olympic and sport mega-events as...

Olympic and SportMega-Events as Media-Events:

Reflections on the Globalisation paradigm

Maurice Roche*

Introduction

In this paper I begin from the position that understanding globalisation is one of the greatest social scientific challenges of ourperiod, and that controlling it, or even steering it, is one of the greatest political challenges we face in the 21st century. Theurgency and scale of these challenges has been tragically underscored for us all in recent times by the events of September 1 lth,2001. Although 'globalisation' is a relatively recently developed concept, referring to a variously defined and politically contestedsocial reality, nonetheless in one way or another in the social sciences we all work in the shadow of the realities of globalisation,and, whether explicity or implicitly, in relation to the analysis of globalisation as a distinctive intellectual paradigm. This is as truefor us here in sport and Olympic studies, as it is in academic studies in all other sectors of contemporary society and culture. Thispaper aims to reflect on this situation from the perspective of an interest in sport mega-events and media sport. It asks what the gen-eral study of globalisation has to learn from the study of sport mega-events and media sport, and vice versa, - what has the study ofsport mega-events and media sport to learn from the study of globalisation? I aim to make some suggestions about some answersto these big questions, but since this is a working paper the answers and indeed the analysis itself are necessarily provisional at thisstage. On the basis of my discussion I also aim to indicate some of the challenges, gaps, and needs we face in the future, particu-larly in the media-sport aspects of Olympic research and of sport mega-event research more generally.

I come at these key questions mainly from my work over the years on cultural and sport mega-events, particularly my bookMega-events and Modernity published in 2000 (Roche 2000a, also 1992a, 1992b, 1993, 1994, 1999, 2001a, 2001b, 2002a, 2002b,2003, 1998 ed.) The paper is divided into two main sections. The first introduces the general analytic concerns of the paper. Itdeals with sport, media sport, and the globalisation paradigm and outlines some key questions, concepts, and themes to organiseand frame the discussion. The second discusses aspects of seeing the Olympic Games as 'media events' in the 'global village,'particularly in terms of their implications for our experiences of social time and space. Finally in the conclusion we draw some ofthe threads together and consider the research agenda into sport mega-events as media events they imply.

Sport, media sport and globalisation

Given that modern sports emerged as part of a wave of 'invented traditions' (Hobsbawm 1992, Roche 2000) in popular cultureassociated with nation-building at the end of the 19th century, it is not surprising that sport studies, media studies, and their off-spring media-sport studies, have traditionally taken the nation-state and national identity as a key point of reference and context(e.g. in relation to Britain, Barnett 1990, Whannel 1992 etc.). However, in recent years we have seen a new wave of sport andmedia-sport studies which show a developed 'post-national' awareness of globalisation processes at the global level as well as thenation-state level as key contexts, and which illustrate the importance of this global theme in research and analysis in our field (e.g.Rowe et al 1994, Rowe 1999, Maguire 1999, Boyle and Haynes 2000, Miller et al 2001, Brookes 2002). This awareness of global-isation, - understandably given the global aspirations of the events they analyse, - is also present in Olympic studies (e.g. Larsonand Park 1993, Roche 2000, Rowe 2000) and soccer World Cup studies (e.g. Sugden and Tomlinson 1998, Giulianotti 1999, Homeand Manzenreiter 2002, Sandvoss 2002). So it appears that, in the specialist field of sport studies, we are beginning to learn fromand about globalisation analysis, and I will reflect on what more we ought to be learning from it and about it later.

* Maurice Roche is Reader in Sociology, The University of Sheffield, England.

The Global Nexus Engaged Sixth International Symposium for Olympic Research, pp. 1-12

2 The Global Nexus Engaged Sixth International Symposium for Olympic Research - 2002

However, on the other side of the discussion, what does the general study of globalisation have to learn from the study of sportmega-events and media sport? In this paper I will suggest that, at least in principle, it has a lot to learn. However, to begin with, weshould be not be under any illusions that mainstream globalisation analysis has often ever been much interested in, or even noticed,sport culture, let alone sport studies. With the exception of Roland Robertson who occasionally made passing reference to the glo-bal cultural significance of the Olympics (Robertson 1992, p. 179), globalisation theorists seem to have had a blindspot when itcomes to sport. Sport is notably absent from many major analyses of globalisation (e.g. Albrow 1996, Castells 1996, Hirst andThompson 1996, Spybey 1997, Held et al 1999, Bauman 1999, Giddens 1999, Beck 2000) and of global culture (Boli and Thomas1999, Tomlinson 1999). Given my concern with media sport as a television genre in this paper, it is also worth noting that seminalstudies of globalisation in relation to the media, curiously, also have little or nothing to say about sport and the Olympics (e.g.Barker 1997, Herman and McChesney 1997). Clearly there is some ground to make up in terms of the promotion of academic dia-logue between mainstream globalisation analysis and the study of sport and media sport, not least on the side of globalisation anal-ysis. This paper aims to contribute to the promotion of this dialogue.

What might the analysis of globalisation and global culture have to learn from the study of sport and media sport? As a firstresponse to this question we can suggest that, at the very least, sport culture (particularly televised international sport events) pro-vides a special and arguably unique sphere and system of social organisation and of cultural events and exchanges in which theinternational, transnational, and universal dimensions of human society in the historical contemporary period can be experienced indramatic and memorable ways both by performers and by media spectators. Sport mega-events in the contemporary period, in par-ticular the two leading examples of the Olympic Games and the soccer World Cup competition, because they have been regularlytelevised 'live' to hundreds of millions, sometimes billions, of people in most of the world's nations since the advent of satellitecommunications and particularly since the early 1980s are also, by definition, 'media events* (Dayan and Katz 1992). As such, forthe last generation they have given a tangible reality to the well known concept, first introduced in the 1960s, by the legendarymedia analyst Marshall McLuhan (albeit inappropriately given television's technical limitations at the time), of 'the global village'(McLuhan 1960).

