The Guardian - Mulier Instituut

Media coverage as a site of struggle
between competing groups competing
to define reality
Uneven power relations – resources,
timing, legitimacy – a ‘hierarchy of
credibility’ (Becker 1967)
Sport and the rise of public relations (PR)
(Boyle 2006)
‘Seizing the Olympic platform’ (Price
2008)

‘All Olympic Games organisers face this
problem: they begin in the bright
sunshine of great publicity when the bid
is won, and then for the next six (or
seven) years have to face a blizzard of
critical coverage. Partly this is because
of the old principle that bad news make
bigger headlines’ (Horne & Whannel
2012).

News or Entertainment
News, including mega-event news, as a
‘social production’ (Hall et al 1978)
involving: selection, representation and
meanings/ effects
Broadcast Media – more celebratory
Print Media – more critical (at least before
‘games time’)
Internet – alternative, reflecting both

The perpetual Olympic media story – an
unpredictable event in a predictable
time frame is the ideal news story
Pre-bid, Bid, Decision, Build-up, Games
Time, Post-Mortem, Legacy
Elements of newsworthiness shift at
different stages before, during and after
‘games time’

‘In the build up to any Olympic Games the
media coverage is often focused on two
central questions: ‘will it go over budget’
and ‘will the facilities be ready in time’ The
answer to both questions is usually ‘yes’ …
…After the Games commence, by contrast,
there is a massive turning inward of the
media to events in the arena and the
stadia’ (Horne & Whannel 2010).

‘The tone within the UK press…will
depend on the medal count and the
impact of the Coalition Government’s
spending cuts…The expense of an
Olympic Games must be justified by
glory and, at the very least,
organisational competence.
Broadcasters… are inclined to
exaggerate the good’ (Steen 2012)

Flag-waving fomenters of the feel good
factor or dispassionate critics
‘the atmosphere created on the ground by
the crowd and the sense of occasion may
lead to the suspension, or outright
surrender, of one’s critical faculties’ (Steen
2012)
BBC – 2,500 hours live TV, 765 reporters
Print media – ‘Leave go your cynicism and
let the Games commence’ (Martin Kettle,
The Guardian 26 July 2012.

British national newspapers devoted an
average 46 pages daily to Olympic
coverage
Highest percentage of a paper
committed to Olympic coverage – 65%
Olympic coverage published on the
front, news, sport, feature and other
pages
More than 7,200 pages of Olympic news
published by UK national press

UK media space was saturated with
Olympic coverage
Created the cultural imagery of public
euphoria
Media processes of news selection and
presentation is clear
‘”boosterism will have the upper hand…No
one likes a party pooper”’ (journalist
Mathew Engel, cited in Steen 2012).

We don’t know that much about the cumulative effect of
such media imagery
‘Nobody can deny that the Olympics have inspired millions to
take-up watching daytime TV on a regular basis’ (letter to The
Guardian 8 August, 2012)
Need to find out more about:
the relationship between (mediated) mega events and
people’s lives
how the routinization of the ‘mega-event story’ affects
people’s responses to tales of suffering as well as euphoria

Howard S. Becker (1967)‘Whose Side Are We On’, Social
Problems, Vol. 14 (3), pp. 239-247.
Raymond Boyle (2006) Sports Journalism, Sage.
Stuart Hall et al (1978) Policing the Crisis, Macmillan.
John Horne & Garry Whannel (2010) ‘The “caged torch
procession”: celebrities, protesters and the 2008 Olympic torch
relay in London, Paris and San Francisco’, Sport in Society, Vol. 13
(5), pp. 760-770.
John Horne & Garry Whannel (2012) Understanding the
Olympics, Routledge.
Monroe Price (2008) ‘ On Seizing the Olympic Platform’, in M.
Price & D. Dayan Eds. Owning the Olympics, Digital Culture
Books/ University of Michigan.
Rob Steen (2012) ‘The view from the press box. Rose-tinted
spectacles’ in J. Sugden & A. Tomlinson Eds. Watching the
Olympics, Routledge.