ABSTRACT

As the Olympic spectacle grows, broadcast coverage becomes bigger, more complex, and more sophisticated. Part sporting event, part reality show, and part global festival, the Olympics can be seen as both intensely nationalistic and a celebration of a shared sense of international community. This book sheds new light on how the Olympic experience has been shaped by television and expanded across multiple platforms and formats.

Combining a multitude of approaches ranging from interviews to content analyses to audience surveys, the book explores the production, influence, and significance of Olympic media in contemporary society. Built on a central case study of NBC’s coverage of the Rio Games in 2016, which is then placed within 20 years of content analyses, the book focuses on the entire Olympic television process from production to content to effects.

Touching on key themes such as race, gender, history, consumerism, identity, nationalism, and storytelling, Olympic Television: Broadcasting the Biggest Show on Earth is fascinating reading for any student or scholar with an interest in sport, media, and the global impact of mega-events.

chapter |14 pages

Introduction

Olympic television: broadcasting the biggest show on earth

chapter 1|36 pages

Stories we tell

The development of Olympic television

chapter 2|32 pages

Stories shaped

Interviews with NBC producers and sportscasters

chapter 3|42 pages

Nationalized stories

Portraying U.S. vs. portraying “the world”

chapter 4|41 pages

Stories segmented by biological sex

Men and women in the thirty-first Olympiad

chapter 5|36 pages

Racialized stories

Stacking and difference at the Rio Games

chapter 6|17 pages

Stories reverberated

The impact of Olympic media consumption

chapter 7|16 pages

Deciphering stories

The legacy and future of Olympic media