Last week at the grocery store, I struck up a conversation about China with Vince, who was stocking shelves. I was fresh from a presentation of my research on media and conflict--specifically about the impact of media on American attitudes toward China before and after the Olympics--so I asked Vince if the Olympics had changed his opinion about China. "Absolutely not," he said. "You know they only showed us the safe parts."
I thought this was fascinating because Vince had never been to China, nor did he know anyone who had. Yet he had a very clear beliefs about what China was like, including its safe and unsafe parts.
I know the Olympics are over. To me, however, this is a cautionary tale about the cost of ignoring the impact of new media technologies. Most of us get our information about China, and most other things, from different technology-based information sources. However imperfect, media technologies play a large role in how we develop our understanding of what is happening in the world.
Based on media effects and media framing theories*, I expected media sources to influence American's beliefs about China. Measuring attitudes before and after the Beijing Olympics was a good opportunity to test this out. Not only were the Olympics guaranteed to have extensive media coverage across multiple channels, but the Olympics, judging by Coca Cola's estimated $400 million sponsorship, are also considered a premiere public relations event.
Most people watched the Olympics on TV and since NBC had the bulk of the broadcast rights, most people saw there broadcasts and commentary. Therefore, changes in measured attitudes before and after the games theoretically should have reflected the tone and framing of the NBC programming.
The results surprised me. I expected that increased TV use would predict higher measures of negative beliefs about China, but they did not. They were correlated but not predictive in the way suggested by the research. Conservative political beliefs, however, were strong predictors of negative attitudes toward China.
After the Olympics, 84% of the respondents flatly stated that the Olympics had NOT changed their opinion about China. Yet other measures showed that their attitudes toward China were significantly more negative after the Olympics.
Content analysis of the broadcasts looked fairly benign, other than some initial snarky reports about air quality in the first few days. My team did find a difference in metaphor choice. Broadcasters described Americans like Michael Phelps with "divine-right" metaphors, saying things like "Phelps is fulfilling his destiny as the reigning champion." The descriptions of Chinese athletes tended to "war" metaphors with expressions like 'total domination' and 'sharp like a razor.' (e.g. Lakoff & Johnson, 1990) That's an interesting cognitive construction, but it's hardly enough to influence the opinions of 96% of the viewers. So what's the deal?
The biggest difference between the 2008 Beijing Olympics and previous Olympic Games is the emergence of so many new media channels. Hotelling's information market models show that increased competition for viewers causes the market to segment and pushes individual providers to more extreme positions in their choice of content. Information providers now target the long tail and speak to specific audiences. In fearful times like now, people seek comfort in affiliating with those most like them. In the study, the people who reported a strong preference for the conservative programming and who held the most negative beliefs about China, also had the highest measures of subjective well-being. It's cognitive dissonance theory in action.
China had clear goals for the Olympics: 1) enhance their global image and 2) increase domestic pride. In this new media environment, however, if you are China (or Coca Cola for that matter), mass-market events are good for cheerleading, but you can no longer direct change in global brand perceptions. You have to identify and speak to your intended audience's beliefs and needs through multiple channels. You have to focus on the relational aspects of communication, not the marketing message.
People can now control their information sources. Fox News doesn't 'make' conservatives, but they do provide a place for them to gather. It's pretty easy these days to reinforce our beliefs and make the world fit the stories we tell ourselves.
If we want to deliver messages successfully in this environment, which, let's face it, we all do, we have to develop strategies for understanding people's perceptions and needs on a much more micro level. A useful question for China in their quest for improved relations with the U.S. is why Americans see (or need to see) China as an enemy. China's Olympic gambit succeeded for their citizens, who were justifiably proud. (I don't know what it did for Coke, but I'd be curious to hear.) But measured by American attitudes, the Beijing Olympics were not a successful public relations event for China. China didn't get the new media environment. It's a shame, too, because it's toeveryone's advantage if we can learn to play nice.
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*Grossly generalized definitions:
media effects: media tells us what to think
media framing: media doesn't tell us what to think, it tells us what to think about
Lakoff, G., Johnson, M. (1990) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Photos: Top: Olympic flower sign in Tiananmen Square; center: front page of the Financial Times two days before opening ceremonies; bottom: one of the many multi-story banners of athletes hanging from hotels and office buildings on Chang'an Jie, a main avenue in Beijing.
