The emerging practices of Chinese web journalism during the Beijing Olympics: A textual comparison with Western news sites

Abstract

When the Beijing Olympics opened in July 2008, it was described by commentators as the first online games. The moment of the Games therefore presents an opportunity to compare the way web-based news is being produced by leading news organisations in different parts of the world and therefore to reflect on how far China’s rapidly growing web-based news practice is following Western practices and how far it operates by distinctive dynamics.A genre analysis of major online news outlets shows that quite distinctive journalistic logics were deployed in Chinese reporting, as a result of a mix of local factors. The article points to some characteristics of the emerging textual news practices. It also emphasises the need to develop this kind of analysis further so that Chinese web journalism can be understood in terms that are less reliant on those developed to analyse Anglo-American news websites.