Abstract
Global mega-events are widely perceived as a tool used by host countries’ elites to propagate national narratives. But how are the messages actually decoded by international publics? The article takes the case of the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony to reveal the multifaceted character of mediated responses to a global event. This case is particularly important for both postcolonial studies and globalization studies because the British self-presentation silenced the country’s imperial past. In the aftermath, there were varying degrees of both attention and interpretative depth. Most notably, the omission of the imperial past of the host country was not scandalized by most authors of the “global south.” Instead, newspaper reports were characterized by affirmation, localization, criticism, or benign neglect. Empirically, the study is based on online versions of 26 newspapers from Argentina, Cuba, Germany, Great Britain, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, United States, Zambia, Zimbabwe, as well as British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Al Jazeera.
Introduction
The opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics attracted a worldwide TV audience of over a billion viewers. On the late evening of July 27, 2012, I too found myself drawn into the amazing spectacle created by Danny Boyle, the British Oscar-winning film director. The ceremony took the world through various stages of British history, from the “green and pleasant land” of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales to the Industrial Revolution, and from the World Wars to the Digital Revolution. The portrayal of key national institutions and cultural legacies included James Bond 007, Her Majesty The Queen, the National Health Service (NHS), and the vast body of British children’s literature. During the 4-hr mega-event with great lightening and music, famous artists such as Kenneth Branagh, Paul McCartney, and Mike Oldfield were performing together with 7,500 volunteers. The “night of wonder” (Guardian, July 28, 2012) was considered by many to be the most impressive Olympics opening ever. If one approaches this celebration of British history from a postcolonial perspective, then the sheer omission of the imperial past becomes irritating. The nationalist narrative crafted by Boyle includes nostalgic tails of belonging as well as purposeful patchworks of cosmopolitan culture. A critical postcolonial approach, however, allows one to question the absence of certain historical events and forces that have affected the world more than many other events portrayed in the opening ceremony.
A second striking feature of this ceremonial occasion was the parade of nations, with the Greek team being followed by 203 teams in alphabetical order (with the exception of team Great Britain [GB], which was to conclude the parade). This element of the Olympic ritual system, commonly understood in terms of competition/patriotism as well as camaraderie/internationalism, contained at least some irritating aspects. In a way, the parade of athletes mirrored the extension of the British empire, with many former colonies, protectorates, and dominions (as well as Commonwealth realms such as Barbados, Belize, and Salomon Islands) waving their flags. From my point of view, there was a stark contrast between the symbolic celebration of internationalism and the preceding exclusion of many nations from the British past. Were my feelings shared by other spectators from the former colonies? Was there a global outcry? At this point, I decided to map international reactions to Boyle’s show.
Obviously, Boyle was not charged with creating an official history lesson for millions of people in the “global village.” The goal was simply to entertain. However, the “greatest Olympics opening ever” contained certain elements of political theater. What Boyle exposed publicly, was “his” truth about the past and present of the United Kingdom. He took a myriad of issues, events, and forms, and transformed them into a structured representation of history in chronological order, that is, a narrative. However, if “the meaning is not articulated in practice, it has no effect” (Hall, 2006, p. 164). As Hall pointed out, there is often an asymmetry between encoder/producer and decoder/receiver, with the latter interpreting the message in ways that vary from what the former intended. There can be a partial rejection of the encoded meaning as well as a radical reinterpretation: “He/she detotalizes the message in the preferred code in order to retotalize the message within some alternative framework of reference” (Hall, 2006, pp. 172-173). The decoder/receiver, thus, reinterprets the message according to his or her own world view. In the case of the London 2012 opening ceremony, this applies to spectators and journalists as well as to readers of news stories and TV audiences. Boyle presented a coherent narrative that was selectively reproduced and retold by its receivers.
In what follows, I will briefly summarize the theoretical background of this article, focusing on the burgeoning field of Olympics Studies and its contribution to the study of collective identities and nationalism. In the third part, I turn to a critical reading of the opening ceremony and, thus, the meaning offered by Boyle. The Opening Ceremony Guide (OCG) published by the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games offers an ideal source of data for examining structural features and describing the plotline. The fourth part deals with the question of whether or not the global media event was newsworthy for British and non-British newspapers. Even if large parts of the global population rather rely on television and radio, scholarly interest in newspapers is justified because the press tends to be heavily involved in the (re-)production of dominant ideologies. The written press is a primary means of disseminating “news,” even when new social media environments are expanding.
My final sample comprised online versions of 26 newspapers from Argentina, Cuba, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, “the West” (i.e., Germany, Great Britain, United States) as well as British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Al Jazeera (for the selection criteria, see below). It may be objected that this sample is too narrow for mapping the global perception of the London 2012 opening ceremony. However, my goal was not to achieve representativeness but rather to create a solid base of crucial and illustrative cases that would allow for reconstructing collective cultural profiles. But, again, why is an examination of this empirical area important?
