National Narrative in China's Mainstream Media Coverage of Major International Sporting Events: Comparison of Beijing and Milan Winter Olympics
Abstract
Against the background of globalization and the deep reconstruction of international communication patterns by developing media technology, international sports events have become the key field for a country to shape its image and compete for the right to speak internationally. Based on the agenda-setting theory, this study focuses on the topic of "presentation of national narrative" in domestic mainstream media reports, and makes a comparative study of the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 and the Olympic Winter Games Milano-Cortina 2026. Three domestic mainstream media, Xinhua News Agency, People's Daily and CMG News, are selected as the research objects, and 90 effective reports are coded and statistically analyzed by the content analysis method. It is found that in the Beijing Winter Olympics hosted domestically, the media generally adopted a highly centralized and strong agenda-setting strategy to construct a comprehensive national image with strong national strength and cultural self-confidence, while in Milano, which participated overseas, the strategy of agenda setting without overexertion was generally adopted. The data also shows that the length of reports, the degree of topic centralization and the proportion of topic length are positively correlated with the prominence of national narrative, and the distribution of media agenda directly guides the public's cognitive focus on national narrative.
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