Tenth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games had been endowed with too many metaphors and connotations. To China, the Beijing Games was significant to re-construct Chinese nationalism as well as reshape transnational relationship. However, some domestic social focuses were rebooted or reinterpreted due to the Olympic Games while some international contentions were concealed or exposed because of the Olympic Games. Thus, in this paper, four sections will be discussed by mainly employing Socio-cultural lens. First, the extended meaning of the Olympic Games constructed by China and the expectation that Chinese government had; second, the national image of China before the Games. To be specific, Tibet Riots and Wenchuan Earthquake, two major social events which brought enormous influence on China as well as the Beijing Games in 2008, are going to be thoroughly examined. Third, by introducing the coverage of the Beijing Games in the global scale, this study will concentrate on worldwide attitude toward China; and finally, through comparing the differences between pre-Olympics and post-Olympic, the last section will point out that the outcome of 2008 Beijing Games was not as effective as Chinese government expected. Thus, in general, this study argues that the great power of transformation that Olympic Games has was overrated. And instead of making some superficial efforts and antagonizing foreign media, the Chinese government needs to start working on serious social topics such as human rights and press freedom steadfastly. Only when the domestic issues have been solved properly, will those stereotypes collapse automatically in the future.