“Lucky Cloud” Over the World: The Journalistic Discourse of Nationalism beyond China in the Beijing Olympics Global Torch Relay

Abstract

This study uses critical discourse analysis to explore the role journalism plays in the discursive formation of nationalism in an event of global visibility that lay outside the daily news making routine—the coverage of the Beijing Olympics global torch relay by newspapers in China. Taking Fairclough's analysis framework, at the text level, I noted the construction of “we” and “they” identities in the representations of the supportive and antagonist people involved in events in the torch host cities. At the discourse level, I investigated the major strategies used by the journalists in the construction of nationalism beyond the borders of China, including meaning substitution discourses and multiple articulations of voices, reinforcing a unitary meaning of collective belonging to a nation. At the social practice level, this study looked at how nationwide attention and the global relevance of this event, with its particular connection to the controversy over Tibet, led to structural constraints and self-censorship of journalism practices in the construction of three levels of “oneness” to understand Chinese nationalism—one China, one Chinese nation, and one world under China's leadership.