Narrative strategies and interaction performance in Olympic short videos on Chinese mainstream media: evidence from the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics

Short-video platforms have become an important arena for the dissemination of mega sporting events and have significantly reshaped the organization and circulation of Olympic-related content. In this communication context, the content structure and narrative strategies of mainstream media’s Olympic short videos provide an important entry point for understanding audience interaction. This study examines 219 Olympic-related short videos published by the CCTV News Douyin account during the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games. Using quantitative content analysis, it analyzes the content structure of these videos in terms of domestic relevance, narrative focus, highlight moments, and emotional narratives, and further investigates the relationship between different narrative strategies and interaction visibility, measured by likes, comments, and shares. The results show that Olympic short videos exhibit a strong domestic relevance orientation and a clear athlete-centered narrative structure, while highlight moments and emotional narratives are widely adopted in narrative expression. However, highlight moments do not show significant differences across interaction indicators, and the relationships between emotional narratives and interaction performance vary across likes, comments, and shares. By comparison, narrative focus shows a more stable association with audience interaction. Further analysis shows that different combinations of narrative strategies were associated with significant differences in likes, comments, and shares. These findings provide new empirical evidence for understanding the content production logic and audience interaction mechanisms of mainstream media’s Olympic short videos in the short-video era.