The Olympic Games and Media Coverage

A very popular and large sporting event that receives an extremely high volume of national media coverage is the Olympic Games. For a number of years, major stations like NBC has provided audiences with an around the clock coverage of the Games. Many other major medias similar to NBC have also done the same by devoted sections solely to the Olympic Games. The Olympics is a time where citizens come together to root for their home country, strengthening their sense of nationalism and pride and cheering for their home athletes to come out victoriously and the country as a powerhouse of the world. Organically, the games give off a sense of war like mentality because countries are competing against each other for the prize, the gold metal. As a competitive college athlete, I can relate to the feeling of pride and nationalism one get before and especially after competing and beating an opponent.

By using critical discourse analysis, I will explore how the media coverage of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics provides its viewers from their home country with a sense of nationalism and pride through the emphasize of physical fitness and athleticism. In additional to that, I will also draw from the Spartans millenarian mentality that also emphasized physical excellence from a young age for competitive purposes. I gather information by reading article of the Sochi Olympics from The New York Times and the NBC network as well as comparing them with Russian newspaper such as The Moscow Times and the Rossiyskaya Gazeta to see what type of strategies and themes are used by both country in conveying nationalism and fitness to their viewers.

As I mentioned above I have been currently reading American articles from The New York Times a...

... middle of paper ...

...y media presents things to it viewers influence how we see our countries and others from other counties, in regards to athlete and just the country overall.

For my last article I chose to look at an article that just focused on explaining what critical analysis discourse is. I liked it because it provided me with a bit of information regarding where it began, who adopted it, how it has grown, and the goals of this type of analysis. By reading this article I learned a lot more about what to look for in other articles in order to get out what I want from them. Since the power of linguistics is a huge focus of this method, I need to make sure I am critical as the analysis describes on what I am looking for in my research. I also make sure I have direction, which I feel like a do. With the previously articles that I does to analyze seem to fulfill these goals.