The Media Impact of South Africa's Historical Hosting of Africa's First Mega-Event: Sport and Leisure Consumption Patterns

Abstract

The 2010 FIFA World Cup held in South Africa was the biggest mega-event ever to be hosted on the African continent. This historical event had several social, economic and developmental imperatives, including destination profiling and changing negative perceptions of South Africa, specifically, and the African continent more generally. This research undertakes a media analysis of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in selected key markets, namely the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and the USA. The study investigates the media impact of the 2010 FIFA World Cup on South Africa as the host nation and Africa's major tourism destination by undertaking a media analysis of the key source markets. Africa's first mega-event provides an ideal opportunity to examine how a host country (in this case South Africa) is profiled in relation to sport and leisure consumption patterns, including shifts in sentiment over time. Four time periods were identified, namely pre-, leading up to, during and post-2010. A qualitative analysis is undertaken, which includes content sourcing, content identification, semantic cluster analysis and the use of Leximancer, an analytical tool used to evaluate the content of textual documents, in this case primarily online newspaper articles. For each of the source markets identified, 400–600 articles were extracted. The findings show generally positive or favourable media coverage in relation to sport and leisure consumption patterns. However, a higher level of unfavourable media coverage was discernible during the pre- and lead-up periods, which may have influenced World Cup attendance figures and therefore leisure consumption. Specific tourist products (in particular Table Mountain and Robben Island) and the main host cities (Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban) had more mentions and stronger associations than South Africa generally. The positive imagery which prevailed during the event needs to be further emphasised in future sport events and the tourism and leisure marketing of South Africa.

Keywords::

• media content analysis
• 2010 FIFA World Cup
• South Africa
• sport
• leisure consumption

Notes

^1.Bob and Swart, “Sport Events and Social Legacies”; Cornelissen et al., “Towards Redefining the Concept”; and Swart and Bob, “Mega Sport Event Legacies.”

^2.Knott et al., “Stakeholder Reflections of the Tourism”; Allen, “The Successes and Challenges.”

^3. “SA's World Cup Exposure ‘Priceless’,” SouthAfrica.info. http://www.southafrica.info/2010/coverage.htm#ixzz2T4pRanbr, accessed June 20, 2011.

^4.BrandCapital, “2010 FIFA World Cup;” Egbuna, “2010: The Communication Opportunity;” Florek et al., “Mega Sports Events;” Swart et al., “Media, Crime and the 2010 Soccer World Cup;” and Tebje, “The Vibe from Abroad.”

^5.BrandCapital, “2010 FIFA World Cup;” Swart et al., “Media, Crime and the 2010 Soccer World Cup.”

^6.Serra, “Sportswomen Considered Not Newsworthy.”

^7.Collins et al., “Are We Expecting Too Much?”

^8.Falkheimer, “Events Framed by the Mass Media.”

^9.Schausteck de Almeida et al., “Rationales, Rhetoric and Realities.”

^10.Nauright, “Global Games.”

^11. Ibid.

^12.Manzenreiter, “The Beijing Games.”

^13. Ibid.

^14.Novak and Billings, “The Fervent, the Ambivalent and the Great Gap,” 35.

^15.Fullerton and Holtzhausen, “American's Attitudes Towards South Africa.”

^16.Avraham, “Cities and Their News Media Images.”

^17.German Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Soccer World Cup 2006.

^18.Florek et al., “Mega Sports Events.”

^19.Black, “The Symbolic Politics.”

^20.Egbuna, “2010: The Communication Opportunity.”

^21.Tebje, “The Vibe from Abroad.”

^22.Schriener, “Media Perceptions of South Africa.”

^23.Donaldson and Ferreira, “Crime, Perceptions and Touristic Decision-Making”; Swart et al., “Media, Crime and the 2010 Soccer World Cup.”

^24. See note 22.

^25.Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, 2010 Soccer World Cup.

^26. See note 19.

^27.Barford, “Survey Indicates Serious Visitor Satisfaction”; Swart et al., “Media, Crime and the 2010 Soccer World Cup.”

^28.Allen, “The Successes and Challenges.”

^29.Swart et al., “A Media Analysis of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.”

^30.Smith and Humphreys, “Evaluation of Unsupervised Semantic Mapping.”

^31. See note 29.

^32. Ibid.

^33.Preuss, “The Conceptualisation and Measurements.”

^34.Bob and Swart, “Sport Events and Social Legacies.”

^35. See note 33.

^36.Beckford-Smith, “The Case of Cape Town.”

^37. Ibid.

^38.Bob and Swart, “The 2010 FIFA World Cup”; Donaldson and Ferreira, “Perceptions of International Visitors”; George, “Visitor Perceptions of Crime-Safety”; Steyn et al., “In Anticipation of the 2010 Soccer World Cup”; and Swart et al., “Media, Crime and the 2010 Soccer World Cup.”

^39. See note 36.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kamilla Swart

Kamilla Swart is Associate Professor in the Department of Tourism and Events Management, Faculty of Business, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa. Her research interests include sport and event tourism, with a specific focus on mega-events and event policies, strategies and evaluations. She was instrumental in driving the 2010 FIFA World Cup^TM Research Agenda and served as the City of Cape Town's Research Coordinator for 2010.

Michael Linley

Michael Linley is the Managing Director of BrandCapital International, an advisory firm he founded in 2005 to work with organisations on understanding brand's role and effect as a strategic asset, and has built a strong client base internationally. Michael is a Ph.D. candidate at Victoria University's College of Sport and Exercise Science. His thesis is developing a framework and empirical study of the effect of event association on the perceptual brand image characteristics of host cities.

Urmilla Bob

Urmilla Bob is Professor in the Department of Geography, School of Environmental Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal. She conducts research on a range of developmental and environmental issues, including socio-economic impact assessments of developmental projects in relation to conservation and ecotourism projects as well as sustainable livelihoods in both rural and urban contexts. One of her main fields of research is on events tourism, including a focus on mega-events.