Event bidding and new media activism

ABSTRACT

In this article we draw upon three case studies of American cities bidding to host the Summer Olympic Games to explore the role media, particularly new media, plays in the formation of anti-bid protest movements. Using data gathered from in-depth interviews with leaders of several activist campaigns and a content analysis of related websites and social media accounts, the paper demonstrates the increasing role new media plays in enabling resistant movements to form and articulate messages oppositional to boosterist coverage of mega sport event bids. However, it also highlights the limits of such new media activism in terms of both reach and capacity to effect change in isolation. Rather, the paper demonstrates that new media activitsm is at its most potent when it links and interacts with other actors, including legacy media outlets. The paper therefore concludes by highlighting the need for connectivity to both legacy media and physical acts of resistance and protest in order to generate meaningful impact and generate change.

KEYWORDS:

• Event bidding
• new media activism
• Boston 2024
• Olympics
• protest

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. All financial figures in the text are inflation adjusted to 2018 USD.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David McGillivray

David McGillivray (University of the West of Scotland, UK), Chair in Event and Digital Cultures, focusses on the contemporary significance of events and festivals as markers of identity and mechanisms for the achievement of wider economic, social and cultural externalities. He is co-investigator on a UK / Canadian project exploring the role of sport events for persons with a disability and the European Union-funded project EventRights. He is co-author of Event Policy: From Theory to Strategy (2012) and Event Bidding: Politics, Persuasion and Resistance (2017), as well as being Deputy Editor of Annals of Leisure Research.

John Lauermann

John Lauermann is an urban geographer and Assistant professor at the City University of New York (CUNY). He researches the planning, impacts and politics of urban mega projects, focussing in particular on sports mega events. He is the co-author of Failed Olympic Bids and the Transformation of Urban Space (2017), and has published recent work in Environment & Planning A, Journal of the American Planning Association, Progress in Human Geography and Urban Studies.

Daniel Turner

Daniel Turner is the Deputy Dean of the School of Business and Creative Industries at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS).  His research interests focus upon the socio-cultural exploration of events and sport and the use of such activity to generate economic, social and cultural impacts. He is co-author of Lifestyle Sports and Public Policy (2017) and Event Bidding: Politics, Persuasion and Resistance (2017).