Olympic Games Media

Copyright Issues in 2010 Olympic Media

laurendellamarta — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 01:46:00 +0000

The Official Olympic Committee of Vancouver (VANCOV) has proposed the copyright of the year 2010. Ridiculous notion? Apparently not. The fusion of Commercialism and the Olympic Games is near complete in this example of Vancouver 2010 becoming a brand in itself. Olympic and Paralympic Marks Act (the OPMA) claims the Olympic rings, Inukshuk composite design, and the phrase “Vancouver 2010″ as official marks owned by VANCOV.

One particular organisation, ‘PETA’ has embraced the Olympics’ media coverage by changing the olympic symbol and creating a site for different purposes.

Additionally, images of the Olympic Games are threatened to become censored by the Olympic Committee. There is a clear contradiction between the liberal notions of internet use and the regulation intentions of the Olympic organisers.

Australian man receives a warning after posting images of the Beijing Olympics on Flicker.com: http://www.ctvolympics.ca/video/index.html

Push For Digitalisation of Olympic Coverage

laurendellamarta — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:45:44 +0000

The Associated Press, a few days ago, raised the issue of digitalisation in media coverage of the Olympic Games. Reporting on an IOC meeting, communications advisor Martin Sorrell pushed for the engagement of YouTube and social media sites where audiences can contribute to the Olympic movement. “Their desire to create content and use it as social currency amongst their networks and communities has profound implications for how media owners and sports rights owners behave amongst them”. Using examples of the successful ways in which audiences have responded to the hype created by interactive shows such as Idol, he questions the survival of the Olympic Industry considering the youth generation who are increasingly making the move to online interactions. “We must ensure the iPod, iPhone generation is tuning in, not tuning out.”

The Current NBC Website offers videos and related news articles, however it has not as yet followed the path of social media interaction, which, if we agree with Sorrell, is where media coverage of the Olympic Games is headed towards. Social networking sites are already commenting on this issue, as one twitter user displays his status as, Olympics Must Embrace Digital & Social Media Or Lose Youth Audience.

One Particular Olympic Athlete, American Ice Hockey player, Angela Ruggiero has embraced social media by actively contributing to YouTube, Twitter and Facebook in order to reach out to her fans.

Blogging allowed for 2010 Olympics – With a Catch

laurendellamarta — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 05:05:34 +0000

‘Olympic Blogs get go-ahead for Vancouver’ read the headline in the online Sports Journalist’s association for May of this year. Athletes will be allowed to post blogs during the 2010 Olympics. The catch? A strict set of guidelines are to be put in place. Justifications for these restrictions are that ‘You can’t be covering news, because that takes the role of a journalist’. One comment on this article read, ’Restrictions on athlete’s free speech rights seem counter to the ideals of the vaunted Olympic movement.’

Restrictions placed on this form of Olympic coverage highlights the challenge new media technologies represent over the coverage of the Olympic Games. The IOC have not yet harnessed a medium to generate revenue from the social media and blogging technologies. In another related article, the prospect of social media coverage of the Olympics is viewed as inevitable. ‘Trying to control how the public share information is near-impossible, and the IOC is just one organisation that needs to work out how it can avoid alienating an increasingly powerful force… US.’ These new media technologies present so many opportunities for faster access and more democratic viewpoints, but challenge the authority of the IOC and other television broadcasting channels such as ESPN, ABC and Fox News.

Protesting the Olympic Games – Media Watchdog and the Impact of Social Media

laurendellamarta — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 04:45:14 +0000

A particular problematisation of the Olympic Games is that, also within the charter, one of its purposes is ‘to encourage and support a responsible concern for environmental issues’. Olympic Protestors think otherwise. One particular blog I came across interestingly disagrees with this claim. The site, independent of the IOC and various Olympic authorities, is a very opinionated space which criticises the lack of public accountability surrounding the 2010 Winter Olympics, embracing the new social media spaces of twitter and facebook.

While the International Olympic Committee has an offical website dedicated to the Olympic games, providing regular updates and news, why is the IOC not embracing social media? The easy answer is economics. The hard part is explaining those economics. Social media technologies such as twitter and independent websites are able to feed information to the public a lot faster than television broadcasts (which is what the history of Olympic Games coverage is based on). The problem is that these television broadcasting channels are the backbones of Olympic finances. Security is enforced to keep out unauthorized media from entering the Olympics, but with the modern technology of twittering and blogging, media influence of the Olympic committee is threatened. News needs to be fast and relevant, or it is disposable. Will social media be the downfall of the Olympic empire if it is not embraced by the IOC?

Media Coverage and Commercialisation of the Olympic Games

laurendellamarta — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 04:26:42 +0000

The Olympic Spirit has flooded the media every 4 years, (or 2, including the Winter Olympics) creating a globalised media event. Broadcasts of the Olympic Games have definitely come a long way from the small-scale competitions in Athens more than a hundred years ago to the world-wide phenomena in modern times. Who would have thought that you could get paid to snowboard fast down a hill? 50 years ago snowboarding had not yet been invented.

Commercialisation takes many forms within the Olympic Games movement. The mascots employed to represent each host city are an explicit example of the link between media and commericalisation. Media Coverage of the Olympic Games goes beyond the reporting of just the sports involved. In a video interview, one Canadian asks an important question regarding the 2010 Vancouver Olympics mascots, “How do they relate to the winter Olympics?”

Media coverage of the Olympics creates nationalistic pride. Are the Olympics a platform for media to portray a nation in the globalised world? To think of the Olympics as a form of government propaganda, is its interesting to note that the Olympic torch relay idea actually came from the Nazi organisers of the 1936 Games.

The Olympic Games as a media event can also be indentified as government technology, deploying particular governmental rationale (Miller and Rose) within the charter such as sport ethics and to ensure the regular celebration of the Olympic Games.

Reference (Miller and Rose): Nikolas Rose; Peter Miller ‘Political Power beyond the State: Problematics of Government’. The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 43, No.2. (June 1992) pp173-205