ABSTRACT
News media helped individuals think about and understand the impacts of hosting the Olympic Games, enabling them to clarify or construct their own opinions toward an Olympic bid. The purpose of this study was to explore to what extent the public opinion of hosting the Olympic Games was affected by the newspaper media content to which the public was exposed. Based on social exchange theory, social representation theory, and agenda setting theory, two research questions were proposed: (1) Do different news media contents about the impacts of hosting the Olympic Games lead to different attitudes among the local residents? (2) Does the media effect on residents’ attitude toward hosting the Olympic Games differ between China and the US?
Experimental design was applied in this study. Two different kinds of newspaper articles analyzing the impact of hosting the Olympic Games were created: “High Benefits & Low Liabilities” and “Low Benefits & High Liabilities”. A total of 962 residents from Beijing and Hebei Province, China, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, U.S.A. participated in the pretest-posttest experiment. They were randomly assigned with one newspaper article about the bid for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games and the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, respectively.
The difference score model was conducted to test the effect of media content and nation on resident attitude change, while controlling for the effect of interest in the Olympic Games. Inferential analysis indicated that media content was a statistically significant main factor in affecting resident attitude change. Descriptive analysis showed
that the attitude change caused by the “High Benefits & Low Liabilities” newspaper article was slight and positive, whereas the attitude change associated with the “Low Benefits & High Liabilities” newspaper article was moderate and negative. Furthermore, the more interest in the Olympic Games, the more evident the media effect was. More decrease in public support was observed among Chinese participants than American participants, across the experimental groups. The difference of media effect between China and the US fell short of significance at the .05 level.
TABLE OF CONTENT
DEDICATION iii
ACKNOWLEGEMENTS iv
ABSTRACT vi
LIST OF TABLES xi
LIST OF FIGURES xiii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xiv
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Background of the Study 2
1.3 Statement of the Problem 7
1.4 Research Questions 9
1.5 Theoretical Foundation 11
1.6 Theoretical Framework 15
1.7 Contribution of the Study 16
1.8 Organization of the Study 16
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 18
2.1 Introduction 18
2.2 Olympic Games as Mega-Events 18
2.3 The Impacts of Hosting the Olympics 22
2.4 Resident Attitude toward Hosting the Olympics 46
2.5 News Media and the Public Opinion 67
CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 81
3.1 Introduction 81
3.2 Research Framework 81
3.3 Experimental Design 82
3.4 Survey Design 96
3.5 Data Collection 101
3.6 Data Analysis 104
3.7 Summary 111
CHAPTER 4 DATA ANALYSIS 112
4.1 Introduction 112
4.2 Data Screening 112
4.3 Profile of Respondents 115
4.4 Measurement Scales 118
4.5 Measurement Invariance 122
4.6 Descriptive Statistics 128
4.7 Outcome of the Experiment 131
4.8 Summary 144
CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 145
5.1 Introduction 145
5.2 Summary of the Major Findings 145
5.3 Interpretation of the Findings 147
5.4 Discussion of the Findings 150
5.5 Implication of the Findings 156
5.6 Study Limitations 163
5.7 Suggestion for Future Study 167
5.8 Summary 168
REFERENCES