We may or may not wish to accord some normative reality to the universalistic ideals about peace and education which arepart of Olympic movement discourse of 'Olympism' (Roche 2002). Nevertheless, with or without mass public acceptance of suchnormative universalism, the periodic sociological realities of simultaneous world-wide mass spectatorship in mediated sport mega-events like the Olympics create a unique cultural space and provide unrivalled opportunities to dissolve spatial and temporal dis-tance, to participate in a notional global community, and to promote, albeit transitorally but recurrently, a 'one world' awareness(an awareness of the world as a singular place rather than as an aggregate of spatially and politically distinct and separate placesand territorially-based nation-state societies, Robertson 1992, Albrow 1995). There are no comparable opportunities for ceremo-nial and celebratory televisual evocations of 'globality' in conventional international politics around institutions such as the UnitedNations, which is possibly why the UN has been generally warm and positive in its relationship with the Olympic Movement inrecent years. While there are periodic international collective experiences in major acts of terrorism, wars, disasters, and other suchevents, these are often negative and frightening, unpredictable, and rare. Television systems remain significantly national in con-tent and there is very little in the international televisual 'global village' to compare with the positive and celebratory, predictablyrecurrent and relatively frequent character of sport mega-events. We can debate the extent to which, in reality, sport mega-eventsand mega-event movements such as the Olympic movement actually contribute to international and global cultural and politicalunderstanding and community as opposed to providing arenas for more divisive and competitive versions of nationalist identity-building. Nevertheless given their sociological appearances and their normative claims it is puzzling that they have been so over-looked in mainstream globalisation analysis. We will return to the status of sport mega-events as media events in this context oftheir potential performance and promotion of the sense of the world as a 'global village' later.

What more might the analysis of globalisation and global culture have to learn from the study of sport culture, media sport,and sport mega-events? To begin addressing this question it is necessary to distinguish within the general 'globalisation paradigm'between some key perspectives on the phenomenon. A common view of 'globalisation' in academic, political, and public dis-courses and also in the academic discussions noted above is what I will refer to as the 'basic globalisation' perspective. Thisinvolves some or all of a set of four main assumptions or theses. Firstly, this view assumes that globalisation is a deterministic pro-cess (involving the techno-economic dynamics noted above) which can be barely resisted by social and political organisations suchas nation-states. Secondly it assumes that it requires the promotion of standardisation and uniformity in all spheres of life. Thirdly,in addition and related to these two factors, it assumes that through the impacts of mass communications and transport technolo-gies, globalisation involves an historically unprecedented experience of 'one world' and of 'compression' of social space and time.Fourthly it assumes that globalisation impacts are mainly felt at the national rather than sub- or trans-national levels. This providesone perspective from which to consider the changing social context and role of the Olympics. No doubt each of the assumptions inthis perspective have some grounds in reality. However, in this paper I want to suggest that globalisation is a more complex pro-

Olympic and Sport Mega-Events as Media-Events 3

cess, and to argue that the social legacy and adaptive potential of the Olympics need to be understood in these more complex terms.

Generally what we can call the 'complex globalization' perspective suggests that, firstly, as against the techno-economicdeterminism thesis, globalization also involves the possibility for collective agency and influence by political and cultural collec-tivities such as nations and international organisations and movements. Secondly, as against the standardisation thesis, this per-spective suggests that globalisation can also involve differentiation and particularisation. Sometimes this is referred to as'glocalisation' in recognition of the idea that localities like cities can connect more strongly with global economic and cultural cir-cuits, and thus be more strongly globalised, by emphasising and building up their 'unique place* characteristics, as for instance inrelation to the global tourism industry. Thirdly, as against the time-space compression thesis, this perspective suggests that global-isation can also involve the reconstruction of temporal and spatial distance and differences. Finally, as against the prioritisation ofnational-level impacts, the complex globalisation perspective suggests that globalisation impacts and collective agency responsesto them, can also be seen to operate at sub-national levels (e.g. cities and city-regions) and trans-national levels (e.g. world regionsand their organisation, such as the European Union, Telo 2001, Schirm 2002) as well as at national levels. The new global socialconstellations being formed by complex globalisation (e.g. by the glocalisation of social spaces and places and by the multi-layer-ing of levels of governance and social organisation, Brenner 1999) provide reference points for currently influential images andtheories of global society as a 'network society'1 which attempt to grasp and model this complexity (Castells 1996).1

This paper suggests that the differences between the basic and complex perspectives on globalisation are useful terms of refer-ence when attempting to understand the Olympics in relation to contemporary social change. Also it suggests that the social signif-icance and role in global society of the Olympic Games, both as a mass mega-event phenomenon and as an internationalmovement, is better seen in terms of the complex rather than the basic globalisation perspectives. That is, the Olympics are bestseen, albeit against a background of basic globalisation processes, in terms of more complex globalisation processes of collectiveagency and differentiation, particularly time and space differentiation, and particularly through the agency, individual and collec-tive, of Olympic media audiences, host cities, and the movement itself as a corporate political actor.

Olympic TV and 'the Global Village:' Media events and social time-space

The televising and international broadcasting of Olympic Games events, at least in the last two decades, arguably producesspecial periodic instances of a 'global village' in which 'the whole world watches' games played on the 'global commons.' Thisconcept has now become part of official Olympic discourse and rhetoric. For instance, speaking in 1998 about the Athens Olym-pics of 2004 George Papandreou, the Greek European Affairs Minister, proclaimed: "We hope to revive some of the ancient tradi-tions, bringing in a cultural aspect which is very important, but also bringing in the 'Olympic Truce.' In a new century, where welive in the global village, the Olympic Games is the one event which brings people together in the world. Not just governments, butcitizens of the world, and the man in the street through television and the media in this one local festival." (quoted, Maguire 1999,p. 144).

Olympic TV, seen as such a global 'media event,' illustrates elements of the 'basic globalization' perspective. That is, fromthis perspective, firstly the events can be said, on the one hand, to promote universalistic values (Olympic values) and, on theother hand, to promote cultural standardisation both directly (e.g. the spread of international sport organisation and 'sport (con-sumer) culture'), and indirectly (through their commercialisation) through the marketing vehicle they provide for global brands andconsumer culture. Secondly, from this perspective, the global broadcasting of the 'live' Olympic media-event can be said to exem-plify space-time compression, namely that, with due allowance for over-emphatic simplification, 'the whole world' can be said towatch 'the same thing at the same time,' and thus in some sense to be in communication or at least to co-exist and be co-present in'the same (mediated) place' at 'the same (mediated) time,' a global 'here and now.' In this section we consider Olympic TV andreflect on it in the light of these claims.

