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Chinese President Xi Jinping said that “Sports are an important symbol of social development and human progress, and an important reflection of comprehensive national strength and social civilization,”. While this view of sports is prevalent in China, perceptions of sportsmanship have changed over time. We lack a clear understanding of this evolution, yet knowledge of this historical trajectory can provide insight into the role of sport in Chinese society.
Taking the news reports related to sportsmanship in People’s Daily from 1949 to 2020 as the research object, this paper uses python for code writing, text analysis, and adopts the method of Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and frame theory to explore the mainstream social concepts reflected by news discourse and the meaning of sportsmanship constructed by news discourse.
We found that the discourse and connotations around “sportsmanship” changed over three historical periods, with different social and cultural contexts, which shows a trend of diversification and deepening of the report content. From the first stage (1949-2002), "National sports, Mass Participation", "Friendship first, Competition second", "Win glory for the country"; To the second stage (2003-2008) " Integrating into the Olympic Spirit ", "Spread sports culture", "Show the national image"; To the third stage (2009-2020) "more open", "more inclusive" and "more comprehensive" sportsmanship of the new era. We suggest that the evolution of the connotation of sportsmanship is not only a change in Chinese society's understanding of sports, but a demonstration of national confidence, mark of national development, and evidence of social progress.
