Framing foreignness: a case study of Chinese media coverage of the NBA’s arena development in China

Media framing was employed in this study to examine the meanings and implications of foreignness for transnational sport organizations through a case study of the National Basketball Association’s arena development project in China. The results of the analysis of China’s traditional newspaper and social media coverage revealed that news writers/social media users highlighted specific disadvantages, advantages and paradoxes of foreignness surrounding the NBA’s arena development practices through the development of frames of cultural difference (positive and negative frames), building relationships (negative frame), firm strategies and resources (positive frame) and untapped Chinese sport market (negative frame). In particular, the social media showed a different framing process from the traditional newspapers in which the positive frames of cultural difference and firm strategies and resources were more prevalent. The different framing process and frame content showed the complexities of China’s media coverage, ranging from an American consuming culture to traditional Chinese political cultural ideology represented in sport and from articulating state ideology and control to developing a rhetoric of market forces related to the issue of foreignness.