Olympic TV studies suggest, as against the first claim, that Olympic TV retains important differentiating and particularisingaspects. Not unsurprisingly some of these aspects relate to the role of nations and nationalism in the Olympic movement, and tothe opportunities Games media events provide to periodically re-assert and re-configure national identities and differences, albeitin the context of an otherwise globalising world order. World regional inequalities, are also noted in Olympic TV studies as rele-vant differentiating factors. Also as against the second claim, and connected with the differentiating and particularising characteris-tics of nationalism and world regional inequalities, the review suggests that to characterise the experience of watching 'live'Olympic TV in terms of 'one world,' global co-presence and other aspects of space-time compression misrepresents the diversityand complexity of that experience. Overall the review indicates, in terms of both of these aspects, - and also in terms of the (e.g.nationalistic) 'agency' (as against determinism) and the (national-level and also world regional) 'glocalization' involved, OlympicTV is better understood in the terms of a 'complex globalisation' rather than a 'basic globalisation' perspective.

First, though it is worth conceding, in favour of the standardisation view in the basic globalisation perspective, that the struc-ture and content of Olympic Games, and thus the content of Olympic TV broadcasts, have come to have highly repetitive features.

4 Tlie Global Nexus Engaged Sixth International Symposium for Olympic Research - 2002

Olympic opening and closing ceremonies and medal presentation ceremonies are tightly controlled and rule-governed by the IOCand its Charter, they are seen as valued rituals and are subject to a traditional ceremonial choreography which Olympic TV pro-gramming must represent. Nevertheless every Games is also, in important respects, a unique event in which the standardised ele-ments are interpreted and represented in ways which are particular to the host nation and city. Our review in this section highlightshost-nation dimensions of the particularities of the Games event, and thus of the TV event, while in the next section we highlighthost-city dimensions of these particularities.

Also, in favour of the space-time compression view, no doubt literally 'the whole world* does not watch the live televising of,say, the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games. Nevertheless it is reasonable to acknowledge that - even allowing for someexaggerations in the estimates, - a large and rising proportion of the world's population does do so, (estimated at around 1 billionfor the Seoul and Barcelona Games in 1988 and 1992, 2 billion for the Atlanta Games in 1996, and 3.7 billion for the SydneyOlympics). Of course, that said, the quality of the audience experiences of these mass publics, how people view these broadcastsand what they make of them, is another matter, and, like the unequal distribution of viewing between nations and world regions, itcannot be read off from these aggregate quantitative data. Olympic TV studies suggest that there are significant differences innational broadcasters" productions of Olympic TV programming and in audience responses as between different nations and otherdifferential social contexts. To these extents the world which is constituted in the periodic and recurrent mass watching of Olym-pic TV is not particularly well captured in the image of a unitary 'global village.' That said, nevertheless, some kind of shareableglobal community experience, consistent with the national and other differentials and particularities noted in the studies, can argu-ably be evoked in Olympic TV, and this has to to do with a sense of collective memory, 'global story' or narrative, represented inthe succession of Games events, and also in general in the notion that the Olympics have become a modern popular cultural tradi-tion.

Olympic TV and time-space experience

In this section we briefly reflect on the experience of time-space in the global village of mediated sport mega-events, focussingmainly on temporality. The aim here is to explore the 'basic globalisation' claim that this mass popular cultural and media genreinstantiates the idea that in contemporary globalisation conditions space-time is capable of being radically compressed into a uni-versally sharable present. We will suggest that the reality is different, more complex, and more in line with a 'complex globalisa-tion' perspective. First we consider the meaning of 'being present' at Games events and the complication of this experience giventhe relevance of television and of the increasing mediatisation of sport spectatorship in the contemporary period. Then we brieflyconsider some broader aspects of mediated mega-events like the Olympics relating to their impacts on our experience of time andhistory, which suggest that there is more to them than time-compression, and indeed that they have specifically time-distancing andtime-structuring features.

The mediatisation of 'presence' at Olympic Games events

Rowe (2000) outlines some of the main orienting concepts for his fieldwork study of spectating and viewing at the Sydney2000 Games event, and he considers Dayan and Katz's 'media event' ideas in particular (also see Scannell 2001). He observes thateach one of Dayan and Katz's typology of media-event forms - coronations, conquests, and contests, (particularly coronations, andnot just 'contest') - can be found intermingled in the Sydney case. In addition, as we noted earlier, Dayan and Katz addressed thedifference between 'being there' and 'watching on TV' and that the latter involved efforts to 'compensate' viewers for what theywere missing by 'not being there.' Part of the compensation involves TV production techniques giving the viewer different per-spectives and information, and in some ways much more than the spectator present in the stadium could ever see and know. Alsopart of it is people's own active re-structuring of private space into temporary public space, so that domestic viewing involves fam-ily and friends and becomes a special social occasion which has some features in common with the public character of beingpresent in the crowd of spectators at the event, but which also has itrs own distinctive features.

Since Dayan and Katz's studies in the late 1980s and early 1990s, evidently media and communications technology has movedon in a number of significant ways, (even without reference to the advent of widespread internet access in the advanced countries).These advances make the axis running between 'being there' as against 'watching at home on TV' less starkly polarised, introduc-ing additional more mixed and intermediary positions along the axis, and more complex forms of event experience. Also the costsand benefits of 'being there' or 'watching at home' are also now more complex to calculate. It is no longer a matter simply of trad-ing the special experience and atmosphere of being physically present, together with its partial views and limited information, forthe common experience of being physically absent but having the qualitatively superior overviews, insights, and information over-load provided by television.

From the perspective of the stadium spectator experience, the advent of large stadium screens providing some access to someof the televisual views, images, and information available (including close-ups of competitors, slow-motion replays of disputed


events, after-match interviews and other types of televised information) has changed the stadium experience towards a more com-plex and mediated form of experience of 'being there" and 'being present." Also stadium spectators, aware of the presence of TVcameras, and aware that TV shots of crowd reactions can be inserted in live event coverage to promote event ambience and atmo-sphere, can prepare themselves to 'play up to the camera' if they come into shot.

