story

Every emblem of the Olympics tells a story. For example, the one of the Beijing Olympics represents Beijing’s hospitality and hopes. It is also said that in its dancing (for the emblem is called “Chinese Seal, Dancing Beijing) carries the city’s commitment to the world.

Creating an emblem that should satisfy all, and if not the greater majority, is a hard task… because there are, in effect, more majorities to please: the people of the host country, the IOC, the politicians, the cultural representatives, the opinion leaders, pundits, corporate sponsors, media, academia and so on. More than that, the emblem needs to be a concentrated symbol of a nation, of a region and also of a concept for equality, peace and performance. Therefore, to tell such a story and concentrate in a few images and even less words is, as I said, a hard task. Yet, as hard as it seems as the cities that hosted the Olympics managed to come up with an emblem that not only told their story but also the one of the Olympic ideals, goals and hopes.

Every emblem tells a story but nobody yet, not as far as I know, told the story of all the emblems, of how they were created, what they represent, how and why they were chosen. I wonder where the other sketches, the non-winning ones are so that I could tell the story of all the Olympic emblems.

research idea

I read a piece of news on a Romanian website some days ago saying that the Chinese authorities have now two online virtual policemen (a woman and a man) that will show up on the main Chinese portals every 30 minutes asking users to report any illegal information they see and prohibiting them to access unauthorized websites. It was not exactly clear to me what illegal information meant but according to a piece published by China Digital Times illegal is to be translated by “not according to the official Chinese political views” or more simply by censorship. Interestingly enough the Digital Times piece gives a series of metaphors under which illegal information now circulates. Additionally, Wikipedia has three articles on Chinese censorship, two of them being fully dedicated to the Internet censorship and its history. Moreover, other news stories say that blogging platforms had signed with Chinese authorities an agreement according to which they will have to delete or deny access to the blogs whose users have not registered and submitted their real data, i.e. name, passport/identity card number, address, phone number, bank account… With less than a year left until the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games all these actions can be seen as mere protection measures that a state is taking in order to guarantee the success and the successful and positive coverage of such a huge event as the hosting of the Olympics. On the other hand, the same measures compared to other existing legislations and communication systems can be seen as an infringement of, for example, the freedom of speech.

Therefore, taking these two issues (the 2 virtual policemen and the registered bloggers) as a starting point, I think it would be really interesting to undertake a research project that would content analyze the coverage (online, print, broadcast) in China and in the Western World of such topics. The idea would be to see whether the host country media and the Western media cover in a similar way and use similar expressions to describe the same issue.

Anyone interested?