traffic to China Daily are from mainland China, 10.76% are from the United States, followed by Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada and other places. It can be seen that to a certain extent, the website has achieved its goal of introducing China to the world.
Axios Media is a digital-born news platform that emerged from the Internet in January 2017. It is an American private holding company owned by Cox Enterprises.
Its funding comes from advertising, sponsorship, subscriptions and corporate cooperation. Axios has set a series of etiquette and language standards for advertising, especially rejecting ineffective pop-up ads that distract readers, and instead adopting native ads within the platform.
Axios claims that its mission is to “get readers smarter, faster on what matters.” It is committed to providing concise, data-driven reports for professionals. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that its content is mainly in the form of newsletters, which are usually short and can be said to be designed for digital platforms. This can also be seen from its practice of moving articles to platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn to meet the needs of the audience.
According to data provided by 1st Party Data, for example, 96% of Senate offices subscribe, 1m+ monthly uniques are C-Suite readers, which all indicate that Axios readers are well-educated and have high stickiness and consumption power.
Comparison of news reports
The article in China Daily introduces the topic with the ranking data of the global soft power index released by Brand Finance, a London brand valuation company, and gives a macro introduction. Then it analyzes the economy, brand, culture and other aspects in detail, confirming the improvement of China’s soft power.
The whole article relies on Brand Finance’s research to provide a lot of data, and the most convincing part is the comparison of data with a time span. For example, China’s “reputation” has risen from 56th in 2021 to 27th now. These rich data support the article’s point of view from many aspects.
However, due to China Daily’s propaganda orientation, the article uses formal language and lists a series of data showing China’s improvement in strength. It does not mention controversial issues and development defects, lacking multiple perspectives and critical tendencies.
From this report, we can see that China Daily has a lot of room for improvement in the use of multimedia. The Online Journalism Handbook lists examples of adding visual effects to posts to increase forwarding, comments, and likes, confirming that visual effects are the most important content to consider when posting updates on online platforms (Bradshaw, 2024, p. 111). However, this report only has one image of “people visiting BYD booth at the auto show”, which has a weak connection with the development of Chinese brands mentioned in the article, and has little support for the content of the article. At the same time, even though a large amount of data is mentioned, it is not made into some visual charts, and the advantage of rich information is not brought into play.
As an online news platform, China Daily also has problems in online delivery. The articles on the platform are more like traditional newspapers moved to the web page, without making more use of the convenience provided by the network platform.
For the author, the platform does not provide specific contact information, and the brief introduction is also to make the article more authoritative. This keeps the news release unidirectional. In addition, China Daily’s posts do not provide a comment area, which shows that the platform is a distribution channel rather than a space for dialogue.
At the same time, it can be seen that China Daily did not give more extended reading to this post on the theme of “soft power”. More display posts provided on the page are themes such as Most Viewed in 24 Hours and Special Coverage, which are not related to the article. One of the key points of online writing is to use hyperlinks to provide additional context and credibility (Journalism. University, 2024). China Daily not only fails to capture readers’ interest and encourage them to continue reading more posts, but also has no internal or external links in the full text, which is not friendly for providing extended reading and enhancing the credibility of information.
Compared with China Daily, Axios has a more distinct network platform feature. The article begins by pointing out the subversive and transactional nature of Trump’s diplomacy, and then confirms his behavior of weakening the global influence of the United States by introducing Trump’s reduction of foreign aid. Finally, it compares the current policy with the traditional propositions of the Republican Party, showing a more obvious critical attitude. As a domestic media that evaluates the soft power of its own country, Axios does not undertake the task of promoting the image of the country, which makes its writing sharper and more personalized, and can establish a sense of connection with readers to a certain extent (Journalism. University, 2024).
The “Smart Brevity” advocated by Axios may have led to insufficient use of multimedia, but it can be seen that it is trying to make effective use of it. Only two pictures appear in this article. The first picture is more like an image of the article cover and has nothing to do with the content of the article. The second picture visualizes the US foreign aid expenditure in fiscal year 2023 in the form of a world map. When the reader drags the cursor to a specific point, it can also display the region and amount, which is a good auxiliary to the information about Trump’s withdrawal of foreign aid in the article.
The most effective use of the online platform in this article is the inclusion of a large number of internal and external links, a total of 21. For example, the article about Trump and Elon Musk’s rapid dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development links to another Axios current affairs article What is USAID, the federal agency the Trump admin is gutting, which focuses on USAID and expands on the functions and influence of the agency that was briefly mentioned in this article. External links are also fully utilized, such as Trump Administration Highlights: Nearly All Jobs Are Said to Be Cut at Aid Agency from the New York Times, which specifically introduces how Trump weakened USAID. At the same time, the highly relevant Go deeper section provides a selection of extended reading, and readers can jump directly to other articles from Axios. This setting undoubtedly provides readers with the opportunity to directly access resources and a personalized path to further areas (Harmer & Southern, 2020, p. 2237).
Axios does not seem to pursue interactivity too much. It claims that the articles are written to provide information, analysis, and explanation. In order to prevent incitement or debate, there will never be an opinion section. In the absence of comments and interactions, although the author’s homepage with contact information is provided, the response rate cannot be guaranteed. This setting is to some extent avoiding the responsibility of public discussion and weakening the possibility of further interaction among users.
Conclusion
In general, China Daily and Axios have provided very different styles of news works in interpreting the theme of soft power. As a mainstream traditional brand, China Daily has not shown the effect of online news on enhancing readers’ understanding and interaction due to its government management background and insufficient adaptation to digital platforms. As a digital native news website, Axios provides personalized content production and online delivery, but can still improve in aspects such as reader interaction.
Word Count: 1520
Appendix
China rises in global soft power index
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202503/12/WS67d0dd14a310c240449da4b3.html
The death of American soft power
https://www.axios.com/2025/02/07/trump-soft-power-diplomacy-tariffs
chinadaily.com.cn Website Analysis for February 2025
https://www.similarweb.com/website/chinadaily.com.cn/#overview
Axios Readership Data
https://www.axios.com/advertise/reach
Reference
Bradshaw, P. (2024). The Online Journalism Handbook: Skills to Survive and Thrive in the Digital Age (Second edition., Vol. 1). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429321566
Journalism.University. (2024, January 10). Key features and characteristics distinguishing online writing. https://journalism.university/broadcast-and-online-journalism/key-features-characteristics-online-writing/
Harmer, E., & Southern, R. (2020). Is Digital News Really that Digital? An Analysis of How Online News Sites in the UK use Digital Affordances to Enhance Their Reporting. Journalism Studies (London, England), 21(16), 2234–2248. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2020.1831397
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