What Canada Read/Red: A Content Media Analysis of the Montreal Olympic Games and the Soviet Union as Reported in the Montreal Gazette and The Globe and Mail
This study describes the media coverage of the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympic Games. Two newspapers were used for the data collection: the Montreal Gazette and The Globe and Mail. A systematic, descriptive content analysis of the Olympic Games news coverage was completed using 966 articles. Five categories were constructed for the quantitative analysis: general themes, change over time, sport, gender, and national representation. Based on the findings from the quantitative analysis, a qualitative analysis that examined the way in which the Soviet Union was represented in both newspapers was completed. Three dominant constructions were found, including sport dominance, political victimization, and national growth. This study shows that media focused heavily on the sporting aspect of the Games, compared to the academic literature, which focuses on key issues related to the Games, such as economics, politics, and infrastructure