Image projection and gaze reception : mediating East Asia through the Summer Olympics

Every Olympic Games involves a dual process of attempting to project favourable images of the host city/country/region and seeking to manage the international gaze that is invited as a key rationale for staging the Games in the first place. How each site seeks to be seen varies, though, with historical, political, social, cultural, spatial and technological context. The three Summer Olympic Games that have taken place in East Asia all attempted to demonstrate in different ways that its host had arrived as a global force. A key variable in each case was the communicative apparatus available to hosts, guests and the world watching from afar before, during and after the event itself. This article addresses Tokyo 1964, Seoul 1988 and Beijing 2008, seeking to demonstrate how the balance of power to represent and be represented has changed significantly over the almost half a century spanning the first and the last Games.