Media effect on resident attitudes toward an Olympic bid

Abstract News media helps individuals think about the impacts of hosting the Olympic Games, enabling them to clarify or construct their own opinions toward an Olympic bid. This study aims to unveil the rationale underlying such media influence with the help of agenda setting theory. An experimental study was conducted in both China with 505 respondents and the US with 449 respondents in which media content was manipulated and framed as either positive or negative. The result confirmed the causal relationship between media content and resident attitude change. Although the moderating role of nation on media effect was not supported, it was found that the more initial interest the individual had in the Olympic Games, the more evident the media effect was.