ABSTRACT
The specifics of Olympic Games’ volunteering are currently unclear, as more needs to be understood about who volunteers, why, what they do and what they gain from it. Hence media coverage of volunteering at the 2008 Beijing Olympics potentially offered insights into these important questions for the continued staffing of future mega-events and the possible achievement of their promised legacies. However, a comparison of English language, domestic and foreign press reports revealed acute differences in the discourses used in the representation of volunteering at the Games. This essay explores these distinctions and their implications and presents results which clearly relate to two different hegemonic discourses.
