"A major contribution to the study of global events in times of global media. Owning the Olympics tests the possibilities and limits of the concept of 'media events' by analyzing the mega-event of the information age: the Beijing Olympics. . . . A good read from cover to cover." —Guobin Yang, Associate Professor, Asian/Middle Eastern Cultures & Sociology, Barnard College, Columbia University

From the moment they were announced, the Beijing Games were a major media event and the focus of intense scrutiny and speculation. In contrast to earlier such events, however, the Beijing Games are also unfolding in a newly volatile global media environment that is no longer monopolized by broadcast media.

The dramatic expansion of media outlets and the growth of mobile communications technology have changed the nature of media events, making it significantly more difficult to regulate them or control their meaning. This volatility is reflected in the multiple, well-publicized controversies characterizing the run-up to Beijing 2008.

According to many Western commentators, the People's Republic of China seized the Olympics as an opportunity to reinvent itself as the "New China"---a global leader in economics, technology, and environmental issues, with an improving human-rights record. But China's maneuverings have also been hotly contested by diverse global voices, including prominent human-rights advocates, all seeking to displace the official story of the Games.

Bringing together a distinguished group of scholars from Chinese studies, human rights, media studies, law, and other fields, Owning the Olympics reveals how multiple entities---including the Chinese Communist Party itself---seek to influence and control the narratives through which the Beijing Games will be understood. (Amazon.com)

DIGITALCULTUREBOOKS is a collaborative imprint of the University of Michigan Press and the University of Michigan Library. Visit the website at www.digitalculture.org.

Read Owning the Olympics: Narratives of the New China Online

FULL & FREE. Online HTML EDITION.

Monroe E. Price and Daniel Dayan, Editors
University of Michigan Press and University of Michigan Library, © 2008

# Paperback: 424 pages
# Publisher: Digital Culture Books (February 28, 2008)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 047205032X
# ISBN-13: 978-0472050321

Contents: 
Introduction
Monroe E. Price
I. Defining Beijing 2008: Whose World, What Dream?
“One World, Different Dreams”: The Contest to Define the Beijing Olympics
Jacques deLisle
Olympic Values, Beijing’s Olympic Games, and the Universal Market
Alan Tomlinson
On Seizing the Olympic Platform
Monroe E. Price
II. Precedents and Perspectives
The Public Diplomacy of the Modern Olympic Games and China’s Soft Power Strategy
Nicholas J. Cull
“A Very Natural Choice”: The Construction of Beijing as an Olympic City during the Bid Period
Heidi Østbø Haugen
Dreams and Nightmares: History and U.S. Visions of the Beijing Games
Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom
The Fragility of Asian National Identity in the Olympic Games
Sandra Collins
Journalism and the Beijing Olympics: Liminality with Chinese Characteristics
Briar Smith
III. Theaters of Representation
“All Under Heaven”— Megaspace in Beijing
Carolyn Marvin
From Athens to Beijing: The Closing Ceremony and Olympic Television Broadcast Narratives
Christopher Kennett and Miquel de Moragas
New Technologies, New Narratives
Lee Humphreys and Christopher J. Finlay
Embracing Wushu: Globalization and Cultural Diversification of the Olympic Movement
Hai Ren
“We Are the Media”: Nonaccredited Media and Citizen Journalists at the Olympic Games
Andy Miah, Beatriz García, and Tian Zhihui
Definition, Equivocation, Accumulation, and Anticipation: American Media’s Ideological Reading of China’s Olympic Games
Sonja K. Foss and Barbara J. Walkosz
IV. Conclusion
Toward the Future: The New Olympic Internationalism
Christopher J. Finlay
Beyond Media Events: Disenchantment, Derailment, Disruption
Daniel Dayan
Author Biographies
Index

It was precisely one year before the 2008 Olympic Games would begin, and a deep smog covered Beijing. The day, August 8, 2007, was filled with the symbolism of anticipation. An official ceremony, triggered by the magic moment marked on a special clock, began the grand unveiling, with 10,000 carefully selected people celebrating in Tiananmen Square. This would be the best and the biggest Countdown Ceremony in Olympic history precisely because it could be no other way. Everything about Beijing 2008 had to be spectacular, superlative, outsized. At least such was the hope of China and the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG). Even the smog, reframed as just another barrier for the powers that be to overcome, would be turned into a sign of what Beijing could and would accomplish.

That day and the week surrounding it were a dress rehearsal not only for the Olympics’ officials but also for those seeking to seize the occasion to make their own global point. The very day of the countdown ceremony a group of young Canadians and others sought to subvert the official line and gain global press notoriety by rappelling down a portion of the Great Wall to reveal a banner emblazoned with the words “One World, One Dream, Free Tibet.” That week, as well, Reporters Without Borders staged a demonstration with participants wearing T-shirts that depicted the Olympic Rings transmogrified into handcuffs. And Amnesty International (2007), Human Rights Watch, and the Committee to Protect Journalists (2007) all used the countdown moment to issue sober and critical reports on China’s shortcomings in the field of human rights. ...

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