A Framework Study On The Report Of The Beijing Winter Olympics By The Times And The New York Times

As a major international sporting event,the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing has attracted much media attention from all over the world,representing an important moment of solidarity and exchange between the human world and an important opportunity for the host country to present a positive national image.This paper explores how the Western mainstream media covered the Beijing Winter Olympic Games in a complex international public opinion environment and what frames were used to present them.The study applies content analysis and textual analysis from the perspective of framing theory to conduct a comparative study of the Beijing Winter Olympics coverage by The Times and The New York Times,which represent the Western mainstream media.The specific features of the framing of the two newspapers are described quantitatively and statistically,and then qualitatively refined to compare the similarities and differences between the framing of the two newspapers and the underlying reasons.The study also analyses in detail the typical sample cases under the different frameworks.The study found that,firstly,the similarities between the frameworks of The Times and The New York Times in their coverage of the Beijing Winter Olympics are: the “human rights violations” framework in the “watchful waiting period” from February 2021 to November 2021,which mainly reflects The “diplomatic boycott” framework of the“resistance to threats” period from December 2021 to January 2022 is mainly characterised by a “cold approach” dominated by international relations.The “national medals” frame for the “controversy aside” period from the opening ceremony to the closing ceremony is mainly a positive feature focusing on the athletes.Secondly,the two newspapers differ in their individual frames: the Times uses a wait-and-see and caution frame following a shift in attitude towards China;the New York Times uses a falsely neutral frame in the context of globalisation.The study concludes that the causes of the framing of the two newspapers are closely related to four factors: firstly,the shifting relations and competing interests of nation states,and the political and diplomatic relations between China,the United States and Britain are important factors influencing the framing of media coverage;secondly,the Western mainstream media are deeply “poisoned” by Orientalist ideology and have a negative bias towards China.Thirdly,the long-standing hegemony of the “democratic human rights”discourse has influenced the construction of the framework;fourthly,in order to cater to the demands of Western athletes’ sports activism,the two newspapers have engaged in politicisation of sports that is contrary to the Olympic spirit.Based on the findings of the study,this paper proposes four levels of optimisation for China’s external communication in international sporting events: the communicator level,the content level,the media level and the audience level.Firstly,at the communicator level,it is necessary to enhance the persuasive power of discourse and public opinion guidance,strengthen the sports story and humanistic concern under the concept of “community of human destiny”,seize the opportunity of controversial points,and break the Western “human rights” discourse stereotype.At the content level,we will focus on cross-cultural communication,integrate various forms of content,especially weakening political “hard communication”,focusing on humanistic and emotional “soft communication”,and enriching presentation forms to present a multi-perspective picture of Chinese sports.At the media level,we will establish an awareness of the mediaisation of sport,set up all-media communication channels,optimise the communication network in which the government,media and public help each other,pay attention to the interaction on overseas social media platforms and give full play to the power of opinion leaders.At the audience level,we will carry out targeted stratified communication,establish a contextual adaptation space,and implement a “one-country-one-strategy” communication strategy according to the target countries to meet the interests of different groups and meet their differentiated needs.