China used the Olympics to gain acceptance from the international community. They focused on three main issues: lack of human right, low quality manufacturing of other country's goods, and poor record of environmental awareness. In order to conquer these images in the public eye by branding the new nation of China, the olympic committee strategized and came up with solutions. By drawing attention to the Chinese people's heritage over thousands of years, others would get a better understanding of China's take on human rights and how they have improved drastically. In order to draw attention to China's quest to provide better quality manufacturing, they built their own stadium and other competition venues from materials that all came straight from China, that were not imported as they normally would be, to feature how well they could produce high-quality structures. Lastly, the Chinese made strides to make their Olympic games and their city of Beijing earth friendly. Making the switch from coal reliant gas to natural gas for heating and building their largest city park ever, the "Olympic Forest Park." All these brought an image of a people-caring, quality manufacturing, green nation. The efforts re-introduced China to the world as a leading world power that was there to stay.
It is a bit lengthy of an article and is from an academic source so if you want to just read a portion of it scroll down to the heading "Building the Brand of a Nation." It gives a great outline of the key terms in how to brand a nation and then goes into how they apply to China while they hosted the 2008 summer games. Very interesting and very in tune with what Nadia spoke about tonight in class.
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/pb/journal/v3/n2/full/6000059a.html
Interestingly, I just came across an article about the effect of the Olympic games in China on American attitudes about China. The abstract for the article outlines the study and the results:
ReplyDelete"This paper explores the impact that increased exposure to China during the two and a half weeks of the Beijing Olympics had on American attitudes towards China. A large N longitudinal survey revealed a significant increase in negative attitudes towards China from the beginning to the end of August 2008. Statistical analysis revealed no dominant explanation for this change, however. Instead, personality (openness), ideology (social dominance orientation and right wing authoritarianism), and media exposure each had a small impact on changing attitudes. Further research (including a follow-up experiment manipulating the valence of media coverage of China) suggested both the possibility of an 'efficiency effect', whereby China's very success in both hosting and competing in the Olympics generated increased American anxiety about China, and a 'cheating effect', whereby stories about underage Chinese gymnasts and deception (e.g. lip synching while another child actually sang during the Opening Ceremonies) diffused broadly through social networks, uniformly and negatively impacting American attitudes towards China."
I find the 'efficiency effect' most interesting in that the very currency that China might have expected to buy them soft power in the US and elsewhere had the opposite effect on the American audience. This is a different and counter intuitive perspective on soft power. It is not dissimilar to the implications of the article about Iron Chef. In both instances an Asian country participates in behavior that would intuitively result in their gain of soft power and an increased positive image in the eyes of an American audience. For some reason, though, this is not the case. Does this reflect an innnate resistance in the American public to a positive image of Asian countries, or is it a challenge to traditional concepts of PR, soft power and marketing concepts?
Address of article through Penrose:
http://0-web.ebscohost.com.bianca.penlib.du.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=12&sid=2285921b-e8f1-4961-9a91-85fa3bc8349a%40sessionmgr4&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=48346877
I am doing my final research paper on The Vancouver Olympics and The World Cup in South Africa so I've looked at studies of the affects of media exposure on public opinion. It seems when countries who already have a lot of global exposure host a large event like the Olympics it has little effect on public opinion. For example, when Atlanta hosted the Olympics in '96 image campaigns emphasized the culture of the American South. Southern themes were overlooked by the rest of the world instead stereotypical "America" themes like hollywood and extreme commercialism were included in global reports. I think the same was true with China. We already have an established stereotypical view of the nation that was used to judge the Games. I think it is important to note that hosing a large event like the Olympics is a huge risk for a country. Not only will they spend millions of dollars preparing, but the potential of going into debt is likely because tourists rarely bring in the money that is estimated. In addition to being an economic risk, hosting can bring the wrong kind of publicity. Most nations want to communicate a message of modernity, capability, and organization. This, in an effort to attract future tourists and international investment. If something goes wrong and journalists give negative reports, this will have the opposite affect on the global audience, discouraging investors and tourists.
ReplyDeleteThe research I've looked at also says that image advertising won't be effective if the themes and ideas are too different from reality and worldwide stereotypes. Soft power is difficult to control because when the world is an audience most people want information that is familiar and fits into what they believe to be true. When it doesn't, the opposite effect happens, information is altered so that it will fit into the stereotypes.