QUESTION 1.
In the US, we sometimes take for granted the personal freedom of expression that we enjoy, in part because it is so ordinary and ingrained in us as a basic right that is guaranteed under the First Amendment to the Constitution. This same First Amendment also provides for a free press, which is another cherished right that we as Americans hold dear. Of course, these freedoms of speech and of the press are not universal; and as you know, governments in many countries regulate the extent of permissible speech and media activity. When you think about this, what thoughts come to mind about being an American and living in the US?
QUESTION 2.
In recent years, much has been written about media censorship in China, starting with the government's promise in 2001 -- when it won the right to host the 2008 Olympic Games -- that media access would be open and unfettered. As mentioned in many of the articles (below), this has been an issue in contention, because China has yet to deliver on its promise. On the one hand, it might have been unreasonable to expect that a government accustomed to strict control over internal dissemination of information would suddenly reverse its course and allow the media -- both foreign and domestic -- to report on whatever, whenever, and wherever it likes. On the other hand, the government's desire to showcase its competence in staging a successful Olympic Games necessarily depends on reporting by a legitimately free press. Recently, the IOC and BOCOG announced that Olympic broadcasters would be able to broadcast live from locations around Beijing, including Tiananmen Square (in addition to the competition venues). So here's the question: do you think that the IOC should respect a particular country's culture, laws, and traditions when it awards the Olympic Games, or should it impose conditions to ensure that the games are organized according to "Western" values?
QUESTION 3.
You may know that the major media outlets in China -- CCTV and Xinhua News Agency, among others -- are run by the government, which is very different from the American experience. Still, there is a growing number of so-called independent media in China. Do you think the Chinese government is more wary of its independent domestic media, or of the foreign media that will portray China -- the good, the bad, and the ugly -- to a global audience of six billion people?
Articles-->
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/china/beijing08/censorship.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-dietz/covering-the-beijing-game_b_106378.html
http://www.asiapacificbusiness.ca/apbn/pdfs/bulletin295.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-China-Olympic-Media.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=media%2C+censorship%2C+olympic&st=nyt&oref=slogin
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/world/asia/31china.html?scp=2&sq=media%2C+censorship%2C+olympic&st=nyt
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/world/asia/25tibet.html?scp=3&sq=media%2C+censorship%2C+olympic&st=nyt
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/sports/othersports/01athletes.html?scp=4&sq=media%2C+censorship%2C+olympic&st=nyt
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121383862421687115.html
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1821878,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/sports/olympics/21nbc.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/world/asia/24quake.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp
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17 comments:
1. Some of thoughts that come to mind when i read this is, that even with the first amendment present, there are still issues present in our press. With this being said i can see why other countries act the way they do and then decieded what they believe and whats good for press. Which this allows you to control what is said and what people are allowed to see and hear about. Which is good and bad.
2.I think that when the olympics goes places then it should be up to the country on whether or not they should have to follow those rules or not. I dont see how you can make someone or country change there ways for the ways of others.
3.I believe that the china government is more worried about how we as outsiders view them and what they say about them as a place. Bad press could hurt there travel and there chances of holding other events in the future. With this being said this could be a bad thing do to the fact that what the county is really like may not be seen if the government has say in what is aired.
Bre . . . while media censorship -- government control over what can be reported and consequently, what can and cannot be viewed by the public -- denies the people full and free access to information, in what ways is this both good and bad? The question whether the Chinese government is more concerned about how it is perceived by its citizens versus by the global community is quite complex. While China's global image as an emerging economic superpower is undoubtedly important, what are some reasons that playing to its domestic audience is even more important?
Question 1) The first thoughts that come to mind about being an American and living in the US is that I am extremely lucky to be a citizen of a country that allows such freedoms as freedom of the press and free speech. I cannot imagine living somewhere where I could not openly speak my mind and be able to criticize or protest things that I do not agree with. I could not imagine living in a country without those basic rights and freedoms.
