Documenting the Beijing Olympics: an introduction

¹ My thanks to Jane Savoy, who organised and supported the conference at SOAS so brilliantly; the Centre of Chinese Studies at SOAS, who supported the young Chinese Scholars; and to Taylor and Francis for their support. My thanks also to D.N. Gellner, for commenting on the first draft of this.

Abstract

This introduction to the volume contextualises the theme of the conference and examines how all the papers included in this special issue address the theme of ‘Documenting the Beijing Olympics’. The issue of what it means to document, especially in the twenty-first century in which the media must include new technologies, is considered in some detail. Types of documentation, the problem of intentional and unintentional meanings, are considered and the question ‘what does it mean to represent an event?’ is asked.

Notes

¹ My thanks to Jane Savoy, who organised and supported the conference at SOAS so brilliantly; the Centre of Chinese Studies at SOAS, who supported the young Chinese Scholars; and to Taylor and Francis for their support. My thanks also to D.N. Gellner, for commenting on the first draft of this.

² See Jarvie, Hwang and Brennan, Sport, revolution and the Beijing Olympics; US Congressional-Executive Commission on China, The Beijing Olympics; UN Environmental Programme, Beijing 2008 Olympic Games; Committee to Protect Journalists, Falling Short; Close, Askew and Xin, The Beijing Olympiad.

³ For example, Brownell, Beijing's Games; Price and Dayan, eds, Owning the Olympics; Horne, Sport, Revolution.

⁴ Martinez, ‘Introduction’.

⁵ MacAloon, ‘Olympic Games’.

⁶ Said, Orientalism.