Mega-Events, Collective Identity, and Nationalism
The Summer Olympic Games are one of the world’s most famous sport events, and take place in a different country every 4 years. They are at the core of what Roche called the “mega-event phenomenon,” referring to an ever-growing “interest of national and international publics in mega-events and of nation-states in staging them” (Roche, 2008, p. 287). The popularity of the Olympic Games has attracted substantial scholarly interest since the 1980s. This article is not the place to provide a comprehensive overview of the burgeoning field of Olympic Studies. An extremely useful introduction to key issues and theoretical debates in the field has been published only recently. The Palgrave Handbook of Olympic Studies, edited by Lenskyi and Wagg in 2012, sketches the universe of Olympic-related issues that includes, just to mention a few, commercialization, funding, professionalism, urban development, policing and human rights, economic impact, bribery scandals, sexploitation, and gender verification policy. Perhaps the most promising line of inquiry addresses the tension between the liberal international ideal of the Games and the factual experience of national competition in a globalized world. Ever since the (re-)invention of the Olympic Games in 1894, this tension has been manifest. The nexus of mega-events, nation-building and nationalism, is known to have emerged in the late 19th century. “These events symbolize and legitimate the modern nation-state, and help to simplify and amplify, construct and propagate, the particularities of its national narrative and identity” (Roche, 2006, pp. 261-262). The importance of this issue has been taken up by various scholars who provided studies on the impact of the “Five Ring Circus” (Tomlinson & Whannel, 1984) on both nation-building and nationalism. Among the most important works in this vein are Dyreson (1992), Hargreaves (1992), Iorwerth, Jones, and Hardman (2010, 2012), MacAloon (1997), and Tomlinson and Young (2005). Most authors engaged in answering the question of how the Olympic Games contribute to nationalism, share a social constructivist approach. There is a widespread view that the modern nation merely is a symbolic reality, brought into existence through imagination. Benedict Anderson (1983/2006), in his highly influential book, stated that the nation is an imagined community, simply because individuals feel that they belong to a nation without ever meeting most of its members or knowing the whole territory. According to Anderson, creole elites imagined Latin American nations into historical being. The nation, thus, is not based on a deep, historical essence but rather created by strategic elites, who tend to adjust national images to ever shifting realities. Similar points have been made by Maurice Halbwachs with regard to collective memory and the shaping of representations of the past by the interests of the present. Halbwachs (1992) stated that the past is not preserved but is reconstructed on the basis of the present. It is necessary to show, besides, that the collective frameworks of memory are not constructed after the fact by the combination of individual recollections, nor are they empty forms where recollections coming from elsewhere would insert themselves. Collective frameworks are, to the contrary precisely the instruments used by the collective memory to reconstruct an image of the past which is in accord, in each epoch, with the predominant thoughts of the society. (p. 40)
This definitely applies to the “invented tradition” (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1983) of Olympic ceremonies. They constitute an institutionalized ritual, which seeks to demonstrate some peculiarity of the host nation as well as continuity with the Olympic past. It is crucial to note that Olympic opening ceremonies tend to present hegemonic national narratives that correspond to the then current historiographic needs of the host nation’s elite. Thus, the “predominant thoughts of the society” (Halbwachs) are not only mirrored in the opening ceremonies, but are proactively enacted. Or, in Roche’s words, “Nations may also use the Games to mark a new stage in that development, enabling them to set forth a new national identity and image” (Roche, 2008, p. 288). The very newness of national images refers to a constant process of adaption to ever-changing historical and geographical contexts. In this sense, Olympic opening ceremonies are events that aim at celebrating (new) collective identities in public. Some key messages to represent nations include post-Francoism (Barcelona 1992), multiculturalism (Sydney 2000) and modernization (Seoul 1988, Beijing 2008; see Roche, 2008; Tomlinson, 1996).
However, what one nation celebrates will not automatically be celebrated by others. There is a line of inquiry within the subfield of Olympic Studies that has proven innovative in answering the question of how Olympic Games (and, especially, Olympic ceremonies) were perceived by national and international audiences (Bernstein, 2000; Hogan, 2003; Mobley, 2008; Rivenburgh, 1995; Tomlinson, 1996). Tomlinson (1996), in his study on the British TV coverage of the 1984, 1988, and 1992 Summer Games and of the 1990 and 1994 Winter Games, highlighted the various forms of nationalism being (re-)produced and fostered by Olympic ceremonies.
