Mirroring the Olympic Games - The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in the American Media

For this study we chose three key press media as samples and analysed their visual coverage of the opening ceremony, closing ceremony and some important sport events in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Based on the quantitative and qualitative analysis of US newspapers on the Beijing Olympic Games, the essay initially explores the number of reports, typical methods used by the American press in its media coverage and the similarities and differences among different media in the USA. The conclusions was drawn that the US media coverage emphasized human rights, the environment, security and other hot issues on the eve of the Olympic Games over the Olympic sport events themselves. Because of the way China is seen in Western eyes, it was only natural that the American media coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games would have political overtones. In any case, US media coverage is a dynamic process which continues to evolve as political, economic, historical and other circumstances change.