Off to the Olympics

As a media psychologist interested in the role of media in conflict, I can’t pass up the chance to be in Beijing during the Olympics. I head out tomorrow, now that I have my visa in hand, and will report from the frontlines during the coming week. I don’t look forward to the crush of the crowds, but am extraordinarily curious to see how it feels to be in Beijing, to sense the emotion of the crowd and then to see how my impressions align with the media coverage shown here in the U.S.

Things I have been pondering in anticipation of this trip:

• Is China ready to host the Olympics
• OR is the more accurate question, is the rest of the world ready for China to host the Olympics?
• This is the first time an emerging country has hosted the Olympics since Mexico City. Does China hosting the Olympics cause cognitive dissonance between what China is today and how we perceive China to be?
• Is this dissonance significant enough that the collective ‘we’ must identify and emphasize those things that allow us to sustain our metaphor of cold war China?
• Is China “damned if the do and damned if they don’t” on pretty much every thing that happens there in terms of both media coverage and world perception?

I can’t imagine the hoopla in Homeland Security if the U.S. had been getting the amount of terrorist threats that China has.  Is there a color above ‘red alert’?  U.S. media has been inundated with images of Chinese soldiers in response to these threats that provide psychic confirmation that China is a heavy-handed authoritarian state.  But can you imagine the global outrage if terrorists were to succeed in creating havoc during the Olympics?

The global reaction saddens me terribly.  From a positive psychology standpoint, the global community has taken such a punitive stance.  There is no encouragement or praise for progress, only condemnation for shortcomings.  We don’t focus on economic improvements, we see pollution and  lack of political freedom.  As an American used to personal freedoms and rights, coming from a culture of “let it all hang out,”  China’s  government is not the model I  believe in.  But I am also not blind to their challenges nor to the extraordinary progress China has made since opening in the late 1970s.  Thirty years isn’t that long to have made such radical changes in a country of any size much less one of the size and population as China.

Most psychologists and teachers would agree that you create more success by rewarding the positive rather than focusing on the negative.   These are complex issues and I don’t mean to oversimplify, but I do think we should be mindful of how much we are creating the images we expect to see.