ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some cases of the Summer Olympic Games from 1896 to 2016. It is necessary to recognize the interpretive premise for any adequate understanding of the series of 28 Olympic summers that have, to date, sustained the momentum of the Olympic phenomenon. The chapter discusses three main phases in the growth and expansion of the Summer Olympic Games. They are: phase 1, 1896–1928: Socio-political project on modest economic scale (8 host cities); phase 2, 1932–1980: Political intensification interrelated with international political dynamics and increasingly sophisticated media technologies (11 host cities); and phase 3, 1984–2016: Commodification of the Olympic brand and media product through the global reach of capital (9 host cities). Each Olympic Games has its own chronotopic characteristics, as a necessary arrogation of the Olympic project and rhetoric in the particular historical moment and geo-political space. Yet the continuities have meanings, connections of generative influence, spawning a genealogical legacy of inherited meanings, values, claims, and ideologies.
