Media Mirroring: A Framework Analysis Of Western Media Coverage On Beijing Winter Olympics

The Olympic Games and other major international sporting events are important windows and platforms for communicating the national image of the country bidding to host the event,and are also major news topics that the media in various countries compete to cover.However,due to conflicting interests and ideological differences,there is often a significant difference between the national image of the host country and the image that the media in the recipient country is trying to convey.As one of the few ’double Olympic cities’ in the world,Beijing and China have received a great deal of media attention during the process of bidding for and hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics.Through the coverage of the Beijing Winter Olympics,the international media disseminate information about the preparations for the event and the political,economic,cultural and technological aspects of the host country,promoting the media construction of China’s image.Based on media mirroring and media framing theories,this study analyses how the Western media have constructed China’s national image through their news production activities,and to what extent this construction has influenced Western audiences’ perceptions of China’s national image from the perspective of communication effects.Four representative media outlets in the UK and the US were selected as case studies for this study.Using the terms "Beijing Olympic","Beijing 2022" and "2022 Winter Olympic" as search terms,the four Western media outlets were searched for on their official websites.The four Western media outlets were searched for news stories about the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and downloaded and collated.A total of 961 articles were collected,covering the period from November 6,2013 to July 4,2022.The study conducted word frequency analysis and cluster analysis on the collected and collated news reports,extracted the content framework of each report through three-level coding based on rooting theory,and also selected representative reports for case study.Based on this,in-depth interviews were conducted with visitors to the Olympic Park in the City of Stratford,North East London,UK from March to April 2022,after the Beijing Winter Olympics,using a progressive sampling method,and the audience interview data were coded and analysed.Based on these analyses,the following conclusions were drawn from this study.(1)The coverage of the Beijing Winter Olympics involved the use of a rich and threedimensional vocabulary,with all types of words being covered.However,there are significant differences in the vocabulary used in the reports at different times,with political vocabulary appearing before the opening of the Winter Olympics and sports vocabulary appearing after the opening of the Winter Olympics.(2)Based on the content analysis of media reports,five content frames were identified,namely sports frame,political frame,human interest frame,moral frame and race frame,and the characteristics of Western media reports were analysed in multiple dimensions by introducing dimensions such as publication time and,content sentiment and political issues.The study found that before the start of the Winter Olympics the Western media coverage was dominated by the political frame and the human interest frame,after the start of the games the sports frame dominated,while the race frame became a more specific frame for the coverage of major sporting events.(3)The thesis summarises the characteristics of audiences’ perceptions of China’s national image across age,occupation,ethnicity and social background.Based on the analysis of the media content framework and the audience’s cognitive framework,the research proposes recommendations for the international communication of China’s national image,including fully understanding the current media image of China in the Western media,quickly identifying international public opinion,reasonably choosing international communication issues,grasping the right to define and interpret international events,focusing on visual UGC content,and following the path of "material-spiritual-cultural" identity construction.The Chinese government has also been working on the construction of a "material-spiritual-cultural" identity.