张磊

　　ZHANG Lei

　　Assistant Research Fellow, National Centre for Radio and Television Studies, Communication University of China

　　Education Background: PhD of Communication, Communication University of China

　　Research Interests: political economy of communication; cultural studies; media sociology

　　Main Publications: Market Driven Journalism: Let the Citizen Beware?

　　Political Economy of Communication

　　Rites of Passage?

　　China’s Public Diplomacy on Beijing Olympics

　　ZHANG Lei

　　The Olympic Games is not only a global sports and cultural activity, but also an important media event (Dayan & Katz, 1996). After WWII, the defeated contries and the rising developing contries all considered the Olympics as a great opportunity to demonstrate their magnitude in the world. Dayan and Katz elucidated such rationale as “rites of passage”. China is using Beijing Olympics as a public diplomatic opportunity to promote herself and announce her renaissances, as some other countries had done before. But, considering the established negative national images of China in western countries, risks lurk in the media narration from different political and cultural contexts. This paper, using the analytical structure of media event theory and the reference of public diplomacy studies, tries to analyze China’s communication strategies on Beijing Olympics and search for the mechanism of global mega media event as Olympic Games.

　　Keywords：Olympic Games media event public diplomacy international communication