Effect of Sport Media on Social Behaviour: The Attitude and Perception Change of Chinese College Students toward the International Media Reporting the Beijing Olympics

Abstract

This study assessed the attitude and perceptions of college students in China before and immediately after the 2008 Beijing Olympics toward the international media's reporting of the Games and China. A total of 657 students from seven campuses eight months before the Olympics and 1,000 students from ten campuses immediately after the Olympics were randomly surveyed. The data analysis (independent t-Test) depicts that the students' attitudes and perceptions toward the international media had positively changed from the pre- to the post-Olympic surveys. One-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and Scheffe’s post hoc test results revealed that the survey respondents’ political preferences were the constant factors that influenced their attitude and perception change toward the international media. This study illustrates a media effect on changing the survey participants’ and their represented population’s attitude and perceptions toward the international media’s coverage of sport mega-events that is supported by the theories of mega-events and modernity, media communication and social behaviour, and social impact.