MEGA EVENTS AND NEW MEDIA

DR DAVID MCGILLIVRAY
READER IN EVENTS AND CULTURE
 “The ones who make the World Cup are
the radios and televisions that buy and
– by favouring a billion and a half
television viewers – “produce” the
championship. Those absent from the
stadium are always right, economically
and massively. They have the
power.” (Lottinger & Virilio, 1997)

WHAT ABOUT MOBILES AND

TABLETS?
 “Official representations and discourses of
mega sports events are challenged and (re)
formulated. New (mobile) media permits the
‘fan’ (soccer) or ‘citizen’ (Olympics) to
subvert imposed structure/message and
meanings associated with events space – or
does it?”
“Technology allows for the participation, distillation and instant
mediatization of the fan experience. The fan is targeted (e.g. in Fan
Parks), experiential performances caught and looped back to the ‘lived’
and live audiences”

“Spectators use… mobile phones to take pictures of incidents within

the ground, on of off the field, and instantly send those photos to either
friends who are absent from the stadium or, increasingly, to new media
companies that request fans’ pictures of events at games as part of
their user generated content news gathering’ (Redhead, 2007, p238)
 New media aligns with
notion of accelerated
modernity (Redhead,
2007: 230) evident in
mediatized sporting
events. Speed, of
communication and
representation a feature
of the accelerated ME
spectacle, creating
challenges of control and
management for event
owners and corporate
sponsors alike  
 Increasing capitalization of football has led football clubs (and
fans) to bypass the mainstream media and develop their own
independent/direct forms of communication with global
audience (Dart, 2009). Facilitated by technology and shift from
read-only to read-write model
 However, lack of evidence that independent new
media sites (e.g. blogs) able to compete with
established media – rather, mainstream media use
digital presence to direct traffic to their content –
‘borrowing’ principles of UGC and participatory
media cultures
Team webpages
Multiple websites
– Read-only

FIFA WORLD CUP &

NEW MEDIA

Blogs, national
webpages, FIFA
webpages, YouTube
Twitter
– Read-write...ish
Facebook
Blogs
Live Streams
Mobile apps –
Read-write-
video,
create…
THE ‘OFFICIAL’
NARRATIVE - CONTROL
 CORPORATE SPONSORS

Social Media
ambushing used
effectively by
‘unofficial’ brands
to reach World
Cup audience
SA2010 ONLINE STATS
CORPORATE APPROPRIATION
MONITORING
TOOLS TO ASSESS
TRAFFIC AND
SENTIMENT
 Share of voice
“Alternative' (socio-
This metric represents the breakdown of mentions about the keyword by specific platforms. The breakdown
is based on total number of mentions per platform. This is important when you're trying to figure out where
most of the conversation is happening and where you should focus your listening and engagement efforts.
Top stories on the top platforms provides a sense of what people are mostly talking about regarding the

political) discourses
keyword on each individual platform.

Twitter Facebook 'crowded out’ after

5198 reactions

Blogs
584 reactions

Friendfeed
‘peaks' of activity in social
79 reactions 47 reactions media found at
Reddit

16 reactions
Googlebuzz

15 reactions
ceremonies (opening/
TOP STORIES ON TWITTER TOP STORIES ON FACEBOOK
closing)
snap of the match: fan punc... snap of the match: fan punc...
http://twitpic.com/24h1pq | on: July 11 2010 http://twitpic.com/24h1pq | on: July 11 2010

Pre-SA2010, a ‘discourse
5282 online comments

World Cup 2010: It takes tw...

5 online comments

Fan punched to ground by se...

http://www.newzfor.me/news/63409583.aspx | on: July 08 2010
of fear’ was evident on
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic... | on: July 12 2010
Last updated at 8:42 AM on 12th July 2010 A serial
pitch invader was punched to the ground by a security
new media coverage -
threat of violence to
guard as he stormed the Soccer City ground and threw

46 online comments 1 online comments

World Cup 2010: Fabio Capel...

http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2890/w... | on: July 03 2010 visiting fans, killings in SA
and spending on security
Same manager, but new approach is needed for Euro
2012 to be a success... So two wrongs can make a right
after all, then. First the Football Association remove a

