本研究以《人民日报》和《纽约时报》为样本，从信源的角度探讨了中美主流媒体在西藏问题报道上的差异，进而探讨这些差异是否会影响报道本身的态度和观点、会造成什么样的传播效果、帮助谁的声音成功地发表了对西藏问题的看法，最终提升或者压低了哪些观点在公众舆论中的地位。研究证明了一个基本的假设：两家媒体进行西藏议题报道时在信源选择上有着明显的路径依赖，而信源对两家媒体涉藏报道的态度有明显的潜在影响。这为我们在涉藏信息的对外传播中加强与西方媒体和社会的对话沟通、改进中国媒体的报道质量提供了一个具有可操作性的新视角。

Our research, based on a comparison between People´s Daily and The New York Times of Tibet-related reports, sets out to analyze their difference in source choicesand tries to answer a series of questions concerned: whether such a difference will influence their positions and attitudes in reports; what different communication effects will be therefore produced (whose voices are successfully made heard; which voices in public are affected positively or negatively). The paper has confirmed a basic hypothesis: both of the two newspapers have obviously their own path dependence on source choices, which apparently exerts a potential influence on their attitudes in Tibet-related reports. Such a conclusion provides thus a new and operative approach to enhance the communication with western media as well as societies and to ameliorate Chinese media reports in external dissemination of Tibet issue.