In all of these cases [Los Angeles, Seoul, Barcelona, Albertville, Lillehammer], the paradoxes of globalization are marked. Symbolic spectacle positions the nation as a player on a global stage, but national pride and local history are the real stuff of affiliation and “belongingness.” The ceremonial inflection of the pseudo-global is localizing—tradition and history are reappropriated into a local, arrogated version of the ideal. (Tomlinson, 1996, p. 600)
Similar points have been made by de Moragas Spà, Rivenburgh, and Larson (1995), who examined how 28 broadcasters (and audiences) framed the 1992 Barcelona opening ceremony. They highlighted local circumstances as well as “societal and cultural conditions” (de Moragas Spà et al., 1995, p. 245), shaping the televised experience of the mega-event. The main results of the study can be summarized as follows: International media coverage of the Olympic Games differs not only in quantity but in content. These differences are particularly noticeable in the broadcast (and print) commentaries surrounding the Opening Ceremony, where national media interpret and judge the host performance in ways that will resonate with their national audience. (Rivenburgh, Louw, Loo, & Mersham, 2004, p. 2)
This short overview of the state of the art, so far as general lines of inquiry are concerned, would lead one to suspect that the case of the London 2012 opening ceremony adds to the preceding cases of glocalization of mega-events.
The Show and Its Message
The opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games transformed British history in a story with typical elements of narrative structure (see Labov, 2006). In what follows, I will comment briefly on the main parts of the narrative, following the “running order” as presented in the official “Opening Ceremony Guide” (OCG).
Countdown (Duration: 00:03:26)
The opening film, following the river Thames from its source to London, fulfills an orientating function for audiences. It introduces the scene and gives a palpable impression of where the subsequent action will take place.
Green and Pleasant Land (Duration: 00:04:24)
The first act in the three-act play functions as a prologue. It is a picture gallery, which introduces places and persons, combining mythical past and historic events so that they become a single substance. “This is the countryside we all believe existed once. It’s where children danced around the maypole and summer was always sunny. This is the Britain of The Wind in the Willows and Winnie-the-Pooh” (OCG, 2012, p. 20). The pastoral scene shows idyllic vignettes, “with people following traditional country pursuits—farmers filling the soil, sport being played on the village green and families enjoying picnics” (OCG, 2012, p. 21). These activities are generally accepted as symbols of a bucolic past that is now the present of urban leisure. Obviously, this representation of the past is devoid of any conflict (like, for instance, the 17th-century Wars of the Three Kingdoms). There are two things happening during the first act. First, Kenneth Branagh is intoning some lines from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. And, second, four choruses perform “traditional songs representing the four home nations” (OCG, 2012, p. 20) England (“Jerusalem”), Northern Ireland (“Londonderry Air”), Scotland (“Flower of Scotland”), and Wales (“Bread of Heaven”). It is important to note, however, that the terms to describe the “four home nations” are highly controversial. Is the United Kingdom made up of nations or is it a country achieved by combining four countries, regions, or provinces?
Pandemonium (Duration: 00:15:09)
The second act is a vivid spectacle, describing what happened then. Boyle tells his story of the Industrial Revolution. “Some countries have revolutions that change their whole nation. Britain had a revolution that changed the whole world. The Industrial Revolution rebooted human existence. Nothing would ever be the same again” (Boyle, in OCG, 2012, p. 11). During the second act of the play, more than 2,500 volunteers appear, portraying the titanic project of transforming the “green and pleasant land” into the workshop of the world. Boyle shows the “fear and hardship” (OCG, 2012, p. 22) of industrial work as well as the social composition of industrial society. The portrayal of the Industrial Revolution is dominated by the picture of both, smoking factory chimneys rising from the ground and the patchwork of social groups making up mass society. There are, just to mention a few, marching trade unionists, suffragettes, and Caribbean immigrants from the post-WWII “Windrush generation.” The second act ends with workers forging five giant rings, which then ascend up to the air to merge into the Olympic symbol. The contours of the Industrial revolution are, to borrow Halbwachs’s words, reconstructed on the basis of the present and the predominant thoughts of society. Thus, Boyle highlights some historic elements that presumably would not have appeared in an Olympic ceremony a few decades ago. For instance, the portrayal of the suffragettes, who fought for women’s voting rights, corresponds to increasing gender awareness in the postindustrial present. There is a second element that is treated in a highly ambiguous way. On one hand, neither colonial exploitation nor slave trade are included in the historical panorama. On the other hand, there are non-White actors appearing in the play. Perhaps the most clearly identifiable group that emerges from the mass choreography is an elite group of bearded men in top hats, supervising and controlling the masses. According to OCG (2012), they represent “the technological genius of the Industrial Revolution” (p. 21). This group of early capitalists (or inventors) comprises male individuals. Most strikingly, one of them is Black. In sum, the historical panorama includes a Black capitalist–inventor, and no slaves, no colonized.
