Framing the Games: US Media Coverage of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics

Abstract

The Olympics are a media behemoth. Much media coverage of the Games is straight-up sports fare delivered in the predictable rhythms of victory and defeat. However, with the Beijing 2022 Winter Games, US media outlets offered significant coverage exploring the political and human-rights concerns. This paper identifies and analyzes the predominant frames that US media outlets employed when covering the Beijing Olympics. The empirical data for this study derive from the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, the four most-circulated newspapers in the country. The timeframe includes the lead-up to the Games, the actual Olympics, and the aftermath. This systematic content analysis—which examines both hard news and opinion journalism—also engages in indexing analysis: tracking who journalists turn to for insight and comment and how this affects the discourse bandwidth and the emergence of predominant frames.

The “Descendant of Dragon” or an “American Dreamer”? The Flow of Identity in the Media Discourse of Eileen Gu Between China and the US

“…Despite scholarly disagreement on the perceived relationship between sports and politics (e.g., in Coakley (2015) and Boykoff (2022)), this research attempted to discuss the role that media plays in oscillating the power dynamics between global players as epitomized in the field of sports. We argued that in the process of the media’s discursive construction, a Cold War mentality is still deeply rooted in the daily journalistic practices and channeled through the overdetermined East-West binary (Said, 1979) of both China and the US.…”

Shared concerns versus ideological preferences: The New York Times’ coverage of two Olympics games held in the global health crisis

“…The ideological preference of the American media is expressed through the association of the sports convention with domestic politics such as protests and strikes, which negatively frames the Olympics in non-democratic societies (Gao, 2010). The ideological preference is also conveyed by American media's excessive reports of human right issues in their coverage of the Beijing Olympics, which conforms to existing stereotypes of China as an authoritarian regime (Boykoff, 2022). Finally, the American media also placed the Olympics in the global context and expressed their preferences by describing the role of host countries in the international community.…”

“…In addition to sports-related issues, media coverage of the Olympics also associates the sporting event with ideological discourses that portray it as a political and ideological competition between different countries and regions (e.g., Boykoff, 2016; Sugden & Tomlinson, 2012). The U.S. media often have an ideological preference for countries with democratic political systems (e.g., Boykoff, 2022; Qing et al, 2010). The New York Times (henceforth NYT), for example, reported the Olympics in non-democratic countries, such as China and Russia, with negative ideological frames (Boykoff, 2022; Gao, 2010; P.-L. Pan & Lawal, 2017).…”

“…The U.S. media often have an ideological preference for countries with democratic political systems (e.g., Boykoff, 2022; Qing et al, 2010). The New York Times (henceforth NYT), for example, reported the Olympics in non-democratic countries, such as China and Russia, with negative ideological frames (Boykoff, 2022; Gao, 2010; P.-L. Pan & Lawal, 2017).…”

Opportunities and Challenges for Critical Reporting at the Olympics: Journalists’ Perspectives From Tokyo 2020

“…The other topic mentioned by my interviewees — human rights violations in China amid preparations for Beijing 2022 — carries similar risks. Boykoff (2022) analyzed major U.S. publications’ coverage of Beijing 2022 and found no shortage of critical reporting, but suggested the IOC got off relatively lightly given the quantity of articles highlighting China’s human rights abuses. Journalists could have used either Covid-19 or the Beijing context as a springboard to scrutinize the broader Olympics project — its ongoing relationship to human rights violations, the unequal distribution of costs and profits/benefits — and some reporters did so.…”