The 2008 Beijing Olympics, like all others before, was by and large a media spectacle. While this is nothing new, the scale of Beijing – its budget, the hype, the city itself – was unprecedented. While it seems unlikely that any games would be less lavish than its predecessor, China made it clear that they wanted to take things to the next level. One only needs to consider the scheduling of events to suit the large North American audience as evidence of the extent to which the Olympics is made for television. Perhaps more spectacularly, the revelation that the opening ceremony’s pyrotechnics were digitally altered for television audiences is demonstrative of the extent to which the Olympics is more about creating an audiovisual extravaganza for selling eyeballs to advertisers than it is about “One World, One Dream.”
This essay will examine the extent of media influence over, and coverage of, the 2008 Olympics, with significant attention paid to peripheral coverage of the taboos of the games – Tibet, human rights and the democracy movement in China being the most striking examples. It will employ a content analysis approach to coverage of the games, examining positive and negative portrayals of Chinese authority and how this changed as the spectacle unfolded.
The tumult of the torch
The Olympic cycle runs not at four years, but almost eight – from the time the International Olympic Committee announces the winner of the bid to the final curtain of the closing ceremony. The lead time involved in the case of the Beijing Olympics is even greater, with Beijing’s Olympic bid being defeated by Sydney in 1993. China had waited long for their chance to open their doors to the world, and intended to make the most of the public relations opportunity the games would present. The games were the most expensive ever, with a total cost estimated at $42 billion (The Economist, 2008). Moreover, they were the games with the most extensive media coverage ever - the developments in streaming internet video capabilities meant an unprecedented amount of footage would go to air (Atkinson 2006).
As anticipation of the event intensified, so did the political campaigns against China’s authoritarian rulers. By the time the Olympic torch relay began, the darker side of China’s domestic affairs and relationship with Tibet were in sharp focus. In a column penned as the attacks on the torch relay intensified, a Washington Post columnist described attempts to extinguish the torch as the “new Olympic sport” (Applebaum 2008). The so-called “Journey of Harmony” was quickly descending into farce, with as many tracksuited Chinese security operatives lining the torch’s path as genuine spectators at times. Cities along the route were locked down and pro-Tibetan dissenters arrested or prevented from protesting the torch relay. Such was the disruption to the torch relay and perhaps more importantly, ¬the awful PR for the Olympic brand, that London games organisers plan to make the 2012 relay an low-key, entirely domestic affair (ABC 2008).
It was only logical that calls for a boycott would soon be heard, as the relay took a beating with almost every twist and turn. The Tibetan independence cause – a favourite of celebrities and athletes at the best of times – had never had a better opportunity to make its mark on the world’s headlines. The Australian athletes and most media quickly dismissed the idea of boycotting the games – the argument ran that our athletes had worked so hard to get to Beijing that it would be punitive toward their efforts and do little for the causes activists were championing. Even liberal Age columnist Tracee Hutchinson dismissed the idea, following then-senator Andrew Bartlett’s call for a boycott:
“The idea that Australian athletes boycotting the Beijing Games will have any impact beyond an immense personal sacrifice is a nonsense. It doesn't, as the good senator stated in his press release, make our athletes "complicit" supporters of China's actions in Tibet, Tiananmen Square or anywhere else for that matter,” (Hutchinson 2008).
While this an understandable position, boycott agitators in the blogosphere began to draw attention to the obvious, if only a little tenuous, parallels between Beijing 2008 and the Nazi-era Berlin games of 1936. It was an argument that held water, and caused a splash in Melbourne’s Age when the games started:
“Historical equations, of course, always lack nuance. But the parallels between Berlin 1936 and Beijing 2008 remain odiously apparent. Chinese nationalism is rampant, the poison by which the so-called Communist regime sustains its right to govern today,” (Mordue 2008)
The eerie commonalities don’t end there. The Olympic torch is itself a product of the Nazi regime – Hitler’s chief propaganda man Josef Goebbels and official Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl are almost entirely responsible for entrenching the torch in the ritual of the Olympics (Bowlby 2008). Then, as now, it was an opportunity for the host nation to parade their jingoistic pride through other countries’ territory.
All eyes on Beijing
But the China-bashing, bandwagon-jumping masses would soon fall quiet; the show was about to begin. Another of Mordue’s musings from the very piece in which he made direct comparisons to Nazi Germany summed it up well – despite his misgivings about the nature of Chinese authority and fearful face of rampant nationalism, he found himself transfixed by the show, clinging to a glimmer of hope that the Olympics actually would bring about democracy in the country (op. cit.). The very notions of unity, equality and transcendental achievement by ordinary people that typify the Olympics are undoubtedly attractive, even for the harshest of cynics or realists.
The fixation was now firmly upon how China would stage-manage the extravaganza. How would the western media, with its boisterous claims for liberty and objectivity operate within the authoritarian Chinese state? Would there be room for peripheral reporting on topics such as human rights by nosey foreign journalists? As early as 2006, The Wall Street Journal was reporting the ‘relaxation’ of controls imposed on foreign media operating in China for the games (Fong 2006). Less than six months later, Chinese authorities were again assuring journalists, and presumably their employers, that they’d be well looked after when they arrived to Beijing (Xiaofeng 2007). The last thing China needed as it promoted an image of openness and engagement with the west was an embarrassingly draconian media regime. It would hardly sit well with the champions of free enterprise who would be looking at China as the next big market.
