(Not) a stadium of four million: speaking back to dominant discourses of the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand

Abstract

New Zealand won the rights to host the 2011 Rugby World Cup (RWC) on the back of a slogan – A stadium of 4 million – that implied almost that the entire country would support the event. What transpired was a media frenzy of coverage that discursively supported the ‘truth’ of the slogan. In this article, I interrogate public responses to the Cup, taking a bottom-up approach that focuses on those whose voices and experiences were silenced in the public discourse. The results indicate not only the power of media coverage to influence individuals' perceptions of how others feel but its marginalizing nature for those views that are not represented. One consequence of the 2011 RWC coverage was that New Zealanders who were disinterested in, or actively resistant to, the Cup found themselves alienated from the dominant discourse and without a public space to speak their truths. Ultimately, despite some private contestation of the media's ‘truth claims’, the lack of public challenge left the articulation of rugby and nationalism not only intact but even further entrenched.

Notes

^1. Snedden, M. ‘Rugby Fan or Not, Kiwis Must Sign Up for Mission to Fill “Stadium of 4 Million”’, The Southland Times, July 24, 2010, 3.

^2. Winks, C. ‘Over Two Million Viewers Tune into RWC Final’. StopPress: Breaking News from New Zealand Marketing Magazine, October 25, 2011, 1, http://www.stoppress.co.nz/news/2011/10/over-two-million-viewers-tune-in-to-rwc-final/ (accessed January 5, 2012). Nielsen ratings estimated that more than 2.2 million viewers (55.8% of the population aged five and over) watched the coverage (equivalent to 90% of all viewers at that time).

^3. Tasman-Jones, J. ‘Foo Fighters Rock Auckland – Literally’, Stuff.co.nz, December 15, 2011, 11, http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/6146132/Foo-Fighters-rock-Auckland-literally (accessed December 15, 2011).

^4. ‘RWC a Record-Breaker for TAB’, TAB Press Release, Published on Scoop Media, October 25, 2011, 9, http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU1110/S00368/rwc-a-record-breaker-for-tab.htm (accessed October 30, 2011).

^5. Robson, T. ‘Rugby's Interest Rates Fall Sharply’. The Dominion Post, August 6, 2009, http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/2724314/Rugbys-interest-rates-fall-sharply (accessed August 7, 2009) and UMR Research, Rugby World Cup Anticipation, 3–5.

^6.Hall, ‘Introduction’, 6.

^7. Ibid., 6.

^8.Stanley and Wise, Breaking Out Again.

^9.Johnson et al., The Practice of Cultural Studies, 51.

^10. Ibid., 142.

^11.Grossberg, ‘On Postmodernism and Articulation’, 141.

^12. Ibid., 142.

^13. Ibid., 141.

^14. For example, Crawford, ‘The Game of Glory’; Fougere, ‘Sport, Culture and Identity’; MacLean, ‘Of Warriors and Blokes’; Phillips, ‘The Hard Man’; Ryan, Tackling Rugby Myths; Scherer and Jackson, ‘Sports Advertising, Cultural Production and Corporate Nationalism’; and Watson, ‘Sport and Ethnicity in New Zealand’.

^15.Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1789, 10.

^16.Quinn, The Encyclopedia of World Rugby, 201.

^17. For example, Belich, Making Peoples; Phillips, A Man's Country?; and Sinclair, A Destiny Apart.

^18.Hall, ‘The Spectacle of the “Other”’, 232.

^19. Phillips, A Man's Country?

^20.Daley, ‘The Invention of 1905’, 84–7.

^21. Ibid., 87.

^22. Ibid., 73.

^23. Ibid., 85.

^24.Richards, Dancing on Our Bones and Hughes, ‘Moira's Lament?’. Hughes also includes an extended list of research on the 1981 Springbok tour.

^25. Fougere, ‘Sport, Culture and Identity’; Nauright, ‘Sport and the Image of Colonial Manhood’; Perry, The Dominion of Signs; and Phillips, A Man's Country: The Image of the Pakeha Male.

^26.Day, ‘Sport, the Media and New Zealand’, 100.

^27.McGregor, ‘The Mass Media and Sport’, 188.

^28.Bruce, Falcous, and Thorpe, ‘The Mass Media and Sport’. In contrast, the 2011 RWC was available on free-to-air coverage via a complex rights package involving three major free-to-air New Zealand television channels, as well as the pay television rights holder, Sky TV. The offering on multiple channels is likely to have inflated ratings estimates compared with the past events broadcast on only one channel.

^29. Cleaver, D. ‘Rugby: NZRU Plan “Will Kill Women's Rugby”’. New Zealand Herald, February 15, 2010, http://www.nzherald.co.nz (accessed February 16, 2010); Grainger, ‘From Immigrant to Overstayer’; Phillips, ‘Epilogue: Sport and Future Australasian Culture’; Romanos, The Judas Game; and Thomas, A Whole New Ball Game.

^30. Robson, T. ‘Rugby's Interest Rates Fall Sharply’. The Dominion Post, August 6, 2009, http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/2724314/Rugbys-interest-rates-fall-sharply (accessed August 7, 2009).

^31. UMR, Rugby World Cup Anticipation, 4.

^32. Snedden, M. ‘Rugby Fan or Not, Kiwis Must Sign Up for Mission to Fill “Stadium of 4 Million”’, The Southland Times, July 24, 2010, 4.

^33. The 2011 study built upon similar research I conducted during the 2007 RWC, which produced substantially similar results, despite the event being held in Europe, and the hard-copy only survey involving a much less diverse sample ([author, 2010]).

^34. This rising percentage might also reflect a more active recruitment at venues with high numbers of fans such as the Auckland fan trail during later phases of the event.

^35. Hall, ‘Introduction’, 3.

^36. Ibid., 3.

^37.Newstalk ZB. ‘RWC Survey's Surprising Results’, July 2, 2011, http://newstalkzb.co.nz (accessed October 5, 2011).

^38. Hall, ‘Introduction’, 6.

^39. Ibid., 5.

^40. Ibid.

^41. Auckland's Rugby World Cup Party Goes On [video timestamp]. Stuff.co.nz, October 24, 2011, 1:15–1:22, http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/rwc-in-auckland/5840018/Aucklands-World-Cup-party-goes-on (accessed October 25, 2011).

^42.Hall, ‘The Work of Representation’, 49.

^43. Ibid.

^44.Richardson, Writing Strategies, 26.