“Amoral universalism”: mediating and staging global and local in the 1998 Nagano Olympic Winter Games

Abstract

This paper is a case study that critically analyzes the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympic Games. The Olympics are a gigantic global event, largely as a result of significant global media attention, particularly through television and corporate sponsors. However, these entities simultaneously need a specific locale in which to operate. Analytically, the paper focuses on interactions between the global media actors and the host city and its people. It argues that the commercialized nature of the Olympic Games controls not only the program, but also numerous aspects of the local host city to maximize benefit for the media. This paper reviews how historically and structurally the media were able to obtain such extensive control. Then, it argues how the media actually control the locale through the initial bid, the process of preparation, the Games, and even the aftermath.

Notes

Atsushi Tajima is a doctoral candidate in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Correspondence to: 5115 Vilas Hall, 821 University Ave., Madison, WI 53706 USA. Email: [email protected]. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2002 annual conference of the International Communication Association, Seoul, Korea and received a Top Student Paper Award for international communication from the Intercultural and Development Communication Division. The author would like to thank Professor Jo‐Ellen Fair, Professor Shanti Kumar, and Denise St. Clair, as well as Celeste M. Condit, Bonnie J. Dow, and the anonymous CSMC reviewers for their insightful comments and valuable suggestions regarding previous drafts of this essay.

The name Nagano refers to both the city and the prefecture: Municipality of Nagano and Nagano Prefecture. Precisely speaking, the host‐city rights were awarded to the city, but the games were a prefectural event. Many venues were actually located elsewhere in the prefecture, beyond the Municipality of Nagano.

These were 1963 Tokyo, 1968 Mexico City, 1972 Sapporo (Japan, winter), 1988 Seoul, and 1998 Nagano. Sapporo and Nagano are the only two non‐capital cities. However, Sapporo's population was more than a million, significantly greater than that of Nagano.

The term “Amoral Universalism” comes from Hoberman (1986).

Exchange rates between the Japanese yen and the US dollar used in this paper are the actual rates at the time each event occurred. For example, the rate used in the discussion of the bid process is the actual exchange rate of 1991, while the rate being used to discuss the operational budget is the 1998 rate.

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Notes on contributors

Atsushi Tajima

Atsushi Tajima is a doctoral candidate in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Correspondence to: 5115 Vilas Hall, 821 University Ave., Madison, WI 53706 USA. Email: [email protected]. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2002 annual conference of the International Communication Association, Seoul, Korea and received a Top Student Paper Award for international communication from the Intercultural and Development Communication Division. The author would like to thank Professor Jo‐Ellen Fair, Professor Shanti Kumar, and Denise St. Clair, as well as Celeste M. Condit, Bonnie J. Dow, and the anonymous CSMC reviewers for their insightful comments and valuable suggestions regarding previous drafts of this essay.