On the other hand, from the perspective of the non-stadium television viewer, the situation and the options have also becomemore differentiated and complex. Some time ago Eastman and Land observed the increased importance of bars as locations forviewing media sport in general and mega-events in particular in the USA (Eastman and Land, 1995, also Eastman and Riggs 1994),and this has been a gathering trend in the UK, across Europe and the wider world also. This was particularly the case in relation tothe 2002 World Cup for UK and European fans, only few of whom could afford the time and expense of travelling the great dis-tances involved to get to matches, and who, if they were to watch them 'live' had to adjust to the time-zone differences. Watchingtelevised World Cup matches involving one's own national team in the company of communities of friends and fans has often beena communal and public experience in European countries, frequently involving either large television screens in public squares orwatching large screens in sports bars with easier access to alcohol than would be the case in stadia. The latter was a significant ele-ment in the way in which the World Cup was watched in the UK in 2002.

Similarly in the Sydney 2000 Olympics, large screens were placed in a number of so-called 'live sites' around the central areaof the city, in addition to the screening that was available in sports bars. Rowe reports that, for people watching at the live sites,there was a particular sense of 'presence' and 'participation' in the event, different both from being in the stadium or watching athome on TV, and with its own forms of sociability, authenticity, and memorabilty. "The innovative televisual enhancement ofexperiencing the event remotely, such as the ...screen-based 'live sites' program at Sydney 2000, now offers a combined form ofphysical presence, crowd participation and a sense of place and history analogous to attending the stadium itself."(Rowe 2000,p.19). He speculates that "many physically removed from the sports action will lay future claim to 'having been there'.." (ibid,p.20). This passing reference to possible impacts of mediatised forms of presence at Olympic Games on later memories of thempoints us to other temporal dimensions of mediatised sport mega-events which we can now briefly consider.

Time-structures in mediatised global sport mega-events

The 'basic globalisation' assumption of 'time-space compression* outlined earlier could be said to be instantiated in a positiveway in 'global villagers" 'live' mediatised participation in events like the Olympic Games. Our previous consideration of thenature of 'presence' at mediatised sport mega-events has indicated the complex character of this in the contemporary period andthus tends to give support to a complex rather than a basic globalisation perspective. However, in the form of such things as theincreasing 'pace' of social life associated with transport and communications technologies, some forms of time-space compressioncan be said to be general features and dynamics of everyday experience in contemporary society. As such, and by the increasingprioritisation of the present and the short-term that they imply, they can also be said to carry negative potential implications forpeople's general experience of temporality in the contemporary period, not least for the experience of temporal 'depth' and 'struc-tures' beyond 'the present,' namely experiences of 'past' and 'future.' Periodic globally mediatised sport mega-events like theOlympic Games can be argued to provide some cultural resources for people to counter this over-emphasis on the present and itsthreatened diminishment of inter-personal and collective senses of past and future, and to help people to remain more aware thanotherwise of the making and marking of time and history (Roche 2000 ch.8, 2003).

From the perspective of the interpersonal meaning and experience of mega-events like Olympic Games, participation in thecontemporary mediatized world of mega-events and sport culture in general offers people non-routine, extra-ordinary, and charis-matic events, involving distinctive motivations and opportunities for dramatic experience, activity, and performance, which can beused to recover and reanimate the time-structure dimensions of past (via event memorialisaton and construction of narratives ofevent 'heritages') and future (via anticipation and hope in respect of upcoming events) in personal and social life in late modernity.This is so whether people participate in them in a direct and embodied way or in alternative less embodied but not thereby lessactive forms of engagement through the media and the event as 'media event,' 'media sport' etc. That is, in the short term, thesphere of the present, participation in a mega-event and/or a sport event involves people in a culturally important and unique actionproject in which the present is experienced as being dramatised in various ways and also as being evidently temporally bounded.The medium-term involvement with mega-events and/or sport culture generates experiences of the distances between such events(and the distance of events from the present) created by their periodicities, the planning and anticipation periods preceding themand the impact periods following them. Through the practices of memory and imaginative projection which are associated withthem, involvement with mega-events and/or sport events, and with the mega-event world and/or sport culture more generally, hasthe capacity to generate and cultivate experiences of the longer term temporal perspectives of tradition and futurity.

More generally we should also note the collective national 'time-marking' and 'history-making' role of mega-events like theOlympics when seen from a structural and macro-historical perspective. Mega-events served nation-building and national culture,


identity, and citizenship-construction functions for both elites and publics in early modernity, and these functions survive downthrough to the contemporary 'late modernity' period in which mediatisation and globalisation have become pervasive features ofsocial development (Roche 1999, 2000) It remains the case that the ability of a nation to send representative teams to competeagainst the other nations of the world on the stage of an Olympic Games, and to do so recurrently in the Olympic Movement'smega-event calendar, is a much sought-after symbol of nationhood and of a community's particularity, of national identity, and ofits recognition (MacAloon 1984). This is even more the case in terms of the ability of a nation, and a nation's 'flag-carrying' city,to act as a host for an Olympic Games, and to be seen to do so in the 'global village' of Olympic TV. The continuing significanceof strong association with the Olympic mega-event for national time-marking and history-making by actually staging the event isindicated in the desperate inter-city and inter-national competitiveness which has come to be associated with the bidding processesto win the right to stage Games events (Roche 2000 ch.5, 7).

Olympic TV studies emphasise the continuing importance of the differentiating factors of nationalism and world regional ine-qualities in characterising Olympic Games events and their global mediatisation. This tends to provide support for the complex asopposed to basic perspective on globalisation. Consistent with this, in concluding this section we have observed the complexity ofthe nature of 'presence' at mediatised sport mega-events and also the general complexity of time-marking and history-making theycan be said to involve. Together these observations suggest that a more nuanced view needs to be taken of the general phenomenaof 'time-space' compression in what we assume to be 'the global village' in the contemporary period, and also of the particular ver-sion of this time-space compression which we may assume characterises people's world-wide involvement in Olympic events,these transitory games in the 'global village square.'

Conclusion

In this paper we have been concerned with one of the overarching and overriding issues in contemporary social scientific andsport research, namely the phenomenon of globalisation, and we have considered mediated global sport mega-events, particularlythe Olympics and Olympic TV, in the light of this interest. In the introduction we noted the relative lack of attention which hasbeen given so far in the general social scientific analysis of globalisation to the possible connections between these issues and theneed to address this problem. In relation to this, then, our review of research and analysis of the Olympics and Olympic TV hasbeen been guided by the questions we asked in the Introduction. That is, and in particular, on the one hand what might the generalstudy of globalisation learn from the study of sport mega-events and media sport? Also, on the other hand, what might the study ofsport mega-events and media sport learn from the study of globalisation?

