Telecasting Tokyo to a Locked Down Nation: Australian Broadcast Coverage of the 2020 Olympic Summer Games

Abstract

This study explored how nationalism was perpetuated by the Seven Network’s broadcasting of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games during a time, in which much of Australia was in various forms of Covid-19 lockdowns. Self-categorization theory was used to analyze all the primetime coverage of the Seven Network’s main channel for name mentions, description of success or failure, and personality and physicality of the Olympians. Results of this study underscore large differences in the way in which the Seven Network portrayed Australian and non-Australian athletes. Whilst the majority of the top-20 most-mentioned athletes list were Australian, non-Australian athletes received the bulk of the name mentions. There were also differences in the ways in which Australian and non-Australian athletes’ success and failure were portrayed. This study contributes to the literature by uncovering how a major sporting event was covered by a national broadcaster during the Covid-19 pandemic and shows that Australian media catered its coverage to its home audience, who were in lockdowns. Thus, interest and viewership of the Tokyo Olympics was high, which might have been the impetus for the Seven Network to create a largely partisan program.