These past two weeks have been more trial and error with the program than anything else. I still need to learn all the basics and put things together that will make all of the work complete. Some of the things I need to work on would involve making sure that the decimal places are correct in each table as well knowing the correct order in which to write the tables and equations. Once I have that down to a science, I think that moving forward with SPSS will be a lot easier.

It is not because it is challenging, because I do get it and understand (for the most part) what I am doing. I just really dont like numbers.

With that being said, I am extremely happy that my thesis work is dealing with content analysis and limited on the work surrounding SPSS. However, I do see the value in doing this as it will be something that is seen regularly in the professional world when trying to present appropriate figures to clients.

But, that doesn’t mean I really have to like it now. It is just a sheet of numbers, after all.

At the same time, there was more I would’ve liked added, but I cannot. I now know how I was feeling during those times and that will act as my motivation moving forward. Also, because I was not completely satisfied with the paper that I turned in, there are things in my mind that must be accomplished as this turns from class work into a complete thesis.

These last two weeks of intense pressure to get things done have been a positive in hindsight. Despite being extremely stressful during this period of time, I think these two weeks will serve as very beneficial in the long run of this entire project.

That can be good, but as I look back now I wish I had done a little more in line with my final thesis than just the requirements for this week. I really need to do some more coding and then make more conclusions.

At first, I thought what I had was enough, but I do not really feel that way anymore. I think this paper needs at least five more random hours to be coded for it to make more sense in the whole scheme of my thesis. The Opening and Closing Ceremonies are a good start, but there has to be more if I really want to answer  the topics touched upon in my hypothesis.

If my goal was to determine how much host nations use the games as a PR framing tool, I have to look beyond just the first and last days. The actual events have to be included to a certain degree. The five hours will still not match the combined time of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, but they will provide me with some much-needed athletic coverage that is at the heart of the matter.

The coding of the two ceremonies seemed to go by relatively quickly. Using my girlfriend to code the number of times the nations were mentioned during the closing ceremonies made the content analysis easier for me. Instead of stopping and starting the DVR to mark all the terms and mentions of countries, I was able to focus just on the manifest terms that are the basis for my resarch.

I did not do all the coding I would’ve liked, but I think that the eight hours of ceremony coverage works well for right now. It was good practice for me to make those comparison, and I think that because they were similar events it made it that much better than if I was incorporating one or two sporting events into the analysis.

This is the week that things need to get going. My game plan is to finish my analysis and get a ton written for next Monday. That may seem like a pipe dream, but there comes a point where I need to put all my distractions away and really buckle down. Last week, I took Spring Break a little too literally. Using my time poorly has made me come to this new conclusion that is forcing me to drive toward that end goal this week.

There are a few things that are on my radar that have to get down this week. HAVE TO. The first is to talk to someone about sitting in as my chair person. I think my biggest problem in all this is that I get ready to do something and then when one setback occurs, it throws me. I went to ask someone to be my chair three weeks ago, but timing was not good and that now has become something that I still have yet to do.

This is a big week and I need to get more focussed for the home stretch of this and other things. Priorities.

Following the 5-3 loss to the Americans, Canadian fans were extremely boisterous, as if to get out the pent up frustration from the loss. They were singing the national anthem behind a U.S. reporter trying to cover the postgame. This could be seen as impolite as the singing of “O, Canada” was much louder than the reporter, thus drowning him out.

Singing the national anthem so loud that it does not allow a U.S. reporter to cover their anguish? Two birds with one stone for me…

I decided that I really wanted to narrow my content analysis as a means to best understand my hypothesis and research questions used to guide my research. Starting my deciding how I wanted to examine the Olympics, I used the largest medium with the greatest deal of coverage of the Games that affects the greatest number of people: TV.

Recoding each night’s primetime coverage on NBC from 8 to 11 p.m. I hope to better understand the PR frame put forth by the organizers in contrast to how it is covered in the American media market. This will hopefully answer my questions regarding how well countries hosting the Games can alter the framing and perceptions outsiders have of the hosts.

After one weekend, I have been slightly surprised at the basic steps I have taken in examining these Olympics. These Vancouver Games have been surprisingly all about Canada on the American broadcast. During the Opening Ceremonies, the terms “Canada” or “Canadian(s)” were used five times more than “USA”, “America” and/or “American(s)”. This was something I expected because the OC’s usually are meant to reflect the host nation and the image it has crafted for this two-week event.

However, using this same model during the following evening in the first night of competition broadcast, the trend continued to be very Canada-oriented. Moving forward, I hope to narrow the focus even more and use much better techniques in my examination and study. But initially, my hypothesis seems to be very different than what I am seeing on the “networks of NBC”.

I understand that our library has a good system to find articles because you can search in specific journals. However, using Google Scholar, the search for a specific topic was so much easier. Rather than looking for one topic in each journal was good, but it made getting articles a challenge in a short period of time. Using Google, not only was I able to get credible sources, but also find article pertinent to my topic more easily.

Instead of looking for sources that had something to do with framing or another aspect of public relations, I was able to find a great deal of sources that directly dealt with my topic. If I am going to use content analysis, my literature review section needs to be pretty solid and I would rather have more information that will strengthen my case, rather than having a ton of resources that provide base knowledge.

To look at framing in the Olympics is comparable to PR, while at the same time interesting enough to continue examination for extend periods of time. I think that this past week really helped me see what I had to do to make my thesis work. Because I am  doing content analysis, it was important for me to really to gather information for the literature review part to strengthen and build on key points. If I can do this it should make my content analysis of the NBC coverage of the Games more powerful because I will have a stronger background to use in arguing my case.