A Cultural Discourse Study Of City Image Promotion Through International Sports Promotional Films

With the development of urbanization,the status of cities in global communication has aroused great attention.Accordingly,the shaping and communication of city image have gradually become the focus of cities around the world.Building a favorable city image can promote the sustainable development and internationalization of the city under the wave of globalization.Thus,as a part of the city’s soft power,the city image plays a significant role in the long run.In recent years,the acceleration of globalization has made international sports events an important window for countries and cities to display their comprehensive strength and image,in which promotional films play a key role.There are many studies on international sports events and the construction of city image,but few of them regard promotional films as discourse practices,nor do they use comparative methods to explore their cultural nature of them.Therefore,from the perspective of Cultural Discourse Studies,this study considers the promotional films of international sports events as discourse practices and believes they have characteristics of construction and culture,which can help build the city image and convey the city’s unique cultural values.The research objects of this study are the Jakarta Asian Games promotional film Energy of Asia,the Hangzhou Asian Games promotional film Meet in Hangzhou in2022,Nagoya Asian Games promotional film Imagine One Asia and the Sino-Japanese joint promotional film In the name of the Asian Games.This study taking Cultural Discourse Studies as the research framework,comparatively analyzes the discourse characteristics of four Asian Games promotional films,including discourse subject,discourse content,discourse form,and media channels.On this basis,the study summarizes the discourse commonality of promotional films for the three Asian Games.First,all of them use the international language.Second,they all use the image of the sport to arise cultural resonance.Third,using city symbols to highlight cultural genes.Fourth,the communication path of them all follows the trend of the times.In addition,there are still some limitations of these Asian Games promotional films,such as the discourse subject tends to be expert paradigm,and the discourse content is relatively similar in the selection and use of codes,which lacks characteristics of cities.As for the discourse form,it is relatively rigid and lacks innovation.And the operation of media channels of them is too cumbersome.Based on the research results,there are some propositions for international sports event promotional films in constructing the city image.Firstly,the discourse subject needs to be more multiple,which can help gather collective wisdom.Secondly,the discourse content can emphasize the unique culture and characteristics of cities.Thirdly,the discourse form needs to be innovated and the original narrative logic needs to be broken.Fourth,the media means need to be broadened.At last,the study offers some suggestions for future research,such as adding effective research and exploring the cultural and historical nature of promotional films.