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Graduate thesis: The New Kid on the (Lunar) Block
APPLICATION OF GAME THEORY MODELING TO INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
REPORTING OF CHINA’S CHANG’E 3 LUNAR LANDING
Abstract
After 40 years of being left untouched, the lunar surface was visited by a Chinese rover in 2013. The
significance of this landing was not only the technological advancement of Chinese space technology, but it
was also the first time, after
a
long time, that the moon had been visited at all; most importantly, by a country other than the Soviet Union
and the United States. Given the significance of the event as one that occurred by a 3rd country that was not
a member of the
original
Cold War ‘Space Race’, the response of the original two Space Race contestants would appear to be a critical
barometer of attitude towards increasingly crowded heavens. Media analysis on that Chinese rover landing in
2013 suggests, from a
game
theory perspective, an approach rooted in pragmatism – a nash equilibrium outcome when it comes to reporting
on Chinese space activities; a non-optimal, but stable, the advancement of common interests. This paper tests
that theory out by
conducting an in-depth critical analysis of media reporting from both the American and Russian side to
determine whether or not the ‘New Kid on the Lunar Block’ is indeed being treated through this lens, or if
reporting suggests a different
mediated reality, one rooted either in extremely positive or extremely negative socio-political views of
Chinese’s advancement into a literal space reserved until 2013 for the classic giants of the Space Race.
Introduction
The USA is the only country, up to the current time, that has successfully completed manned missions to the
Moon. Although unable to complete a manned mission, until 2013 Russia has been the only other space power
capable of successfully
landing on the Moon. China, since 2013, is just
the third country to successfully land a human object on the lunar surface.
While the global media has not celebrated China’s Chang’e Lunar program as much as that of its two
predecessors, the importance of China’s technological achievement should not be underestimated. China’s
success with its lunar missions will
certainly affect future technologies and policies. As China enters the ‘Space Race’, it is interesting to
study how Russian and American
media react to China’s success and its upcoming missions.
From 1976 to 2013, despite significant technological progress in space technology, there had not been a
single human or robotic landing on the lunar surface. On December 14, 2013, the China Space Agency
successfully landed the Chang’e 3
rover at the rim of a small crater on the Moon. While not nearly as widely reported internationally as the
prior lunar landing missions in the
1960’s and 1970’s, this singular event represented not only the first successful lunar landing mission in
almost 4 decades, but it also represented the first time there was a ‘proverbial’ new kid
on the block – a competitor to the classic titans of the cold war ‘space race’, with an apparent
capacity for technological parity that could easily equal or surpass Russia or the United States.
Given the significance of the ‘new kid on the block’, this article applies classical game theory modeling to
media reporting and asks the basic question: how did Russia and the United States react? To the extent that
media reporting, whether
through state-sponsored or private media channels, represents an accurate ‘voice of the country’, we can use
the tonality and orientation of their reporting as an indicator of perception of the ‘new kid on the block’ as
either a classic
‘friend or foe’ and determine, by extension, which model of game theory most nearly fits the behavior of
Russia and the United States.