Historical Narrative and Identity Construction:The Web-Documentary of the Olympic Games Broadcasting History

The web-documentary named“LIVE! Broadcasting the Olympic Games(LBTOG)”launched by the International Olympic Committee(IOC)'s official website introduces the media technology and some other relevant events and objects of every sphere of the Olympic Games. Using the post-modern historical narrative analysis from Hayden White and investigating five aspects of LBTOG including narrative topic, main theme, mode of emplotment, mode of argument and mode of ideological implication, the research aims at understanding how IOC uses narrative strategies in constructing its identity and LBTOG's relation with the Olympic Charter. There are two topics in LBTOG, which are media technology and humanism, and they transform into the theme of progress altogether. The media technology's mode of emplotment is romance; its mode of argument is mechanistic and its mode of ideological implication is anarchism. While the humanism's mode of emplotment is romance; its mode of argument is contextualism and its mode of ideological implication is liberalism. It concludes that the construction of the organizational identity is through subtraction and indistinction; the identity of IOC is the advocate of the advanced media technology and the reflector of previous misconduct. Moreover, the aim of organizational identity construction is continuing its tradition and reforming its inappropriate issue, which works as the supplement of the Olympic Charter. The findings also give advice to Chinese sports organizations as to constructing and promoting their image.