Globally mediated sport mega-events like the Olympics and World Cup soccer present a very special and powerful case for thereality of globalisation, in the form of the apparent 'co-presence' at these events of significant proportions of the world's popula-tion through the medium of television. While this phenomenon can at times be matched by negatively valued 'media events' suchas disasters, wars, and VIP funerals, the planned and positive (celebratory) character of these periodic sport cultural realisations of'the global village' are otherwise unmatched as global cultural forms. This is the reason why globalisation analysis ought to beinterested in sport mega-events and mega-event movements. We suggested mat global analysis might have to learn that globalisa-tion in this important sport mega-event case is more complicated than it at first might appear.

In order to explicate this line of argument we suggested that there are two main approaches to globalisation, namely 'basic'and 'complex,' and that these can be distinguished in terms of the two meta-conceptual axes of standardisation/differentiation anddeterminism/agency, and also in terms of the two application fields of event experiential impacts (in terms of time-space experi-ence) and structural impacts (in terms of national-level and other levels (urban, world regional)). We considered Olympic TV as a'media event' in 'the global village' and the relevance for this of the nationalist structures revealed in Olympic TV studies andalso of the complex and mediated time-space experiences now typically connected with 'watching the Olympics.' Studies of thesephenomena attest to degrees of nationalistic differentiation, time-space structuration and agency in global sport media-eventswhich make them more comprehensible in terms of the complex rather than the basic globalisation perspective.

Whether our interest is mainly in using the sport mega-event field to contribute to globalisation analysis, or less ambitiously,in developing this field further for its own sake, the reviews undertaken in this paper point to significant gaps and needs in ourinformation and knowledge base. I suggest that these issues need to be addressed in future research in the field of Olympic andinternational sport research, particularly in that dimension of it concerned with sport mega-events as media-events and as media-tised forms of experience.

At the beginning of the 21st century, we live in a period of major global social changes often driven by technological and eco-nomic factors and 'revolutions.' In the sport cultural field in the not-too-distant-past of the late 20th century, examples of such fac-tors which had revolutionary impacts in the field of sport culture were, respectively, on the one hand, the introduction of televisionand, on the other, the creation of internationally organised production and consumer markets for sports goods, sport 'stars,' andmedia-sport. In our contemporary period, and in the short-to-medium term, future comparable examples are, respectively, on the


one hand, the international diffusion of the internet and of digital multi-channel interactive TV, and on the other, the opening upand exploitation of new previously "underdeveloped" world regional nations, territories, and markets for media-sport and sportindustry products. These sorts of factors can be seen at work particularly clearly in the field of mediated sport mega-events. Theycan be seen both in the short and medium term (intra-generational) time-frames involved in the production of each periodic sportmega-event, and also in the medium and long-term (inter-generational) timeframes involved in the development and unfolding ofsport mega-event movements' event calendars. These observations suggest that in the field of sport and Olympic research we needto be prepared to address the challenges posed by tracking these and other factors through in research studies in which the researchstrategies, designs, and methodologies have a longitudinal dimension, which are organised at an international level, and also whichhave an explicitly interdisciplinary or at least multi-disciplinary character.

How well placed are we to meet these kind of challenges and to engage in research with these sorts of characteristics? Fairlygood bases of official information for each Games event have been produced by each Olympic organisating committee in then-main post-event report and also in their other information provision activities before, during, and after the event, and this has beenaccumulating as an information resource in the Olympic movement for both event organisers and academics. Also from a journal-istic perspective, there is often good conventional media reporting and analysis using event organisers' 'on-the-record' informationservices, together with some notable if inevitably controversial occasional exercises in investigative journalism undertaken with-out much assistance from official or 'on-the-record' sources (Simson and Jennings 1992, Jennings 1996,2000). There is the theo-retically under-informed and often methodologically questionable tradition of sport event economic impact studies which citieshave often used to guide them in bidding for and planning sport mega-events (Roche 1992a). In addition there are the media-sportstudies we have reviewed in this paper. Finally there are distinct and valuable traditions of individual inquiry and scholarship in thefields of Olympic and international sports studies, particularly from historical and ethnographic perspectives. All of these sorts ofsources and others have at last begun to be accumulated in Olympic research centres such as this one here in Canada and othersestablished in the USA, Australia, Spain, and also recently in the UK. However, all of that being said, it seems to me that cur-rently we seem to be somewhat under-resourced and unprepared to face the challenges of longitudinal, international, and interdis-ciplinary research indicated above which are necessary given the evolving, global and multi-dimensional characteristics of suchsport mega-events as the Olympic Games

Inevitably one is tempted to conclude a review such as this by arguing that 'more research is needed.' I hope I have indicatedthat it is, and why it is. However, it is evidently not just a matter of the quantity of research, and asking for 'more of the same,' noreven of asking for 'a lot more of the same.' In addition to supporting the continuing strengths of existing individual scholarship inour field, the reviews in this paper suggest that we also need something qualitatively different. My 'message' here, then, is that - ifwe are to seriously face up to the challenges of Olympic research in our period, and contribute to the understanding of the Olym-pics as an event in a changing global culture, we need a qualitatively new and improved level of cross-national studies, particularlymedia studies. This needs to involve substantial teams of research leaders and assistants, because the tasks are beyond the capabil-ities of isolated individuals. They will need to involve systematically comparative methodologies both quantitative and qualitative,and will need to be conducted over medium-term time-frames (e.g. spanning at least two Summer Games events). The MoragasSpa team's study of media aspects of the production, content, and reception of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics was pioneering inthis respect - it set new standards and pointed the way. But, as the team members themselves were the first to admit, this study hadits own limitations. In any case it was conducted a decade ago and nothing like it seems to have been attempted at Atlanta in 1996or for Sydney in 2000. As an international research community in a culturally important and growing area we can surely do betterthan this.

