Description
Book SynopsisThe spectacle of major cultural and sporting events can preoccupy modern societies. This book is concerned with contemporary mega-events, like the Olympics and Expos. Using a sociological perspective Roche argues that mega-events reflect the major social changes which now influence our societies, particularly in the West, and that these amount to a new ‘second phase’ of the modernization process. Changes are particularly visible in the media, urban and global locational aspects of mega-events. Thus he suggests that contemporary mega-events, both in their achievements and their vulnerabilities, reflect, in the media sphere, the rise of the internet; in the urban sphere, de-industrialisation and the growing ecological crisis; and in the global sphere, the relative decline of the West and the rise of China and other ‘emerging’ countries.
Table of ContentsIntroduction
1 Mega-events and macro-social change
PART I: Mega-events and media change
2 Mega-events and mediatisation: between ‘old’ and ‘new’ media
3 The ‘Digital Age’, media-sport and mega-events: ‘piracy’ and symbiosis in the cultural industries
PART II: Mega-events, legacy and urban change
4 Embedding mega-events: staging spectacles in changing cities
5 Mega-events and urban development: Olympics and ‘legacies’
6 Mega-events, urban space and social change: expos, parks and cities
PART III: Mega-events and global change in East and West
7 Mega-events, globalisation and urban legacy: events in China in the early twenty-first century
8 Mega-events, glocalisation and urban legacy: London as an ‘event city’ and the 2012 Olympics
Index