In the immediate lead-up to the games, many journalists still had their reservations about the treatment they would receive in China. Easily an equal number were still contemplating the issues that were seemingly off-limits for them as reporters. The Walkley Magazine, the official publication of the Australian journalists’ union the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, understandably devoted the bulk of its pre-Olympic issue to the concerns journalists were facing in reporting on Beijing 2008. Notwithstanding the platitudes of the Beijing Organising Committee (BOCOG) and Chinese Communist government, the perils for foreign journalists were still apparent:
“Under local law, a foreign national can be detained for 72 hours before the Chinese authorities are required to inform the detainee’s embassy that he or she is in custody,” (Jeffery 2008: 16).
This law would not be relaxed for the estimated 20,000 foreign journalists covering the Olympic Games. In a country where Chinese journalists who fail to tow the party line – by choice or otherwise – are routinely imprisoned, beaten or worse, and where 180 foreign correspondents had identified violations of the 2007 press freedom laws for foreign media, such fears weren’t paranoia (RSF 2008).
This doesn’t mean that journalists were afraid to tackle the taboos of the land of the sleeping giant. The ABC’s Eric Campbell produced an eye-opening report on the eve of the games, which showed how one of the few acceptable forms of public dissent – a process called “petitioning” – had been clamped down upon as China did its best to promote a squeaky-clean and harmonious image (ABC 2008). Campbell’s dispatch, much like other work before his, showed the lengths Chinese authorities were willing to go to to promote the image of a unified, peaceful, friendly and open nation. It didn’t take an investigative journalist of Campbell’s calibre to see this was all a ruse however, as cryptically named departments such as the “Spiritual Civilization Office” – who organised monthly “learn to queue” events in the lead up to the games – were set up in anticipation of the influx of foreign visitors (Terrill 2007).
Let the games begin
The charade continued as the main event captured the world’s imagination. Rather embarrassingly for the Beijing organisers, it quickly emerged that parts of the televised opening ceremony were just like the façade of openness and democracy in China – fake and manipulative. It emerged that the spectacular hoax of the opening ceremony wasn’t limited to the creative post-production of the fireworks display, with widespread reports of lip-synching and ‘faked’ Chinese ethnic minorities in the international media (Hutcheon 2008). This wouldn’t discourage eager viewers, as after all, the opening and closing ceremonies stood apart from what the actual games were about – the sport.
Despite criticisms of the light entertainment approach to the broadcast of the games, where a legion of television personalities from Channel 7’s other lifestyle programs were employed over serious sports journalists, it was overwhelmingly a success for the network. It was the highest rating games ever, with some 17 million people having watched some part of the televised coverage in the two-week period (Meade 2008). Channel 7’s tireless cross-promotion of its post-Olympic scheduling during the games would also prove fruitful, with the network shoring up its position as ratings leader after Beijing (ibid.). Regardless of the quantitative success of the games in terms of Seven’s market share and advertising revenue, the approach they took to the games wasn’t a massive hit with audiences; it was considered by many to be the worst ever coverage of the Olympics (Field 2008).
Secondary broadcaster SBS fared much better in the eyes of the critics, if not the ratings or revenues. The multicultural broadcaster’s ability to focus on competition between nations other than Australia was surprisingly successful. Understandably, it transpired that audiences would rather watch a finals bout between two small nations with little connection to Australian culture than a second-rate performance by an Australian (Ricketson 2008). The fixation upon a broadcaster’s home country was internationally panned by critics during Beijing 2008 (though hardly a new phenomena) and SBS, possibly more by circumstance than design, had come out on top with its best-of-the rest approach.
The Hangover
Of the enduring outcomes of Beijing 2008 a more open and democratic China does not appear high on the list. While the Olympics are an undeniably useful nation building device for the host nation as much as other competitors, there hasn’t been any great rush toward the democratic ideals the west would like to see China employ. Of course, advertisers and the networks fared well from the games with “60% of Australia’s TV audience tuned in to the one spectacle” (Munro 2008), although as Ricketson points out, while the advertisements themselves may be memorable, brand recognition even weeks after the event is poor. The Olympics, like many other major events, attract big name, big budget ad campaigns with very little connection to the actual product or service being advertised (op. cit.).
It is heartening to learn however that much of China’s liberalised media laws for foreign reporters have been maintained beyond the October sunset clause. While these laws are still comparatively restrictive and inconsistently applied, the move has been welcomed by the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (The Australian 2008). Sadly, Chinese journalists still operate within the same punitive environment as before.
While the $40 billion infrastructure program that prepared China for the Olympics will undoubtedly have ongoing benefits for China’s people, the road to democracy is still a long and arduous one. The big gain is that we are now paying attention. The American century is over.
Public engagement with China is best encapsulated in Tony Blair’s words, writing for the Wall Street Journal:
“People ask what is the legacy of these Olympics for China? It is that they mark a new epoch – an opening up of China that can never be reversed. It also means that ignorance and fear of China will steadily decline as the reality of modern China becomes more apparent,” (2008).
Determining if it is Blair’s optimism or the cynicism of others that is misplaced is the question as the Chinese century begins.
Reference list
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