Question 2) I think that this could question should go both ways because the IOC did choose China to host the games. They should respect China's culture, laws and traditions.. however, there are certain things such as human rights abuses and lack of free speech which make it hard for the IOC to respect China's view, especially during the olympics when it is suppose to be a time of peace. So I do agree that China's rights should be respected, however they should only be respected up to a certain degree since China has many violations of human rights and free speech. It is hard to fully respect China's rights when there are such evident cases of human rights abuse, and that I believe is what makes it hard for the IOC to just respect China's culture and laws when many aspects of the country and its legal system go against Western standards. So I think both China and the IOC need to compromise a little to get what they both want.
Question 3)I think China is extremely wary of both its independent domestic media and of the foreign media. Both medias have a lot to say about the situation in China however the foreign media might not be as bad out of respect to the Chinese government, especially if they ever want to be invited back. The independent media I'm sure could have a lot to say and now would be the time to do so because the entire world would be focused on Beijing, however by exposing the bad, the independent media would have a lot to loose. I think the Chinese government is wary of both, however I cannot see either truly exposing as much of the bad and the ugly as they would like to, both out of fear and out of respect. China does seem however to have a lot to worry about in terms of its ugly side and that is probably part of the reason why the Chinese government is so hesitant to lessen its restrictions on both its independent domestic media and the foreign media as well.
Ashley probably speaks for most Americans when she said that she could not imagine living in a place without the right to freely express herself. But what if you never had this right in the first place? Would you miss it then? While ordinary people in China might like to be free from government restraint and censorship, might the fact that they have not known anything else cause them to be less demanding of personal freedoms and individual rights? While the IOC has been very careful and most reluctant to criticize China on human rights issues, IOC President Jacques Rogge's call this spring on China to improve human rights and provide greater media access were met with sharp rebuke from Beijing. As a practical matter, what leverage -- if any -- does the IOC have once it has awarded an Olympic Games to a city? The question of a free, versus state-controlled, media must be examined in the context of a domestic, versus international, audience, because although global image is important to China, more important is its ability to maintain order in a country of 1.3 billion people. China recently surpassed the US in the number of Internet users, but not surprisingly, Chinese Internet surfers are denied access to sites the government deems sensitive or controversial. It will be interesting to see what we can -- and cannot -- access on the Internet when we are in China next month.
1. A thought that comes to my mind is that we take from granted having the first amendment. People in the United States abuse the right of freedom of speech and do not realize how other countries do not have this right. Place like China has restrictions on what can be broadcasted and said in public. If the restrictions are violated then person could risk going to jail. Here in America we are allowed to have strikes for are rights. In countries like China people would never think of doing something like that. We are so lucky to have these freedoms and people do not realize it.
2. I believe that the games should impose conditions to ensure organization. There are millions and millions of people who watch the Olympics. Majority of the people cannot make it to the site of the Olympics, so they rely on the media to inform them of what is going on. If there were restrictions on what could be covered, the Olympic Games would be lost. It would almost be like the Olympics were not going on because people who were not present at the games would have no clue how their country was doing.
3. I think that China is more wary of foreign media. China has control over what the Chinese media can and cannot do. Whereas, China only has control over the foreign media while they are in the country. Once foreign media leaves China they can broadcast whatever they want about China. Unlike China, the foreign media does not care about the image of China. They are going to show the good, the bad, and even the okay things of China. I think that this scares China in a way because they have never had a situation like this before.
Here's another "twist" to the issue of media constraints. Olympic broadcasters -- like NBC -- pay so much money for the TV rights fee that they literally float the boat of the Olympic enterprise. Going forward, NBC alone is paying $2.2 billion for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games and the 2012 London Olympics (contrast that against the $50,000 that CBS paid in 1960 for the Winter Games in Squaw Valley). And the rights fee is in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on producing the 17-day, 28-sport extravaganza. Given the sums of money being paid over by the broadcasters, should they not have a greater expectation about who, what, where, and when they can cover?
