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
DEDICATIONiii
ACKNOWLEGEMENTSiv
ABSTRACTvi
LIST OF TABLESxi
LIST OF FIGURESxiii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONSxiv
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION1
1.1 Introduction1
1.2 Background of the Study2
1.3 Statement of the Problem7
1.4 Research Questions9
1.5 Theoretical Foundation11
1.6 Theoretical Framework15
1.7 Contribution of the Study16
1.8 Organization of the Study16
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW18
2.1 Introduction18
2.2 Olympic Games as Mega-Events18
2.3 The Impacts of Hosting the Olympics22
2.4 Resident Attitude toward Hosting the Olympics46
2.5 News Media and the Public Opinion67
CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY81
3.1 Introduction81
3.2 Research Framework81
3.3 Experimental Design82
3.4 Survey Design96
3.5 Data Collection101
3.6 Data Analysis104
3.7 Summary111
CHAPTER 4 DATA ANALYSIS112
4.1 Introduction112
4.2 Data Screening112
4.3 Profile of Respondents115
4.4 Measurement Scales118
4.5 Measurement Invariance122
4.6 Descriptive Statistics128
4.7 Outcome of the Experiment131
4.8 Summary144
CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION145
5.1 Introduction145
5.2 Summary of the Major Findings145
5.3 Interpretation of the Findings147
5.4 Discussion of the Findings150
5.5 Implication of the Findings156
5.6 Study Limitations163
5.7 Suggestion for Future Study167
5.8 Summary168
REFERENCES
