National hero and model minority: media representations of Chien-Ming Wang in Taiwan and in the US, 2005 To 2009

This thesis examines the media representations of Chien-Ming Wang, a Taiwanese baseball player who played for the New York Yankees, in American and Taiwanese print media from 2005 to 2009. Wang had been attracting media attention in both the United States and in Taiwan during the time because of his athletic performance and dual identities in the two places. The results show that the Taiwanese media usually placed heavy emphasis on his national identity, making him one of the most high-profile athletes in Taiwan. On the other hand, as a foreign player and an Asian athlete, his racial identity was sometimes the focus of the American media. While he had been generally portrayed in a positive way, his Asian identity is still well-scrutinized. I argue that his media representations in the United States fit the model minority discourse which remains the typical perception in the US, meaning that stereotypical characteristics of Asians or Asian Americans are emphasized or overrepresented.