London 2012 was the 30th Olympiad, and the third time that London had hosted an Olympic Games. The rationale for hosting the Games was to undertake a large-scale regeneration of Stratford and the East London region. The research explored the experiences of community representatives who live and/or work in East London. The research was inductive and focused on the empirical findings of the research via a sociological lens. Three overarching research themes (urban regeneration, socioculturalism, governance and economics). The original contribution to knowledge relates to the limited amount of research previously conducted which take into account all three of these overarching themes. 19 semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed alongside official documents and newspapers using narrative thematic analysis and critical discourse analysis. Two main findings emerged from the analysis; Marginal Gains and the Ripple Effect. It is recognised that the positivity found throughout the presented narratives may have been present due to the time period in which the research was undertaken. Future research should focus on whether the time period has an influence on the experiences of community representatives and whether similar (economic and governance) is experienced by future host cities.

Hui, Pik Hung. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 23-27). / Abstract also in Chinese. / ABSTRACT --- p.I / 摘要 --- p.II / ACKNOWLEDGMENT --- p.Ill / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.IV / LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES --- p.V / Chapter 1. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter 2. --- THE INSTITUTIONAL BACKGROUND --- p.4 / Chapter 2.1 . --- EVOLVEMENT OF MODERN SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES --- p.4 / Chapter 2.2. --- THE OLYMPIC MOVEMENT AND ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE --- p.5 / Chapter 2.3. --- BIDDING FOR THE GAMES --- p.7 / Chapter 2.4. --- FINANCING THE OLYMPIC GAMES --- p.8 / Chapter 3. --- WILL OLYMPICS GENERATE ECONOMIC GROWTH? --- p.10 / Chapter 3.1. --- DATA AND MODEL --- p.10 / Chapter 3.2. --- ESTIMATION RESULTS --- p.13 / Chapter 3.3. --- MODEL EXTENSION --- p.16 / Chapter 4. --- HOW TO WIN THE OLYMPICS --- p.18 / Chapter 4.1. --- MODEL AND DATA --- p.19 / Chapter 4.2. --- ESTIMATION RESULTS --- p.20 / Chapter 5. --- CONCLUSION --- p.21 / Chapter 6. --- REFERENCES --- p.23 / Chapter 7. --- APPENDIX --- p.55

This thesis analyzes the text, stage design, and historical context of Lothar Müthel's production of Aeschylus's Oresteia trilogy in 1936, which was sponsored by the National Socialist government during a broader publicity campaign during the Summer Olympics of 1936. The third play, Eumenides (Die Versöhnung in German) has democratic undertones, and therefore seems incompatible with Nazi ideology at first glance. There are three ways in which the Nazis made Müthel's adaptation of Die Versöhnung compatible. First, in the context of the Olympics, the Nazis attempted to draw a connection or relationship between modern German and ancient Greek culture, implying themselves to be successors to ancient Greece. Second, through Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff's interpretations of the Greek word δίκη (justice), a central concept in the Oresteia, the Nazis were able to emphasize the progression of a state from a savage, chaotic period to a new, better civilization, an idea that particularly appeals to Nazi narrative owing to their own recent history with the Weimar Republic. Third, the Nazis shifted focus from the institution of the Areopagus to the role of Athena and interpreted her to be a Germanic goddess. Müthel's adaptation is a good case study in how, through appropriation, a political movement can interpret a text to fit their ideology.

On August 4, 2012, white American swimmer Michael Phelps was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the international swimming federation in recognition of his Olympic achievements. The unprecedented award – a specially commissioned sculpture – proclaimed Phelps as “the greatest Olympian of All Time.” This title may, at one level, be perceived as a benign honorific bestowed upon an extra-ordinary athlete. On another level, the title should be viewed as a result of the hidden ideological work done by and through discourses of swimming in America, discourses that are always racialized, classed, nationalized, and gendered. Michael Phelps is the point of entry to unpack how modern sport and the Olympics reproduce these dominant views and processes that lead to contemporary social inequalities. My focus is an examination of the power relations that enabled and produced him as the Greatest Olympian of All-Time. Phelps’s phenomenal performance in the pool is undeniable, but I argue that the ensuing adulation and recognition results as much from his privileged position as a white American man as from his hard work, skill, and determination. This dissertation unpacks and explains how these processes work in the contemporary sporting world. Scholars have long argued that sport is a site for understanding how race, class, gender, and nationalisms are performed and/or constructed. In this dissertation, I take a critical cultural studies approach to demonstrate that, from an ideological and cultural point of view, Michael Phelps is the greatest Olympian of all time because he is the physical and symbolic embodiment of the modern Olympic movement, a movement founded upon 19th century ideals of humanism, liberalism, and modernity that continues to stabilize and reinforce dominant views of race, gender, class, nationalism and sexuality. To make this argument, I first historicize the sport of swimming itself. As one of the sports at the first Modern Olympics in 1896, swimming is an ideal site for understanding the modernization process through sport. Swimming has long been dominated by white athletes, and I deploy the recent concept of the sporting racial project to grasp how modernization is a racialized project fundamental to constructions of institutional racism. Next, I examine media representations of Michael Phelps in the early 21st century. These representations reveal the role of sport in popular imaginations of the nation and, specifically, the importance of the white male sporting hero in constructions of America in the post-9/11 world. Then, I explore and contextualize notions and meanings of “amateur” and “eligibility” within late 20th and early 21st century structures of Olympic swimming, including the complex and contradictory relationships between inter/national governing bodies. Finally, I show how these three seemingly independent processes involving race, class, gender, and nation are interdependent and fundamental to modern sport and the Olympics.