1. When thinking about being an American and living in America I feel lucky for how open our society is. The bill of rights protects most of our freedoms and if it is not protected it can be questioned. To look at the extent that the Chinese government regulates the news media, and what is printed about the government is hard to believe when our government has been so lax about what is printed here. It doesn't seem fair to the people not to give them the freedom to say what they feel either on the news media and in the newspapers.
2. I don't think that it is right for the IOC to impose the conditions based on "Western" values. Is that not what we are trying to get away from, and the point of the olympics to bring together many different countries, not to "force" our values on another country. The US would not want China coming in and telling us how we should be regulating our country regardless of how we felt about it, so why does it seem fair that just because they are hosting the olympics that we have the right to tell them how to run their country.
3. I think that China is a bit weary about the independent news media and how they will portray China as a whole. Being able to host the olympics is a way for China to show the world that it can be a superpower. The govenment will try anything to not let the news media portray them in a bad light.
Jenn makes the rational point that we as Americans probably would not like it if another country criticized something about how we functioned as a nation, and then sought to impose its values and norms on our way of life. Fair enough. But wasn't one ostensible outcome of awarding the Olympic Games to Beijing back in 2001 a softening of China's rigid policies . . . because the attendant global exposure necessarily would moderate the behavior of China's leaders. A basic question at the time was whether China should be punished, ostracized, and further isolated for its long list of abuses -- and especially in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre -- or be given a chance to join the international community and take its proper place as an emergent global economic power. Obviously, the IOC elected to take a bit of a gamble in the hopes that hosting the Olympics would facilitate and expedite democratic reforms. The inevitable tension arises in large part over the unreasonable expectation that such sweeping changes could be effected in a civilization with a 5,000 year history in a mere seven years.
1.) The first thing that comes to mind when I think about being an American living in the U.S. is how truly lucky we really are. A lot of time we don’t even realize what is coming out of our mouths and what we write down on paper. We say things we shouldn’t or things we don’t mean. This is a big part of what our culture in this country is based on and we don’t even realize that it can get us in serious trouble in other countries. There is not much censorship in the U.S. and the positives of that, in my opinion, highly outweigh the negatives. We are all a lot luckier that we think and should not take this freedom for granted.
2.) I feel as though the IOC should try and both respect the Chinese culture while also imposing conditions to ensure “Western” values. This sounds contradictory and almost impossible but in my opinion you should try as best you can to compromise in order to make both sides content. On one hand you need to respect the culture of the Chinese because you are in there country so it is almost like you have to play by their rules, but on the other you cannot compromise what the rest of the world wants to see and hear and therefore there needs to be a negotiation of sorts. I also think that the Chinese might come around and honor their promise of open and unfettered media access because they want to show the rest of the world that they too can host a successful Olympics where everyone will be able to see and hear what they want when they want. I feel China wants to be accepted.
3.) I defiantly think that China is more afraid of the way the global media will portray the country. Like I said before I think they are looking for acceptance from the rest of the world. They are letting people in for the first time and are skeptical about it. They want good feedback and good publicity from these games. The people of China know a lot more about their country then the rest of the world, so the government, while still worried about the independent news agencies, is still more apprehensive about the outside media. Even though there is a lot of turmoil about these games already (and they haven’t even started) I hope that China will get the good publicity they hope for in order to boost there economy and their lifestyles.
QUESTION 1.
I defiantly think that as Americans we take for granted the extent of our personal freedom. I do at least anyways. Its not until it is pointed out to us that we realize how lucky we are and compared to the rest of the world we are extremely lucky. I think that many people focus on the things and the abilities we don’t have rather than the good/ the freedom that we have been given as a country our entire lives. We are extremely lucky to be citizens of the united states on more levels than one.
QUESTION 2.