Happy and Glorious (Duration 00:08:17), Second to the Right, and Straight on Till Morning (00:11:26), Interlude (00:05:03)
The middle of the narrative contains a series of focal scenes and dramatic peaks that move the ceremony ahead and create laughter as well as suspense. Temporal organization is transverse, with a fairy tale, somehow scary, episode, framed by two humoristic scenes. The first humoristic scene (“Happy and Glorious”) begins with a short film about Daniel Craig alias James Bond 007, picking up Her Majesty The Queen in Buckingham Palace. The two then appear to parachute into the Olympic Stadium. What follows after the spectacular arrival of The Queen, is a scene honoring “two of Britain’s greatest achievements: its amazing body of children’s literature and its National Health Service, the NHS” (OCG, 2012, p. 26). Hundreds of real NHS doctors and nurses—together with children and hospital beds—enter the scene to pay tribute to the idea of free public health care. This setting soon turns into a nightmare when some large villainous puppets appear. Finally, 30 Mary Poppinses (the magical British nanny) descend with opened umbrellas from the skies, banishing the nightmare. This gives way to the second humoristic scene (“Interlude”) that combines extracts from the famous film “Chariots of Fire” with an orchestra performance: the London Symphonic Orchestra playing music from the soundtrack to “Chariots of Fire.” Humor emanates from recognizable British slapstick, that is, the facial expressions and silly actions of Rowan Atkinson alias Mr. Bean in both, orchestra and film.
Frankie and June Say . . . Thanks Tim (Duration: 00:20:57)
The third main act picks up the temporal order where it was left. The ceremony that took the audience through preindustrialism and early industrialism proceeds to portray postindustrialism. An ordinary Saturday night love story becomes the background against which more recent British achievements are set. First, the scene is comprised of popular music sequences from the 1960s till today. The story reaches its resolution when Tim Berners-Lee appears on the stage. He “gave the world a gift that would change things every bit as radically as the steam engine—the World Wide Web” (Boyle, in OCG, 2012, p. 11).
Abide With Me (Duration: 00:05:51)
The coda is, in Labov’s (2006) words, “strangely disconnected from the narrative” (p. 230). It begins with a contemplative intermezzo, a virtual Memorial Wall with pictures of nonprominent, recently deceased people. Then the scene brings the audience back to the key message that is multiculturalism. Emili Sandé, the well-known Scottish singer with Zambian roots, sings “Abide With Me” (Mahatma Gandhi’s favorite hymn), surrounded by 50 dancers, a boy, and the famous modern-dance choreographer Akram Khan, who has Bangladeshi roots.
The remaining 2 hr of the opening ceremony were devoted to the Parade of Nations (duration: 01:29:00) as well as to ritual features (speeches, Olympic Flag, Olympic Anthem, Olympic Oath, Olympic Torch, pyrotechnic display). The ceremony ended with Paul McCartney singing “The End.”
Obviously, there is no summary that is not interpretation. In my reading of the opening ceremony, I highlighted the nexus of imperialism, nation-building, and multiculturalism. Maybe some spectators would rather focus on the dark side of modernization (Pandemonium as the capital of Hell in Milton’s Paradise Lost), while others would highlight the issue of War and Remembrance, and yet others would deal with the celebration of technological inventions. And others would come up with an alternative interpretation drawing attention to the selection of music and textual segments. How was Boyle’s message decoded by its receivers?
International Publics and the Distorted Message
The meaning of the London 2012 opening ceremony was subsequently reconstructed by the filtering, reexperiencing, and narrating activities of journalists. In doing so, they mirrored the predominant ideological positions of national elites. Or, generally spoken, Through their reporters, correspondents, or stringers, the news media are often the first to witness or describe breaking events, new developments, or local situations. It is primarily their definition of the situation that contributes to the manufacturing of public opinion, if not to the opinions of the political elites. (Van Dijk, 1995, p. 28)
With regard to the global newspaper landscape, there is a great variety, according to editorial stances, ideological biases, target readerships, and entrepreneurial interests. According to the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, there are more than 12,000 newspaper titles worldwide. Faced with this large amount of newspapers circulating around the globe, I decided to focus on a relatively small purposive sample. My sampling strategy involved selecting newspapers as illuminative or critical cases. There are five key dimensions that make up for cases included in my sample. First, faced with time limits and resource constraints, I decided to concentrate on languages I could understand. Obviously, this decision excluded powerful and important newspapers written in some of the most widely spoken languages such as Chinese, Hindi, or Arabic. Second, I decided to analyze few “Western” newspapers and a variety of newspapers from the “global South.” My sampling attempted to cover a broad geographical area, with special attention paid to areas that belonged to the British Empire “on which the sun never sets.” Third, I included areas that are or were in conflict with Britain or the “West,” presumably because they exhibit more critical views on British self-presentation. Fourth, I concentrated on those countries that were expected to win medals in the Olympic Games, simply because I anticipated public debates being more focused on London 2012. And, finally, one of the most important selection criteria was the availability of online versions of newspapers. My decision to exclude newspapers with paywalls is justified theoretically as well as in pragmatic terms (time and resource constraints). A theoretical view would highlight the idea of the “global village”—a term coined by Mc Luhan in 1967—which provided the point of departure for more recent debates on the emergence of a global online public sphere (Poster, 1992). Within the deterritorialized, web-based arena of global exchange, available online versions of newspapers constitute an important site of public opinion formation. The most important limitation of this study is that the corpus of electronic newspaper articles does not allow for a systematic account of both the positioning and framing of articles.