So I would like to conclude by putting a suggestion to you for discussion. My suggestion is that, to meet the challenges of thegaps and needs which currently exist in Olympic and international sport events, we should begin now to develop ambitious andcoordinated plans for medium-term duration projects studying globalisation-relevant aspects of future Olympic Games events. Forinstance, for each event, the production and public reception of both the Games event per se and of TV (and other media) versionsof it could be studied and surveyed, both in the host nation and in a selection of nations taken as representative of the major worldregions. Such an effort would, no doubt, need support from relevant national and international (e.g. UNESCO, EU) social scienceresearch funding authorities, from the IOC, from Games organizing committees, and perhaps also from media companies. If thisparticular 'wish list' could be achieved in time for the 'European' Olympics at Athens in 2004 so much the better. But it would bea sad comment on the capacity and aspirations of our community if we were unable to make at least some progress in this directionby the time of the 'Asian' Olympics at Beijing in 2008.

References

Addonino 1985 'A People's Europe' (Addonino Report, Parts I and II) Bulletin of the European Communities, Supplement 7/85,Luxembourg: EC.


Alabarces, P., Tomlinson, A., Young, C. 2001, 'Argentina versus England at the France '98 World Cup: - Narratives of nation andmythologizing the popular' Media, Culture and Society, 23,5,547-566.Albrow, M. 1996 The Global Age, Polity, Cambridge.Appadurai, A. (1990) Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy', in Featherstone (ed.) op. cit.Axtman, R. ed. 1999 Globalisation and Europe, Pinter, LondonBarker, C. (1997) Global Television, Blackwell, OxfordBarnett, S. (1990) Games and Sets: The Changing Face of Sport on Television, London: BFI Publishing.Bates, S. 1999 'Brussels gets tough on TV deals', Guardian, 25th February.Bauman, Z. (1999) Globalization: The Human ConsequencesBeck, U. 2000 What is Globalization?, Polity, CambridgeBlain, N., Boyle, R., and CDonnell, H. (1993) 'Centrality and Peripherality at the Barcelona Olympics', in Blain, N., Boyle, R.,and O'Donnell, H. (eds) (1993) Sport and National Identity in the European Media, Leicester: Leicester University Press.Boli, J. and Thomas, G. (eds.) (1999) Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organisations Since 1875,Stanford: Stanford University Press.Brookes, R. 2002 Representing Sport, Arnold, LondonBoyle, R. and Haynes, R. 2000 Power Play: Sport, media and popular culture

Boyle, R. and Haynes, R. 2002 'Football, New Media and community in the Digital Age', (paper presented at IAMCR conference,Barcelona; available from authors, Dept. Media and Communications, Stirling University, Scotland).Byrne, M. (1987) 'Nazi Festival: The 1936 Berlin Olympics', in Falassi, A. (ed.) (1987) Time Out of Time: Essays on the Festival,Albuquerque:University of New Mexico Press.Castells, M.I 996, The Information Age, Voll - The Rise of Network society, Blackwells, OxfordDeacon, B. 1997 Global Social Policy, Sage, LondonDuff, A. 1997 The Treaty of Amsterdam: Text and commentaries, Federal Trust, London.Duff, A. 2000 The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights: Text and commentaries: Federal Trust LondonEastman, S. and Land, A. (1995) "The Best of Both Worlds: Sports Fans find good seats at the bar', Journal of Sport and SocialIssues.Eastman, S. and Riggs, K. (1994) 'Televised Sports and Ritual: Fan Experiences', Sociology of Sport Journal, 11: 249-274.EC (European Commisson) 1997 Commission Communication on exclusive rights for TV broadcasting of major (sports) events,Brussels, 3.2.1997 (http://europa.eu.int/en/record/other/tven.htmEC (European Commission) 1998 'The European Model of Sport' - Consultation document of DG Culture, Brussels.EC (European Commission) 1999a The First European Union Conference on Sport' (May 1999, Olympia (preparation for Hels-inki Report 1999)EC (European Commission) 1999b (The Helsinki Report) 'Safeguarding current sport structures and maintaining the social func-tion of sport within the Community framework' (Report from the Commission to the European Council: 'The Helsinki Report onSport'), Brussels, December 1999EC 2000 Sporting and other events of national interest (OJ C 328/2,18.11.2000)Essex, S. and Chalkley, B. 1998 'Olympic Games: catalyst of urban change,' Leisure Studies, 17,187-206European Council 1997 Directive 89/552/EEC Directive on the co-ordination of certain provisions laid down by law, regulation oradministrative action in Member States concerning the pursuit of television broadcasting activities, OJ [1989] L298/23, AmendingDirective 97/36/EC.Council of Europe European Convention on Transfrontier Television, adopted in 1989European Council 2000a 'Conclusions of the Informal Council of Ministers of Sport of the European Union (on the EU's role in theWorld Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the social role of sport), Lisbon, May 2000European Council 2000b (The Nice Declaration) Declaration on the specific characteristics of sport and its social function inEurope, of which account should be taken in implementing common policies' (European council: Presidency's Conclusion, Nice,December 2000)European Presidency 2000 "Presidency conclusions on Sport' (re WADA etc) (Troika Meeting of Sports Ministers), Lisbon, March2000European Presidency 2001 'Statement on EU's post-Nice Sport policy agenda' (Troika Meeting of Sports Ministers - announcing2004 as 'Year of Sport'), Stockholm, February.Featherstone, M. 1991 Consumer Culture and Postmodernism, Sage, LondonFeatherstone. M. et al 1995 Global Modernities, Sage, LondonFeatherstone, M (ed) (1990) Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity Sage, LondonFerguson, A. 1992 The mythology of globalization', European Journal of Communications, 7.Friedrich, J., Mikos, L, Stiehler, H-J. 2002 'Salt Lake City Games 2002: Olympic Rituals and Intercultural Frames in the age of the