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This research seeks to explore the gendered nature of nationalisms and the ways that they can be challenged and perhaps transformed through the participation of women in sport at the national level. Nationalism is part of the public sphere, while women have historically been relegated to the private sphere. However, many scholars argue that women do in fact taken part in nation building primarily as biological reproducers of the nation. This has led scholars to conclude that nationalism is indeed gendered. Sport has traditionally been a masculine domain where conceptions of hegemonic masculinity as well as the nation are developed and reinforced. However within the last thirty years women's participation in sport, specifically at the national-elite level has risen dramatically. This research seeks to explore how women's increased participation in the nationalistic and masculine domain of sport will affect nationalism. To discover how the increase in women's participation in national sport may or may not be affecting nationalism, two exploratory case studies were conducted focusing on the media coverage of the Summer and Winter Olympic Games between 1972 and 2008. The cases used in the analysis were Canada and India. For each case, a large, English-language, national daily newspaper was selected as a data source and the articles covering women athletes during the Olympic Games were collected, subjected to a basic form of content analysis and then categorized into one of three categories. Individual women athletes featured in the articles were also analyzed as well. The findings of this study reveal that Indian and Canadian nationalism were affected by the increase in women's participation in sport. However, the study also demonstrates the ways in which media continues to feminize women athletes in order to make them socially acceptable. Despite this, the study reinforces the idea that sport remains a valuable space where women can challenge traditional gender ideals within a nationalisms.

Special Olympics International, an organization committed to providing sport opportunities for children and adults with mental retardation, has been a major advocate in promoting competitive experiences for the mentally retarded. Few studies have focused on the effects of participation in competitive athletics on individuals who are mentally retarded. The purpose of this study was to investigate the self-concept of winners, non-winners, and losers after participation in a Special Olympics competitive meet. The study also examined the attitude of mentally retarded participants toward competition and the perceived importance of competing in the event. The subjects for this investigation were participants from the Texas Special Olympics State Swimming Meet. The study included 95 males and 56 females. Comparisons were made among athletes placing first, second, and last in races at the swim meet. Following competition, subjects were administered a sub-scale of the Piers Harris Self Concept Scale (PHSCS) and asked questions relative to attitudes toward competition. A followup interview was conducted eight to twelve weeks following the swimming meet to determine the importance of having competed in the Special Olympics State Swimming Meet. No significant differences in self-concept levels existed among winners, non-winners, and losers immediately following competition. While all three groups expressed positive feelings toward participation in Special Olympics, the last place finishers were slightly more negative about swimming in the race when interviewed immediately following their participation. Also, immediately following the race, more second place finishers preferred to swim when racing other people than did winners and last place finishers. In a followup interview eight to twelve weeks after participation, no significant differences were found among groups regarding their attitude toward competing in the Special Olympics Swim Meet. Also, the perceived importance of the Texas Special Olympics State Swim Meet was not significantly different for winners, non-winners, and losers, as measured by responses to the followup interview. / Graduation date: 1991

As corporate sponsorship of sporting events becomes a more popular marketing tool, the price tag associated with these sponsorship agreements has steepened considerably. Over the past thirty years, sponsorship has become an integral part of the Olympic Games. In this paper, we employ an event study methodology to assess the impact of both the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games and the performance of Canadian Olympic athletes on the shareholder value of national Olympic sponsors. We hypothesize, in line with current behavioral finance research, that the national Olympic sponsors will capitalize on the positive mood and attention associated with the Games in such a way that Olympic sponsorship will positively impact shareholder value. However, we find that, from a stock return perspective, corporate sponsorship of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games is not a value-adding investment. We find that while the market index is positively impacted by both the Olympic Games and Canadian medalists, there is a negative and significant impact of the Olympic Games on national sponsors. Furthermore, Canadian medalists have a positive impact on the stock returns of three individual sponsors, but these winners' effects are negative for two sponsors and insignificant for another two sponsors.

The study of terrorism has gained attention and prominence post-September 11, 2001. Much of the literature on terrorism is teleological, and many authors focus their research on America’s involvement with terrorism in the Middle East beginning with the Iran hostage crisis in 1979. Accordingly, the literature fails to highlight the rise of terrorism in the Middle East and the importance of the Middle East to American foreign policy during the Nixon Administration. This study looks at how the American media and the American government conceptualized terrorism during the Nixon Administration, from 1969 to 1974. An analysis of American print media sources demonstrates that terrorism was associated with the Middle East more than other regions in the later years of Nixon’s presidency. American government documents reveal that the government linked terrorism with the Middle East after a fundamental shift in the perception of terrorism took place after the Munich Olympics massacre in 1972. In order to understand the contemporary manifestation of terrorism in American life, it is imperative to understand the history of how America conceptualized terrorism.

A critical comparison of the CCTV and NBC broadcasts of the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics demonstrates how two sets of narratives that on the surface glorify China and the long Chinese cultural and historic tradition offer very different ideological projections about China's rise as a power and engagement with the wider capitalist world. For CCTV, China has finally righted a longstanding historical injustice and established itself as a co-equal nation among nations. For NBC, ambivalence about China is the watchword, and further reforms that by implication will help clear China of its non-democratic, totalitarian, and economically mercantilist sheen are needed if the country is to be fully embraced. The ideological construction is more hidden in the NBC broadcast, but both depend on massive erasures of history and blurring of contemporary issues, causing both sets of narratives to fail tests of narrative coherence. Discursive struggles over the authorship of the Opening Ceremony underlie both media texts and expose their ideological positioning.