This is a very tough question to answer and although China stated that they would change their ways of media censorship for the Olympics it is against Chinas government promise and the IOC should have taken that into deeper consideration upon deciding whether or not China should be chosen to host the 2008 Olympics. I think that it is important that the games are seen and reported on to the world because they are a huge part of history and admired by most everyone so it is important that the IOC makes sure that it is organized the way it has always been. There is a certain respect that they should give China but China vowed to change their ways for the Olympics so it is no longer the IOC’s responsibility of weather or not Chinas values are being damaged.
QUESTION 3.
I think that the Chinese government should be more wary of the foreign media coming into the country for the Olympic games. There is defiantly the possibility that the media will portray China poorly because of the way they do handle their media and the censorship they put on television or the way they run the games and treat the millions of people coming into the country from all over the world including spectators and athletes alike. Six billion people is a lot of people that could potentially be exposed to the bad side of China. The Chinese government should be most cautious of pleasing the foreign media.
Lauren and Whitney -- as have others -- make the point that but for an accident of birth, we might just as easily be subject to laws, values, and beliefs of another country . . . even a nondemocratic one! Foreign travel -- and even the anticipation of traveling to a country with a very different belief system -- gives us a stronger sense of this reality, because nothing resonates like a comparative study via direct experience. (This is why I'm glad that you are so interested in traveling abroad . . . in the past, now, and in the future!) Lauren also makes a case for the importance of diplomacy in a global community. At the end of the day, international relations is about compromise, with countries engaged in a push-pull process that hopefully results in a win-win solution. (Sorry about all the metaphors!). In the case of China and media censorship, however, can anyone see how and why a rapid transformation to a more open and democratic system might result in chaos? To Whitney's point, this is China's first -- and biggest -- stage on which to showcase itself to a worldwide audience in the new millenium, and it will be interesting to see how this is portrayed in the media, both foreign and domestic.
QUESTION 1.
I enjoy being an American and being able to express what I believe in, but I enjoy the freedom I have in China as well. What I mean by freedom is being able to walk down a street with a beer in my hand, having friends being able to smoke in restaurants/bars, or driving in a car with a taxi driver who drives all over the road. In the US I have rights and can write about what I want and express my way towards the government. I know I can not express my ways towards Mao but I am able to express my views with other expats.
QUESTION 2.
I think having the IOC impose Western values on another country could cause chaos. The Olympics should respect another country’s culture even though they are a melting pot for many countries. The IOC needs to take into consideration the residents of that country because if they came to US and try to change my values, the Olympics would receive negative instead of positive feedback. China is supposed to open up internet access and I have been here for a month dealing with them limiting internet access. About a week ago, China finally has opened internet access to Facebook. The problem is off and on it will go out and I will not be able to access many websites. All in all I think that would be a bad choice and would totally cause a big war when other express their values.
QUESTION 3.
Of course they are nervous about independent media bashing China because China is suppose to be looked at as this up and coming country that has totally flipped towards the right direction. On a personal note, I think CCTV is crap because they are building the most expensive building for no apparent reason, when they could be investing it somewhere else. A good idea where they could invest the money into pollution control and waste management since it is awful in Beijing. Before I go off into a tangent, I think China would rather have media controlled by the government because they can regulate easier and be able to have more control.
AJ points out a great example of the China paradox in terms of personal freedom . . . that is, on the one hand alcohol consumption and tobacco smoking is virtually unregulated, while access to many internet sites are blocked in China. And as you will see when we get to Beijing, the motorists are worse than practically anywhere else in the world (this is largely attributable to the addition of some 20,000 cars to the streets of Beijing every month and quantum increase in first-time drivers, coupled with lax traffic enforcement).
AJ's reference to CCTV is the new cantilevered building (monument, really) in Beijing's central business district that serves as the headquarters of China's state-controlled television. Built at an estimated cost of $800 million, it also contains a hotel (Mandarin Oriental), a visitor's center, a large public theater, and exhibition space. Indeed, $800M is a lot of money, but one must remember that CCTV is the most important vehicle in China's giant propaganda machine.
