Olympic Games and the Political Agenda
Media Coverage of Women at the Olympics: Patterns of Change from 2008 to 2016
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Shannon Scovel
While the percentage of female athletes in the Olympics has been increasing, and women are now able to compete in more events than ever before, women still do not make up a full 50 percent of participants. Feminist sports media scholars have suggested that this lack of representation, and the corresponding lack of media coverage for the athletes competing, reinforces the idea of the female athlete as “other,” a secondary class of participants in a male-dominated space. This study aims to assess how the media coverage of Olympic sportswomen in The Times (UK) and The Sunday Times (UK) has changed over the course of the last three Olympics, 2008, 2012 and 2016 to determine if equality has been reached in the press. Articles, photographs and bylines were assessed as a way to measure the representation of women in the sports section of these two papers during the three Olympic periods. The findings reveal that media coverage of Olympic sportswomen in The Times and The Sunday Times has not reach equality across any measures from 2008 to 2016. The percentage of articles devoted to women and bylines produced by women in The Times and The Sunday Times did not increase across the three Olympic periods, with both bylines by women and articles about women reaching their highest percentage in 2012. Photographs of sportswomen in action, another marker of women’s representation, however did increase from 2008 to 2016, suggesting a shift toward visually highlighting female athleticism in Olympic media.
Social Capital Bonding and Bridging: The Impact of the London Olympic Games on West Ham United
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Peter Evans
The transference from a modernist to a post-modern society, featuring the greater prominence of individualism and self-reliance, contributed to a decline in civic activity in the 1990s. This paper examines whether this trend persisted in London’s East End community post London 2012 and, if so, what the impact was on West Ham United’s social capital. This paper uses primary data from interviews, surveys, observations and visual ethnography conducted at the Queen Elizabeth Park, Green Street and Carpenter’s Estate in Newham and the Queen’s Yard in Hackney Wick. Results and findings: The findings demonstrate a paradoxical reaction; the loss of the Boleyn Stadium has fundamentally changed both the identity of the club and the social domain, whilst the need to embrace commercialisation was also appreciated. The move to the London Stadium, and the adoption of a new persona for the club, represents a social functional shift towards the convergence of the East End into the elitist culture of a mega-city. However, evidence of "bonding" and "bridging" social capital persist, both positive and negative in nature – will this capital but resilient enough to maintain the traditional kinship of the East London or has the 2012 Games acted as a conduit for social cleansing?
The Fascist Aesthetic, Disciplined Bodies, and the Politics of Sports: Leni Riefenstahl's "Olympia" at Eighty
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session William Hetrick
In 2018, Leni Riefenstahl's film "Olympia" (1938) turned eighty years old. It was a propaganda effort to show German athletic prowess, but also to legitimize Nazi Germany as an actor on the global stage. The Olympic Games are inherently nationalist in character. This is a venue when individual countries can exhibit their superiority over others in a controlled setting. In the background is Riefenstahl's earlier film "Triumph of the Will" (1935), and "Olympia" must be evaluated within its context. Riefenstahl prepared the German masses for military conflict with Olympic competition serving as "war by other means." The German participants in the Olympics provided a blueprint for the "New Person" that Nazism required. The question of fascist aesthetics, and the disciplinary regimes that affect the body are the paper's conceptual foci. Using Riefenstahl's art as exemplars, aesthetics and discipline become highly relational under the dictates of power. On the aesthetic side, Riefenstahl's filmic representations of idealized bodies fit into Friedrich Nietzsche's conception of Apollonian art as opposed to the imageless art of the Dionysian. Nietzsche's "will to power as art" can be contrasted with Hitler's "triumph of the will." Through Michel Foucault, another disciplinary regime that impacts the body can be identified: the organized sports apparatus. Foucault speaks of the "anatomo-politics of disciplinary institutions," and the mechanisms of the sports complex fit into this conceptualization. Riefenstahl's visual imagery in both "Olympia" and "Triumph of the Will" portrays the fascist aesthetic, and the disciplinary effects on the body, and the body politic.
South African Apartheid and the 1976 Toronto Olympiad for the Physically Disabled
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Amanda N. Schweinbenz
In August of 1976, Etobicoke, Ontario hosted the Toronto Olympiad for the Physically Disabled. Over 1500 wheelchair and visually impaired athletes from 38 countries descended on this Toronto suburb, including black and white para athletes from South Africa. While South Africa had been banned from major sporting events, including the Olympic Games since 1964 because of apartheid, para sport had largely been unrecognized as part of the international protest. The organizers of the 1976 Toronto Olympiad for the Physically Disabled were adamant that sport and politics should not mix and that all para athletes from across the world should have the opportunity to participate in these games. More specifically, the organizers argued that since the South African team was integrated, it was a signal that para sport had the ability to unite a divided nation. However, the Canadian Federal Government did not want to see athletes from a sanctioned nation competing in Canada, even if they were disabled. While organizers argued that sport for people with disabilities was about good will and participation, the Federal Government was adamant; if South Africans were invited, then there would be no federal finances offered. Defying the demands of the Federal Government, organizers proceeded and refused to exclude any athlete. This paper examines the Canadian Government’s history related to anti-apartheid and how this complicated and often hypocritical policies influenced the hosting and media coverage of the 1976 Toronto Olympic for the Physically Disabled.
