The Research On Sino-US Sports Exchange And Construction Of National Image

Under the historical background of current culture development and prosperity,spreading Chinese culture and strengthening cultural exchange with other countrieshave become the demands of time and historical mission for China’s transformationdevelopment. As an important part of human social culture, sports also needs an openmind in the open era. In the Sino-US exchange history, long-standing sports exchangeof two countries is the most frequent international cultural exchange full of vitality. Asa major part of international sports exchange, the Sino-US sports exchange is animportant channel to build the national image.“Sports is a common languagetranscending national boundaries and cultural differences,” and features uniquecultural value and exchange function. National image is understood, identified andintensified in the sports exchange. Therefore, this research chooses building nationalimage in Sino-US sports exchange as its subject.This research, guided by relevant theories of culturology and communicationscience, by using document study, case analysis, content analysis and other studyways, by studying historical evolution of pre-modern and modern Sino-US sportsexchange, elaborates the content, characteristics and value of pre-modern and modernSino-US sports exchange and discusses the evolution of national image in Sino-USsports exchange by drawing lessons from history. By researching formation process ofnational image in sports exchange, it constructs national image control mode,discusses basic elements that sports exchange influences on national image. Fromsports interpersonal communication, sports organizational communication, messmedia communication and other communication channels, it analyzes national imagein the Sino-US sports exchange construction and reveals realistic difficulties inbuilding national image in sports exchange so as to put forward the strategies tooptimize national image and provide reference for health development of Sino-USsports exchange and improvement of China’s national imageThe results of research show that:According to relevant literature material and expert interview results, it gets theoperational definition of Sino-US sports exchange and national image. Sino-US sportsexchanges is a social acation in which two parties of sports influence on, interact andassociate with each other, and reflects the contact and association of people, groupsand nations related to the sports. In this research, the national image in Sino-US sportsexchange is China’s inner image in Sino-US sports exchange (CI-NI), namely overallperception and evaluation of domestic people to the nation under the specific contextof Sino-US sports exchange.Based on the historical research paradigm, it analyzes content, characteristics andvalue of modern Sino-US sports exchange. The sports lifestyle brought by Chinese expatriates in the West including the US plays an important demonstration role forpre-modern China sports; the Young Men’s Christian Association is an importantorganization system for western sports’ promotion, popularization and exchangeamong domestic people; and the missionary schools founded in China by missionariesfrom the US play a bridge role for putting sports to China. In modern Sino-US sportsexchange, sports events are major ways for Sino-US sports exchange; sports culture isa soul of Sino-US sports exchange; sports education is an important field for China’sand US’ sports to realize mutual learning and fusion; and civil sports is an importantdevelopment trend of Sino-US sports exchange.On the basis of combing Sino-US sports exchange historical material, itelaborates and analyzes national image in modern Sino-US sports exchange. Invarious historical periods of Sino-US sports exchange, national image always swungbetween two extremes. The national image in pre-modern Sino-US sports exchangewent through an evolvement process of “Utopia–Sick Man of Asia–national state;”and the national image in modern Sino-US sports exchange went through “friendlyChina–emerging China–Chinese medicine–great power image.” The evolvementfeatures of national image in pre-modern and modern Sino-US sports exchange showthat: national image embodies historical characteristics of gradual development; anddiversified national image presents characteristics of polarization.Based on outline theory of psychology, it analyzes formation process of nationalimage in sports exchange. It was believed that background sensation image enterspublic communication field through interpersonal communication, organizationalcommunication, mass communication and other communication ways, gainsinformation scope of relevant exchange countries in real world and thereby forms acyclic process going round and round. Based on system cybernetics principle, itconstructs national image control mode and uncovers factors influencing on nationalimage control. The control main body of national image utilizes three communicationchannels, the sports interpersonal communication, sports organizationalcommunication and mass media, to realize control objective of national imageconstruction.On the basis of supranational relations and public diplomacy theory, it analyzesimportant role of the individuals in public diplomacy as non-national behavior subject.Sports stars have become a direct cognitive channel for building national image.China should use US’ sports public diplomatic envoy mode as a reference and launchChina’s sports public diplomatic envoy. Based on organizational communication andcultural circulation theory, it analyzes travel path of NBA and Tai Chi fitness in Chinaand the US. Sports organizational communication is a drive channel for the construction of national image and is to spread Chinese culture through sportsorganizations, to build a cultural China image and to foster identification of domesticpeople to China’s traditional sports culture. Based on the theory of media events, itanalyzed sports events’ double attributes including spreading national image. Takingthe topics about Yao Ming on "People Daily" from2002to2011as a text, it analyzesYao Ming’s role in building national image as a symbolic figure of Sino-US sportsexchange and points out mass media will become a major communication channel tobuild national image.In the realistic difficulties of building national image in Sino-US sports exchange,objective existence of cultural differences between China and the US, strong US butweak China in international sports exchange mechanism, the “he-building”phenomenon in China’s image construction as well as problems in self-buildingnational image in sports exchange restrict the improvement of China’s sportscommunication power and accordingly weaken the national image. Starting from thedifficulties of building national image in Sino-US sports exchange, it puts forward itsstrategies to optimize China’s image in multiple areas including enlarginginternational communication of China’s traditional sports, enhancing the constructionof speaking right of China’s sports, utilizing various media forces to build nationalimage and launching China’s sports public diplomacy envoy.