%0 Thesis %A Kim, Nakyoung %D 2012 %T Identity politics and globalization: an analysis of the South Korean media coverage of the 2008 Beijing olympic games %U https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/thesis/Identity_politics_and_globalization_an_analysis_of_the_South_Korean_media_coverage_of_the_2008_Beijing_olympic_games/9607544 %2 https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/ndownloader/files/17254001 %K Globalization %K Media %K Olympics %K Nationalisms %K Korea %K Identity politics %K Cultural studies %K Figurational sociology %K Medical and Health Sciences not elsewhere classified %X This thesis examines the extent to and the way in which the contemporary political and socio-cultural context of South Korea, a divided, postcolonial and Northeast Asian nation is embedded in the national media coverage of global sport events, especially the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Attention is given to the implications of current state of international relations, politics and foreign policies between the R.O.K. and its geopolitical neighbours such as the U.S. and the D.P.R.K., Japan and China from the Northeast. The similarities and differences in the symbolic descriptions of Olympic athletes and delegates, and their achievements along with their identity markers such as national identity, regional identity, race and ethnicity are analysed. The global-national patterns and transformations in the power relations between hegemonic and ideological elements, such as nationalisms, racial/ethnic stereotypes, pan-Asian sentiments and Asianism, are examined. According to the characteristics of conservative or progressive, mainstream or sport-specific and print or television media coverage, the ways in which reporting style and tendency are distinctive from each other are clarified. Data was collected from newspapers and television coverage in the period of Beijing Olympic Games and a week before and after the Games. Media content analysis, including thematic analysis, discourse analysis and visual/image analysis, is used to analyse the data in both quantitative and qualitative terms. The theoretical frameworks of identity politics, contemporary cultural studies and figurational sociological concepts of personal pronouns and the established and outsiders are applied. The research findings discuss the twin process of increasing varieties and diminishing contrasts and homogenising and heterogenising tendencies in the globalisation process, which was evident in the South Korean media coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and its opening ceremony. %I Loughborough University