sport-media complex' (paper presented at the IAMCR conference, Barcelona).Garcia,S. (1993) "Barcelona und die Olympische Spiele' in Haubermann, H. and Siebel, W. (eds) Festivalisierung der Stadpolitik,Stuttgart: Leviathan-Westdeutcher Verlag. (English version: (1994) 'Big Events and Urban Politics: Barcelona and the OlympicGames', unpublished paper, ISA World Sociology Congress, Bielefeld, Germany)Giddens, A. 1999 Runaway world: How globalisation is reshaping our lives, Polity, CambridgeGiulianotti R. 1999 'The price of victory: Football finance and the Television revolution', ch. 5 in his Football; A Sociology of theGlobal Game, Polity, CambridgeGreenfield, C. and Williams, P. 2000 "The sporting gamble: Media sport, drama and polities', in 'The Olympics: Media, Myth andMadness', Media International Australia, special edition, NovemberHargreaves, J. (1996) 'The Catalanization of the Barcelona Olympics' (unpublished paper), European Association conference 'Col-lective Identity and Symbolic Representation', Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Paris.Held, D. et al (1999) Global Transformations, Polity, CambridgeHerman, E. and McChesney, R. (1997) The Global Media, Cassell, LondonHirst, P. and Thompson, G. (1999) Globalisation in Question, Polity, CambridgeHMSO 1996 The Broadcasting Act (1996), London, HMSO (Part IV: Coverage of certain sports events on free to air television).HorneJ. and Manzenreiter,W. 2002 "The World Cup and television football', ch. 13 in Home and Manzenreiter op citHome J . and Manzenreiter, W. ed 2002 Japan, Korea and the 2002 World Cup, Routledge, LondonHoulihan, B. 1994 Sport and International Politics, Harvester Wheatsheaf, London,IRIS, 2001 "Events of major Importance to Society', Legal Observatory of the European Audiovisual Observatory, BrusselsJackson, R. and McPhail, T. (eds) (1989) The Olympic Movement and the Mass Media, Calgary: Hurford Enterprises.Jennings, A. (1996) The New Lords of the Rings, London: Pocket Books,Simon and Schuster.Jennings, A. 2000 The Great Olympic Swindle, London: Simon and Schuster.Klausen, A. ed. 1999 Olympic Games as Performance and Public Event: The Case of the XVII Winter Olympic Games in Norway,Berghahn Books, OxfordLarson, J. and Park, H. 1993 Global Television and the Politics of the Seoul Olympics, Westview PressLash, S. and Urry, J. (1994) Economies of Signs and SpaceLines, G. 2000 "Media sport audiences: - Young people and the 'Summer of Sport '96': revisiting frameworks for analysis', Media,Culture and Society 22,5,669-680MacAloon, J. (1981) This Great Symbol: Pierre de Coubertin and the Origins of the Modern Olympic Games, Chicago: The Uni-versity of Chicago Press.MacAloon, J. (1984)'Olympic Games and the Theory of Spectacle in Modem Societies' in MacAloon (ed.) op cit.MacAloon, J.(1989) 'Festival, Ritual and TV' (Los Angeles Olympics 1984), in Jackson and McPhail (eds) op. cit.MacAloon, J. (1992) 'The ethnographic imperative in comparative Olympic research', Sociology of Sport Journal, 9:104-130.MacAloon, J. (ed.) (1984) Rite, Drama, Festival, Spectacle, Philadelphia: The Institute of Human Issues.MaguireJ. 1999 "The global media-sport complex', ch.7 in his 'Global Sport'Martin, C. and Reeves J . 2001 The whole world isn't watching (but we thought they were): The Super Bowl and U.S. Solipsism'Culture, Sport and Society, pp.213-235Miller, T, Lawrence, G., McKay, J, Rowe, D. 2001 'Sports media sans frontieres", ch.3 in their Globalization and Sport, Sage, Lon-donMcLuhan, M.1960 Explorations in Communication, ed. E.S.Carpenter, Boston: Beacon PressMonti, M. 2000 'Sport and Competition' - paper given to a conference on 'Sport' organised by the European Commission, April2000, Brussels. (Referred to here as The Monti Report-1)Monti, M. 2001 'Competition and Sport - The Rules of the Game' paper to the conference 'Governance in Sport', organised byEuropean Olympic Committee and the FIA, February 2001, Brussels (Referred to here as The Monti Report - 2)Pieterse, N. 1995 'Globalization as hybridization', in Featherstone et al op citPons, J-F 1999 'Sport and European Competition Policy' paper to International Antitrust Law and Policy, New York October 1999(referred to here as The Pons Report)Puijk, R. 1999 "Producing Norwegian Culture for (the) Domestic and Foreign Gaze: The Lillehammer Olympic Opening Cere-mony' ch.6 in Klausen, A. ed. op citReal, M. (1989) Super Media: A Cultural Studies Approach, London: Sage.Real, M. (1995) 'Sport and the Spectacle", ch.27 in J.Downing, A. Mohammadi and A. Sreberny-Mohammadi (eds) Questioningthe Media, 2nd ed. London: Sage.Real, M. (1996 a) Exploring Media Culture, London: Sage.Real, M. (1996b) The Postmodern Olympics: Technology and the Commodification of the Olympic Movement", Quest, 48: 9-24.


Real, M. (1996c) 'Is Television Corrupting the Olympics?: Media and the (post) modern games at age 100', Television Quarterly,Summer: 2-12.Real, M. (1996d) 'The Televised Olympics from Atlanta: A look back - and ahead', Television Quarterly, Autumn, 9-12.Real, M. (1998) 'Mediasport: Technology and the Commodification of Postmodern Sport', ch.2 in Wenner (ed.) op. cit.Reding, V. 2000a 'The Community vision of Sport', paper to meeting of European Sport Federations (April 2000), BrusselsReding, V. 2000b 'The declaration on sport adopted in Nice defines a European model of sport which represents cultural diversityand has a strong social dimension' (11th December 2000)Reding, V. 2001 "The reform of FIFA rules governing international transfers' (in association football) Statement to the EuropeanParliament, Strasbourg, March 2001 (EU website)Rivenburgh, N. (1992) 'National Image Richness in US-Televised Coverage of South Korea during the Seoul Olympics', AsianJournal of Communication, 2,2: 1-39.Robertson, R. (1992) Globalisation; Social Theory and Global Culture, Sage, LondonRoche, M. (1992a) 'Mega-Events and Micro-Modernization', British Journal of Sociology, 43: 563-600.Roche, M. (1992b) 'Mega-Events and Citizenship', Vrijtijd en Samenleving (Leisure and Society), 10,4: 47-67.Roche, M. 1992c Rethinking Citizenship: Welfare, Ideology and Change in Modern Society, Polity, CambridgeRoche, M. 1993 - 'Sport and Community: - Rhetoric and Reality in the Development of British Sport Policy', pp. 73-114, CBin-field & J.Stevenson eds. Sport, Culture & Politics, Sheffield Academic Press, SheffieldRoche, M. (1994) Mega-Events and Urban Policy', in Annals of Tourism Research, 21,1,1-19