1) Until you try to put into words what it means to be an American and have persona freedoms you don't truely realize how much you take for granted. It's very nice to know that I have the choice to pick my own career, choose where I'll live, who and when I'll marry, how many children I'll have and so on. These choices are so engrained in us and such a part of everyday life that we don't think about what would it be like if we didn't have all of this and for me I think I'd be miserable if at this point I was subjected to a governments will and given very little chance to improve myself. In America people make life altering mistakes all the time but they have the chance to make up for these and become better from it. Take for instance the MLB player Josh Hamilton who missed three years due to a drug and alcohol addiction. He clenaed himself up and is now an MVP candidate.
2) I feel as far as the media is concerned in the Olympics "western values" are the best. Since it is the world who is competing people from all around the world should have the opportunity to see the games in as neutral a view as possible and enjoy the greatest athletes on the greatest stage to preform. Governments should not try to spin it in their own favor no matter if they are hosting or simply competing. The games should be view in the way they are and taken in as the spectacle they are.
3) I think China should be wary of both independant domestic media and foreign media outlets. However, I feel they should be more worried about foreign media outlets. Since China is the largest communist counrty still opporating in the world some countries may attempt to portray they negetively to show the faults of their political system. These reports may not be entirely accurate but may be damaging nonetheless. Unfortunately the Olympics are a political stage at the point in time and not purely about the athletics but they still are primarily about the Olympics and that is what I personaly am concerned about.
Well said, Jake! Of the many examples you cited, one that strikes most Americans (and most non-Chinese, for that matter) as being against humanity is the official government policy that most couples can have only one child. While this might be fine for people who choose not to have children or to have just one child, what about those who prefer something more than a three-member family? On other hand, should a country with more than 1.3 billion mouths to feed not adopt policies to manage its populalation? Somewhat surprisingly, in the aftermath of the recent earthquake that devastated the Chengdu region, the government uncharacteristically permitted the reporting of survivors' harsh criticism of local officials due to inadequate building codes, as well as how many families were left childless due to the one-child policy and numerous child victim.
QUESTION 1.
I think people take for granted these rights and they have been streched so far from what I believe the original content really ment. I feel it is great to be able to stand up and speak for what you believe in because in other countries if you arent brainwashed to there beliefs or you speak otherwise you would lose your life in a painful way. I am glad to be an American and have those rights but I always try to watch what I say and think before I speak. Some people don’t know how to keep there mouth shut. I feel that the media and press gets a little ridiculious and out of had. When do you ever see anything positive on the news? Its always death here, murder there, terrorists, bank robbery, earthquake, flood, bear mauls a child..., it just makes America so negitive. There should be more positive reinfocement and less scaring the country half to death.
QUESTION 2.
I feel that inside the stadium and outside the stadium are different things. I think all the games and events should be granted to be televised and recorded but the country hosting should be able to be granted there home country laws outside the stadium and if outside coverage is not wanted then they shouldnt have to be coverage. I think that the IOC should respect a particular country's culture, laws, and traditions. It is a worldwide event and should defenately be televised but there should be some sort of agreement which should be factored in on such as press limitations before bidding. That should play a factor.
QUESTION 3.
Im shure they are keeping a closer eye on the foreign media and especially the U.S. media. A large country like that has a lot of other countries/enemies that are also looking to spy or look for anything that they can use to make china look bad on worldwide television. China offers a lot economically, scientifically, and socially. People/countries may try to get the insides or how to’s to become successful like China, due to its radid growth and superpower status.
I feel that the restrictions of how much people can say hurts the country in general. They could be ignoring great ideas, and lead to a lack of cultural development.
I feel that if the ICO wants a true representation of the host country they should not impose "Western" values on this country. This will allow outsiders to see the true country and not feel like every other country is like their own. On the other hand do you feel that the Western world should change to satisfy other countries if they host the games.
I think the Chinesse government is more wary of the global media because they are taking steps to ensure that there is little to no "slum" looking ares for the tourist and media.
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