In what follows, I will focus on the question how 26 online versions of newspapers from Argentina, Cuba, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, “the West” (i.e., Germany, Great Britain, United States) as well as BBC and Al Jazeera decoded the message sent by Danny Boyle and the Organizing Committee of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Global Media Perspectives on Boyle’s Show: The Overall Picture
As may be expected, readings of the Olympics opening ceremony varied widely between newspapers. The response to Boyle’s show was polyphonous in nature, and oscillated between critical outcry and euphoric affirmation. This brings us back through classical Media Studies to the more recent writings on the perception of mega-events. It is well known that various factors affect the selection and rejection of “news” by newspapers. What one newspaper emphasizes another will not regard as newsworthy. In their classic study on the presentation of the Congo, Cuba, and Cyprus Crises in four Norwegian newspapers, Galtung and Ruge focused on 12 factors influencing the transition from events to news. Among these, there are absolute intensity/intensity increase, unambiguity, meaningfulness, cultural proximity/relevance, unexpectedness, reference to elite nations, reference to elite people, and reference to something negative (Galtung & Ruge, 1965). If these factors vary, so does the public appeal of a story. On a global scale, though, a certain mega-event meets a complex matrix of local preconditions, for example, just to mention the most obvious case, there is never the same cultural proximity of a global mega-event for all countries.
The results suggest, in line with previous findings (Bernstein, 2000; de Moragas Spà et al., 1995), that the perception of global mega-events is deeply ingrained in the local. Not surprisingly, British newspapers dealt with the London 2012 opening ceremony in extenso. Many commentators reported on the show in great detail, reflecting on both key messages and dramaturgic arrangements. The debate (if there was any) mainly focused on the question whether the portrayal of the NHS was too left-wing or not. The meticulously crafted historiographic message was relevant to British journalists. For instance, The Telegraph (July 27, 2012) wrote that Boyle’s imaginery suggested “that in our post-industrial Britain, financial well-being will be derived from events like the games.” There is another highly interesting statement from the Guardian (July 28, 2012): What Boyle’s ceremony did was to visualize the promise the bid had always based upon: the reality of a new Britain unshackled from its imperial past. From the heart of the East End, where the riches of Empire had once flowed into the docklands, Boyle provided a template of modern, vibrant, multicultural Britain with all its energy and vulgarity.
The commentator, being aware of Britain’s imperial past, envisions a national project, unshackled by the past, and deduced from present needs. In sum, the voices from the British press corroborate that states use “mega-events to add to their national status and identity, and also to their national narratives” (Roche, 2006, p. 267). In the contemporary period, elites tend to produce new narratives to come to terms with the changing needs of “‘post-industrial’ national economies based on services and new information and communication technologies in the context of an integrating and globalizing international economy” (Roche, 2006, p. 267).
Another general conclusion to be drawn has to do with the polyphonous character of the mediated perception of Boyle’s show. Readings of the show differed from country to country and from newspaper to newspaper. Moreover, commentators views tended to vary within newspapers. For example, the Ugandan Daily Monitor published enthusiastic comments (July 29, 2012, “Majestic opening ceremony”: “Artistic director Danny Boyle . . . was at his terrific best. He couldn’t have done it better”) as well as severe criticism (August 8, 2012, “London Olympic Games and the Western decline”).
“Southern” Perspectives: Affirmation, Criticism, Localization, and Benign Neglect
In the “global north,” media coverage included short comments as well as lengthy descriptions of the show. Some newspaper reports adopted a “neutral” posture, whereas others exhibited a drastically patriotic stance. The same applies to the “global south.” There was a great variation in media coverage. In what follows, I will focus on four aspects: (a) affirmation, (b) localization, (c) criticism, and (d) benign neglect.