26 online comments

WORLD CUP SECURITY / SHARE OF VOICE 07

 During tournament,
RACE
only sporadic
commentary on
wider socio-
political and
economic issues.
New media did
‘shine a light’ on
these issues at
times but football
‘chatter’ (and
mainstream sport
media narrative)
drowns out
meaningful critical
discourse
“Given the trends towards convergences and
consolidation of ownership, the likelihood of a spiral of
silence emerges, in which fringe minority voices get
less hearing and are gradually brought into
conformity…the hegemony of the privileged over web
content and values will marginalise less powerful
groups as it has in other media” (Real, 2007, p. 182)

No obvious social new media/citizen media movement

associated with FIFA World Cup – rather, the evidence
points towards open, participatory and involved
strategies being appropriated by corporate/official
sports media agenda – assisted by tight FIFA control
over media accreditation around World Cup

WHAT ABOUT THE OLYMPICS?

 Because of the
philosophy of Olympism,
its international reach,
avowed apolitical aims
and (relatively) recent
commercial success, the
Olympics is a site of
contestation over media.
Media rights value has
grown exponentially over
last decades, though
accompanied by
concerns over politics,
values, engagement,
ownership and control
IOC EMBRACES SOCIAL
MEDIA IN 2009
 The IOC has
secured riches from
media rights sales
but is now caught
between two stools
– engage youth
markets (crucial)
through new (social
software) media
technologies whilst
at same time
maintaining valuable
financial
agreements with
official sponsors
based on
‘exclusivity’ of
exposure  
 community media
participation
culture
legacy 3G

DIGITAL
MEDIA

#MEDIA2012 Citizen
journalism

Nations OLYMPIC
Regions
Art

apolitical

Digital Britain
 London 2012
media landscape
13,000 broadcast
journalists

7,000 print journalists

12,000 non-accredited
media

60,000,000 with camera

phones ready to shoot and
report
 Previous Games

Vancouver 2010
“True North Media house accredits a 5-year old
as a journalist and an Olympic mascot”

“W2 is the first independent media centre to work with

an Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games”

VANOC appoints a number of young people to be its

official citizen journalism team during the Games
AN INTERNATIONAL
MOVEMENT
“If the Olympic movement can
expand media participation without
jeopardizing its financial base, then it
can more adequately fulfill its role as
a progressive social movement.

Olympic citizen journalists are

already taking ownership of
reporting their Games and they will
need a structure for their
participation in 2012.”
“To achieve a broader media
participatory culture, it is
necessary to develop an
extended media network for
Games time reporting, which
builds on the strategic
development of non-accredited
media centres at previous
Games, linking them to citizen
media projects.”
“Such a network would be founded on
principles of ‘open media’ and will
facilitate community legacies and build
stories about London, the Nations and
the Regions that reach an international
audience. It will focus on reporting all
non-sporting legacy stories. Its work
will transcend national boundaries in
ways that no other Games has achieved
before, by promoting peer-to-peer
conversations.”
 Goals
Augment the Olympic media narrative
towards portraying broader dimensions
of the philosophy of Olympism
Create public engagement "
around Games time

Promote community legacy for

the nations and regions
 What this can do for the
accredited Olympic media

Media organizations in the UK will traverse the country

around Games time, requiring facilities and stories we
can provide, particularly around the torch relay

To fully report on the London 2012 Games, it will be

necessary to see what is happening in the Nations
and Regions

The Olympic Games is a social movement, not a

sporting event. What happens in the country will
become its central legacy
 “Boundaries blurring between new and mainstream
media as each extends reach into others’ territory.
There is evidence of the (successful) appropriation of
new media by the corporate sport-media nexus – a
tsunami of narrative serves to reduce ‘space’ for
alternative discourses”

“Yet, controlling the mega event message is

increasingly difficult as established broadcast media
strategies collide with the networking capacity of
web 2.0 and the popularity of social software to
communicate alternative readings of events quickly”

“Initiatives like #media2012 provide an alternative

‘space’ (and platform) to report mega events, free of
imposed guidelines and restricted editorial control –
but need to avoid falling into new media silo or
bubble”
“Researching new media and mega events
demands more online research following new
fan communities – including the
development of metrics for visualising their
influence and archiving to capture/retain it”

“We need for more research into the power

of the new media narrative in shaping the
‘story’ of major events. The focus needs to
be less on volume (quantitative) and more on
sentiment and influence (qualititative)– so
that we can understand the power relations
between official and alternative narratives
and how these are mediated”
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