Susan Brownell

　　Susan BROWNELL

　　Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri-St. Louis

　　Education Background：University of California, Santa Barbara, 1990, in Cultural Anthropology

　　University of Virginia, 1982, in Anthropology, with high distinction

　　Research Interests：Cultural Anthropology; China Studies; Olympic Studies

　　Main Publications：What the Olympics Mean to China; “The Beijing Effect”; “‘Sport and Politics Don’t Mix’: China’s relationship with the IOC during the Cold War.” “Challenged America: China and America – Women and Sport, Past, Present and Future,” “China and Olympism,” in Post-Olympism? Training the Body for China: Sports in the Moral Order of the People's Republic

　　Sports Journalism and Communication:

　　Is Cross-Cultural Understanding Possible through Olympic Journalism?

　　Susan Brownell

　　U.S. and Western media reports on the Chinese sports system commonly highlight the same negative aspects: state-supported sport as a machine that produces automatons; the sport school system as state-supported, systematic child abuse; and suspicions of centrally-organized doping. This paper will analyze why the coverage of Chinese sports is so negative, showing that journalists come to their investigations with preconceived notions about China that are negative. They are drawn from limited sources because there is very little information on Chinese sports in English. When what they know about China does not suffice, they draw on what they know about the former Eastern bloc. One important source of their preconceptions is other journalists. In the absence of other reliable information, once stereotypes are generated they gained a life of their own. Furthermore, the Chinese side has little understanding of how to use the media to promote a positive image. The Sports Commission bureaucrats assumed for decades that if only China wins Olympic gold medals, then a glowing national reputation in the global arena will be the result. They have failed to understand and respond to the negative stereotypes that have accompanied their sports successes. This paper will conclude by asking whether, given these existing structures, cross-cultural understanding will be possible through Olympic journalism during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.