Affirmation
Boyle’s show received an enthusiastic response from many “non-western” newspapers, reproducing the official discourse elaborated by the Organizing Committee of the London Olympics. In doing so, they transmitted and amplified enthusiastic voices from the “global north.” The attributes used to describe the show include “extravagant” and “stunning, imaginative, whimsical and dramatic” (Vanguard, Nigeria, July 27, 2012), “wild like no other [ceremony]” (Mail & Guardian, South Africa, July 28, 2012), “spectacular” (This Day, Nigeria, July 28, 2012), “exuberant” (Times of Zambia, July 28, 2012), “dazzling” (Times of India, July 28, 2012), “outstanding and breathtaking” (Vanguard, Nigeria, July 28, 2012), “majestic” (Daily Monitor, Uganda, July 29, 2012), “successful” (Standard, Kenya, July 29, 2012), and “bloody brilliant” (Daily Observer, Gambia, July 30, 2012). In many cases, there are strikingly positive reviews, even if it comes to the sensitive subject of national self-presentation. Some newspapers exhibit a remarkable capacity to create positive statements on a “dizzying ceremony designed to highlight the grandeur and eccentricities of the nation that invented sport” (Business Day, South Africa, July 28, 2012). The Times of India (July, 28, 2012) sees a “vibrant picture of Britain’s rich heritage and culture,” whereas the Gambian Daily Observer (July 30, 2012) experienced a “breathtaking ceremony capturing the best of Britain.” These examples demonstrate that the writer’s geographical location does not automatically translate into an ideological sphere in which the writer chooses to locate herself or himself. In the above examples, the colonial past does not matter. The United Kingdom appears as the eccentric nation that invented sport, not as the nation that conquered, occupied, and colonized parts of the country that is the Republic of South Africa since 1961. Voices from Gambia (independent since 1965) and Nigeria (independent since 1960) silence their own national past that is part of the history of the Olympics host country. In these cases, it may be important to note that media voices tend to mirror the perspective of the elites. A similar notion was clearly present in Al Jazeera’s coverage (“London Olympics declared open with grand show,” July 28, 2012). And even the lexical choices made by the newspaper of Cuba’s Communist Party, Granma, proved to be rather enthusiastic (“Magnificent, formidable, sensational . . . ,” July 28, 2012). In this case, historiographic truth seems to be irrelevant: “And in the middle of all this, the parade of athletes, with Cuba entering in the 50th place and Mijaín Lopéz again bearing the flag” (Granma, July 28, 2012, translated by A.O.). What matters though, is the participation of the own nation in the global sport event.
Glocalization
In many cases, media reports on the show actually are preludes, which serve to introduce the main characters’ motivations, emotions, and actions. “With all spices of British culture, from farmland to rock, through sports and Industrial Revolution, the Olympic Games had an unforgettable start. Luciana Aymar was the flag bearer of the Argentine delegation” (Página 12, July 28, 2012, translated by A.O.). This example shows how the content of the show, that is, the narrative presented by Boyle, can become marginal for journalists. For the Argentine commentator, the show simply provided for an unforgettable experience, with the Argentine flag bearer being at its very center. This, however, reflects no special London 2012 pattern but rather a general feature of media reporting on mega-events. The importance of this issue has also been taken up by de Moragas Spà et al. (1995) in their classical study on TV broadcasting: Perhaps symbolic of this desire to see the local as part of the global (Olympics) was the fact that in many of the opening ceremony broadcasts, commentators mentioned the large applause “the world” (as represented by the spectators in the stadium) was giving their national athletes. (p. 248)
This “desire to see the local as part of the global” (de Moragas Spà et al., 1995) meets both the pursuit of nation-building and the reader’s anticipated desire to celebrate patriotism. It is commonly recognized that passionate mega-events serve to foster patriotism, with national pride being inspired by national symbols (flags, anthems) and the relative devaluation of others. Media coverage of the London 2012 opening ceremony is no exception.
Criticism
As mentioned above, there is also a critical line of argument, shedding light on negative aspects of British culture. However, very few comments were rooted in anti-imperialism, clearly criticizing the historical narrative presented by Boyle. The South African Mail & Guardian (July 28, 2012) quoted a Zimbabwean journalist’s twitter tweet: “#Opening ceremony segment supposedly showing the people who built modern Britain. But I don’t see many immigrants. OK Britain, we see you flaunting your history. Where’s the bit in which you invade, loot, kill and plunder?” The very fact that this twitter quotation has been embedded in a journalistic account of public reactions to the show confirms that the print media landscape is metamorphosing into something more fluid that includes twitter tweets and blogs. Similarly, the quotation may indicate that more radical readings of the show tend to circulate predominantly within the global blogosphere. For instance, the Internet platform Al Jazeera, founded in 2002 and replaced by Cross-Cultural Understanding more recently, published a harsh comment on August 6 (“Olympic Ceremony, Slum Dog England, But Absence of Imperialist Legacy and Occupation,” by Charles E. Carlson).
In the written press, there was another line of critical argument that focused on the issue of economic decline. A comment, published by South Africa’s Mail & Guardian on August 3, raised an important question: “You may have thought it was just a brilliant and slightly bonkers portrait of Britain’s history, but was it actually about a country coming to terms with its own decline?” Referring to Jed Esty, the commentator argues that nostalgic cultural expressions are typical for countries suffering economic decline.
