“Clean Athlete” or “Drug Cheat and a Jerk”? A Comparative Analysis of the Framing of an Athlete Conflict in Australian and Chinese Print Media

Abstract

Media coverage in China and Australia examined a conflict between 2 Olympic swimmers, Chinese Sun Yang and Australian Mack Horton, during the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. While both swimmers performed well, there were several conflicts between the 2 leading to both nations’ media coverage portraying the foreign athlete negatively. An analysis of 398 print-media articles revealed there were sharp differences between the 2 nations in both the amount of coverage and the valence of the information sources. From a theoretical perspective, the framing of this conflict showed an “us vs. them” dichotomy, suggesting that both countries’ coverage was strongly influenced to protect the reputation and honor of the home athlete. Coverage in both nations was markedly different, suggesting a home-nation favoritism. Implications for sport communicators are discussed.

Covering the Home Nation at Its Home Games: An Analysis of Australian Nationalistic Broadcast Coverage of the 2018 Commonwealth Games

“…In analyses of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Australian newspapers, online websites, and broadcasts of these games indicated that the storylines were closely linked to national ideology and favored Australian athletes (Rowe et al, 2010), while Scott and Kunkel (2016) found that Australian newspapers published more pictures of Australian athletes compared to foreign athletes. Results from the 2016 Rio Olympics, that were also broadcasted on the Seven Network, found that Australian athletes were characterized as outgoing and extroverted (Scott et al, 2019), which has been described as an Australian value (Li et al, 2019), and athletes are encouraged by the Australian Olympic Committee to express themselves (Rio, 2016). In addition, the Seven Network described non-Australian athletes in more neutral terms while also describing Australians as being modest or introverted, emotional, attractive, and had their background discussed more often.…”

“…In order to attract more attention and boost viewership and readership, the media incorporate nationalistic elements into their coverage, particularly through emphasizing their own countries' athletes and team performance (Scott et al, 2012;Vincent et al, 2010). For instance, print media use military metaphors and imagery to create potential conflicts between athletes (Li et al, 2016(Li et al, , 2019Vincent et al, 2010). For national broadcasters, they attempt to use nationalized symbols or languages to emphasize the connection between these athletes, audiences, and the country (Billings et al, 2019).…”