Underlying ideologies and shifting strategies

Abstract

In 1993, the Chinese press did not promote Beijing's bid to host the 2000 Olympic Games effectively, while Australian newspapers tried to weaken Beijing's chance of success by criticising China. Beijing bid for the Games again in 2001. Having learned the lessons from the 1993 bid, the Chinese press adapted strategies to promote Beijing's second bid. This study employs the method of critical analysis of media discourse to focus on the selected Australian and Chinese newspapers’ (the Sydney Morning Herald and the People's Daily) coverage of Beijing's two bids to examine the differences and the changes in the two newspapers’ reporting tactics. This comparative study in International Journalism explores the ideological underpinning of media discourse by looking at lexical and propositional choices in the newspapers’ representations of a complex set of events.