From The "National Hero" To "Network Celebrity"

This thesis discusses how traditional media adjust their strategies on reporting when impacted by the uprising social media,or new media in general.The author takes Fu Yuanhui—who was widely known as the Hong-Huang Girl during the 2016 Rio Olympic Games as the case to analyze how the social media's coverage on the case cast its influence on the way traditional media reporting the Olympic Games--or put it another way,to find out how traditional newspapers adjust their reporting strategies in order to cope with the new environment.This thesis uses the comparative analytic method to set up a research framework—by using horizontal synchronic comparison,the author analyzes the differences of Fu Yuanhui's image between social and newspaper media;by using diachronic longitudinal comparison,the main characteristic change of Olympic coverage before and after the era of social media.The source material are the reporting texts on 2016 Rio Olympic Games from internet media and three newspaper agencies,as well as some traditional mainstream media's reports on previous Olympic Games.The main method on handling the material is content analysis.The author holds the view that Fu Yuanhui's explosive exposure on the internet as the Hong-Huang Girl represents the public preference on Olympic news in the new media environment.In the meantime,the social media's involvement on the creation,development and diffusion collects and demonstrates this preference.As a result,the athlete's public image differs greatly from that in the past,while the traditional media's voice is under great impact.The traditional media adjust their reporting styles and language patterns when reporting Fu's story,hoping to incorporate the non-mainstream image of the athlete into the current official ideology by implantation,categorization and de-stylization,and to make it part of the existing system by legitimation and routinization.The incorporation—which is the strategy accompanying the social-media age—also contributes to the transformation of Chinese traditional media reporting ideology.From the 1984 Los Angeles Games till now,the shift of the athlete's image embodies the change from National System to multi-consumption and interaction with publics.The author also thinks that the shift of the athlete's image is another dimension and expression of the shift of media and society,and a good breakthrough point to analyze the change of times.By using vertical and horizontal comparative analysis,this thesis demonstrates the strategy the traditional media adopts to construct the athlete's image,and broadens the field of media language,media power dynamics and media reform in the context of technology advancement.