This was a very slick romp: Blake, Brunel, the industrial revolution. But all of it was nostalgic, a la recherché du social democracy perdu. The suffragettes. The national health service nurses in their 1950s uniforms. Even the nods to the modern world with the (well-deserved) appearance of Tim Berners-Lee were actsepia-tinged: look, the world, we invented the web! Even if it is the Americans who now run the internet industry. (Mail & Guardian, August 3, 2012)
What appears to be a critical voice from a southern country emerging to take a regional leadership role in a global system is actually a voice from the global north, replicated in the south. The comment “Olympics: Ceremony an ode to UK decline” was written by Aditya Chakraborty, economics leader writer for the Guardian. It was previously published in the British Guardian (“What the Olympics opening ceremony tells us about our economy,” July 30, 2012). Obviously, this refers to ownership structures and the globalized news market (M&G Media is 87.5% owned by the Newtrust Company Botswana Limited. The London-based Guardian Newspapers Limited holds a share of 10%). However, we can infer on the process of news selection and news localization. While the comment serves to encourage a critical self-examination in the Olympics host country, it functions as a marker of superiority in South Africa, describing global power shifts and the redistribution of power and wealth. Thus, there are localized readings of global mega-events irrespective of communicative patterns of interconnectedness. The same applies to an article published in the Ugandan Daily Monitor on August 8 (London Olympic Games and the Western decline).
The opening ceremony indicated, in a capsule, what 21st Century Britain is all about. It is no longer economically competitive but is concerned primarily with cultural issues and conflicts. It is largely embarrassed by its Christian heritage and today the new national religion has become feel-good multiculturalism, an emphasis on the rights and representations of minorities, be they women, gays, Blacks, Jews and Muslims.
This reading of the show may trigger both social fear and social anxiety related to homosexuality, women’s rights, and Uganda’s internal violence. Since 2009, there is a lively public debate about Uganda’s antihomosexuality legislation as well as a wave of social violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) people in Uganda (Sadgrove, Vanderbeck, Andersson, Valentine, & Ward, 2012). In negatively portraying multicultural Britain, the author implicitly evokes a positive image of Ugandan antigay rhetoric. In general, Christian fundamentalism is on the rise in Uganda. In sum, these examples demonstrate how critical readings of Boyle’s show are deeply connected with domestic debates.
Benign Neglect
For most commentators from the “global south,” the colonial situation did not matter. As may be expected, the London 2012 opening ceremony fueled nationalist discourses all over the world. The collective frameworks (re-)entering the stage, however, were focused on current needs rather than past atrocities. In what follows, I will briefly discuss the Jamaican case because it exhibits discursive features of postcolonial grandeur. Jamaica celebrated its 50th year of independence in 2012. First invaded by Spain, Jamaica was finally conquered by Britain in 1655. The essence of the colonial situation was the decimation of the indigenous population as well as the creation of a new social order through both the colonial plantation system and the violent demographic change caused by the transatlantic slave trade. In general, Jamaican history is characterized by both exposure to colonial institutions/culture and revolt against slavery and exploitation (major slave revolts in 1746, 1766, 1831, 1865, Maroon Wars 1730-1734, 1795-1796). Jamaica gained independence in 1962 but still is a Commonwealth realm with the British Queen as head of state. The issue of full independence entered the political agenda only recently with Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller stating that the country needs to become a Republic with a Jamaican head of state (Jamaica Gleaner, January 5, 2012).
Contrary to what might be expected, the Jamaican press wrote about Boyle’s show in a rather enthusiastic manner. Jamaican press discourse exhibits most of the features discussed so far: affirmation and localization. And there is a third feature that deserves further investigation. As in the following examples, there is no critical attitude toward Boyle’s historiographic message, save one of benign neglect. It is benign in the sense that the subject is ignored while real progress in postcolonial nation-building is made.
On Friday, July 27, the Jamaica Observer published a brief report, titled “Olympics opens with pomp and fanfare.” This report exhibits an affirmative attitude as well as a localized perception of the event.
The highly anticipated opening ceremony for the 30th Olympiad has ended. Spectacular and varied, the event brought to the world various aspects of rich British culture and history, from the Industrial Revolution, to Mary Poppins and contemporary comedian Mr Bean. After much fanfare with dancers and actors, the 204 teams marched, customarily starting with Greece, where the very first Olympic Games were held. Jamaica was the 94th country to enter the stadium, with double world record holder Usain Bolt leading the team, carrying the Jamaican flag.
Most notably, the message encoded by Boyle seems to be insignificant; it is a statement void of meaning. The author of the text mentions the cheering role of Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, athletes’ uniforms designed by Cedella Marley, the 80,000-seat Olympic stadium, Arctic Monkeys, Paul McCartney, Jaques Rogge, all teams having female athletes, the Olympic torch ceremony, and finally the spectacular fireworks. But he avoids decoding the historiographical message sent by Boyle and the London 2012 Organizing Committee. The same applies to an article, published in the Jamaica Gleaner on July 28: “It’s Showtime—Fierce battles expected as London Games open.” In this article, the author makes various points. In the opening paragraph, the author introduces the setting: “A life-sized classic English cottage with smoking chimney, rolling hills and a watermill—and, oh, not to mention a number of sheep, cows and goats and a game of cricket.” The next sentence summarizes the opening ceremony and establishes the point of the story: “London’s Olympic stadium was an ever-changing landscape, each telling another story.” Interestingly, the author does not follow the plotline but rather limits himself to mentioning some main characters and their respective actions (Mr Bean, Daniel Craig, Queen Elizabeth, J. K. Rowling, Paul McCartney). In this article, though, the historical narrative faded into the background, giving way to a sensationalist interpretation that highlights the more trivial, entertaining aspects of the show: “London outdid itself.” This evaluation is followed by a reiterative summary: “London welcomed the world in fine style last night, and as soon as her Majesty had declared the Games open, it already was being discussed as one of the best Olympic Games opening ceremonies.” At the same time, this summary serves as a narrative bridge between the London show and the second, perhaps more important point made by the author (“It’s showtime”): “Triple world-record holder and Olympic champion Usain Bolt led the Jamaican contingent into the Olympic stadium to rapturous applause, as the sprinting megastar waved the Jamaican flag enthusiastically.”