Roche, M. 1997 - 'Citizenship and Exclusion: Reconstructing the European Union', ch.l in M.Roche & R.van Berkel eds. Euro-pean Citizenship and Social Exclusion, Avebury, AldershotRoche, M. 1999 - 'Mega-Events, Culture and Modernity: Expos and the origins of public culture', Cultural Policy vol.5, nol,pp.1-31Roche, M. 2000a Mega-Events and Modernity: - Olympics and Expos in the Growth of Global Culture, (Routledge, London)Roche, M. 2000b 'Citizenship, Popular Culture and Europe' ch.6 in Nick Stevenson ed. Culture and Citizenship, Sage, Londonpp.74-98.Roche, M. 2001a 'Modernity, Cultural Events and the Construction of Charisma: Mass Cultural Events in the USSR in the Inter-war Period', - Cultural Policy, vol. 7,3,493-520Roche, M. 2001b 'Olympic Games as Performance and Public Event' (Review of A. Klausen ed. book of this title), Culture, Sportand Society, Vol.4, No.3 (Autumn 2001)Roche, M. 2002a The Olympics and 'Global Citizenship" - Citizenship Studies, vol 6:1Roche, M. 2002b The Europeanisation of football' (unpublished paper, available from the author, Dept. Sociology, Sheffield Uni-versity, Sheffield, UK)Roche, M. 2003 (forthcoming) 'Mega-Events and Time' Time and SocietyRoche, M. ed. 1998 Sport, Popular Culture and Identity Meyer & Meyer Verlag, Aachen (2nd edition 2002)Roche. M. and Arundel, J. 1998 'Media Sport and Local Identity: British Rugby League and Sky TV' ch.3 in Roche, M. ed. 1998op citRoche, M. and France, A. 1998 'Sport Mega-Events, Urban Policy and Youth Identity' ch.6 in Roche, M. ed. 1998 op citRoche, M. and van Berkel, R. 1997 - European Citizenship and Social Exclusion, Avebury, AldershotRoche, M. and Harrison, J. 2002 'Cultural Europeanisation through regulation: - the case of media-sport' (paper presented atIAMCR conference, Barcelona; available from authors, Dept. Sociology, Sheffield University, Sheffield UK).Roche, M. and Annesley, C. ed. 2003 (forthcoming)- Renewing the European Social Model (lead editor, with C. Annesley)(Berghahn Books, Oxford)Roche, M. et al eds 2000 'Comparative Social Inclusion Policies and Citizenship in Europe: Toward a New European SocialModel' (European Commission, DG Research, Brussels)Roche, M. and van Berkel 2002- J 'Social Activation Policies in Europe', ch.10 in Inclusion Through Participation, eds Rik vanBerkel and Iver Moller, Bristol: Policy PressRothenbuhler, E. (1988) The Living Room Celebration of the Olympic Games', Journal of Communication, 38,4: 61-81.Rothenbuhler, E. (1989) Values and Symbols in Orientations to the Olympics, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 6: 138-157.Rowe, D. 2000 'Global media events and the positioning of presence', in "The Olympics: Media, Myth and Madness', Media Inter-national Australia, special edition, NovemberSanchez, J. 1992 'Societal responses to changes in the production system: the case of Barcelona Metropolitan Region', Urban Stud-ies 29,6,949-964.Sandvoss, C. 2002 'A game of two halves: Television Football and Globalisation' (paper presented at IAMCR conference, Barce-


lona; available from author, Dept. Media and Cultural Production, de Montfort University, Leicester).Scannell, P. 2001 Media Events, Media, Culture and Society, 23, 6, 699-706Schirm S. 2002 Globalization and the New Regionalism: Global markets, domestic politics and regional cooperation Polity Press;CambridgeSimson,V. and Jennings, A. (1992) The Lords of the Rings: Power, Money and Drugs in the Modern Olympics, London: Simon& Schuster.Sinclair, J. 2000 'More than an old flame: National symbolism and the media in the torch ceremony of the Olympics', in 'TheOlympics: Media, Myth and Madness', Media International Australia, special edition, November.Solberg, A. 2001 'The markets for TV sports rights: Europe v. the US' (unpublished paper) Leisure Industries Research Centre,Sheffield Hallam UniversitySpa, M de M., Rivenburgh, N., and Larson, J. (1995) Television in the Olympics, Luton: John Libbey Media.Spybey, T. (1997) Globalisation and World Society, Polity, CambridgeSudjic, D. 1992 'Homage to Catalonian planning' Guardian 16th July.Sugden, J. and Tomlinson, A. 1998 FIFA and the contest for world football (Polity)Telo,M ed. 2001 European Union and New Regionalism: Regional actors and global governance in a post-hegemonic era Ashgate,AldershotThomas, T. 1992 'Olympic record as Spain wins gold' European 25th June.Tomlinson, A. 1996 'Olympic Spectacle: Opening ceremonies and some pardoxes of globalization', Media, Culture and Society 18,4,583-602Tomlinson, J 1999 Globalisation and Culture, Polity, CambridgeUEFA 2002 'TV Rights Agreement: European Commission and UEFA, (UEFA website: www.uefa.com)Urry, J. (1995) Consuming Places, Routledge, LondonVerdaguer, C. (1995) "Mega-events: Local strategies and global tourist attractions', ch.ll in Montanari, A. and Williams, A. (eds.)European Tourism, Chichester/New York: Wiley.Virilio, P. 1997 Open Sky, London: Verso.Waters, M (2001) Globalization, Routledge, LondonWenner, L. ed 1998 Media Sport, Routledge, LondonWhannel, G. (1992) Fields in Vision: Television Sport and Cultural Transformation, London: Routledge, London.Wilson, H. 2000 'Hosting the Olympic Broadcast (Sydney 2000)' in "The Olympics: Media, Myth and Madness', Media Interna-tional Australia, special edition, NovemberWilson, H. 2002 'Studying the Web: Lessons from the Sydney Olympics' (paper presented at the IAMCR conference, Barcelona)

Endnotes

1 For fuller discussions of these alternative globalisation analysis frameworks and of the role of sport mega-events in them seeRoche 2000 ch.8,2002c.

olympic and sport mega-events as...

Documents