The Beijing Olympics: The Projection of Modern China and the Contest for Hearts and Minds

The 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing is already one of the most significant events in terms of establishing imagery designed to have a long standing impact. It involves the coordination of various institutional actors with multiple, often competing interests and narratives: some that can be described as "integrative," some as "disruptive," depending on the point of view.

The International Olympic Committee, the Beijing Organizing Committee (BOCOG), corporate sponsors, media organizations, human rights organizations and civil society-as well as the Chinese Communist Party itself - are positioning themselves to affect or control the narratives through which these games will be understood, often with a high degree of symbolism.

This edited book offers new perspectives for examining Olympic Games, and redefines modes of studying major struggles over imagery. It examines the ways in which key actors struggle to retain or upset the contested symbolic constitution of this major media event. In short, it will seek to describe the battlefield on which control of narrative is fought.