The victories of the Jamaican sprinters, which were expected to demonstrate the strength of the Jamaican nation, greatly colored the Jamaican experience of the Olympic event. In the 2012 Olympics, Usain Bolt was to win his second gold medal in the 100-m race. But why did the Jamaican press not jump at the opportunity to pick up the issue of full independence? Why this attitude of neglect? It is a likely supposition that the attitude of benign neglect refers to the ascendance of “modern blackness” (Thomas, 2004) that has begun to replace the creole ideology of multiracial nationalism, fostered by domestic elites at the time of independence. Modern blackness, understood as a “subaltern aesthetic and politics from which to make claims upon the earlier forms of nationalism that gained state power in Jamaica” (Thomas, 2004, p. 13), tends to impose a new imaginative coherence on the experience of a transnationalized Jamaican culture, including popular music and sport. During the 1990s, an aspirant black bourgeoisie sought to establish a new national narrative connecting “blackness” and “strength” (Robotham, 2000, p. 16). The press reports on the 2012 London opening ceremony, though, mirror the essence of Jamaican cultural politics: “Jamaicans are everywhere and make an impact in all they do, so the Olympic opening ceremony should be no different” (Jamaica Observer, July 26, 2012, reporting on a leaked playlist for the opening ceremony that includes Jamaican Millie Small’s version of “My Boy Lollipop”).
Final Remarks
This article has outlined mediated perceptions of a mega-event. The online newspaper articles I have analyzed here testify to the polyphonous character of global responses to the London 2012 opening ceremony. This is a particularly import issue for both postcolonial studies and the critical study of globalization. The results presented here shed new light on widely accepted assumptions. In general, mega-events like Olympic Games are believed to foster and propagate national narratives.
In the age of global television, moreover, the capacity of major sports events to shape and to project images of the host city or nation, both domestically and globally, makes them a highly attractive instrument for political and economic elites. (Horne & Whannel, 2012, p. 40)
Press analysis of the London 2012 news coverage has revealed that there are varying degrees of interpretative depth and superficiality. In most cases, the perception of the London 2012 Olympic opening is linked to the constant collective effort to imagine a nation’s “deep, horizontal comradeship” (Anderson, 1983/2006, p. 7) into being. In general, the findings corroborate earlier research indicating the dynamics of localization and reappropriation of global events. International responses to Olympic ceremonies are polyphonous, because they do not simply echo the nationalist messages left by others. They tend to extend the discursive field of host nationalism by reinterpreting messages within alternative historiographic frameworks. In most cases, however, the communicative strategies of affirmation, glocalization, criticism, and/or benign neglect are closely tied to the master narrative of nationalism.
By comparing the mediated reception of nationalism with its ceremonial propagation, we can see that Olympic ceremonies invite spectators to imagine their own national communities. This study shifted attention from traditional subjects of analysis—such as the host nation’s media coverage—to the exploration of international mediated responses. The case of the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony is unique in the sense that it refers to a specific constellation of both identity formations and colonial pasts. Unlike other recent high-visibility mega-events, here was a case that gave former colonies such as Uganda, India, and Jamaica an opportunity to express harsh criticism for historical inaccuracy. Perhaps those spectators with more historic ties to the Olympics host country were more likely to express adverse or even hostile reactions based on anti-imperialist cultural discourse. To raise this question was to prepare the way for an analysis shifting attention from the most influential Olympic players to diversity in international public discourse. It should be underlined, however, that the most important limitation of this study is that, while it is concerned with international responses to the London 2012 Olympics opening, it is based on a rather limited corpus of texts. Thus, a basic question for future research might be “How do diverse international audiences, located in different parts of the world, decode the messages inscribed in the Olympic ritual system?” Future research should also prioritize analyzing the power relations within global mediascapes. Some of the most influential Olympic players as well as many receiver nations tend to undertake broad efforts to control public spaces. In these cases, public spaces turn out to be battlefields, characterized by selective or denied access to main discursive arenas. The question of who manages to decode/encode Olympic messages and how deserves to be addressed in future research.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.