ABSTRACT
This article examines the coverage of Brazil's most representative newspapers, magazines and TV stations of the Olympic torch lighting ceremony and torch relay, adopting an interdisciplinary approach, and analyses and compares similar stories that Brazil's most influential television networks aired from March 2008. For example, the ways the media choose to present a story illustrate national, transnational and global-cultural trends which trigger discussion on multicultural communication. It also comments on the 12 May earthquake in the province of Sichuan and examines the most recent reports on China's national mourning and pause in the torch relay. Another focus is the way in which similar visuals (moving images) and texts provided by international news agencies, supplemented by Brazilian media content and culture-specific interpretations, were used for most of the significant events before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The main aim is to highlight how television, as the most popular medium in Brazil, maintains culture-specific characteristics in order to communicate to its huge audience.
