Journal of Sport and Social Issues; Thousand Oaks; Nov 2000; Alina Bernstein;

Volume:
                24
Issue:
                4
Start Page:
                351-369
ISSN:
                01937235
Subject Terms:
 
Globalization
                Olympic games-1992
                Journalism

Abstract:

Bernstein focuses on the theory of globalization and its relevance to the coverage of the
Olympic games based both on a theoretical discussion and an empirical study of the 1992
Barcelona Spain games. The findings show that despite the International Olympic Committee's
declarations, which in essence go toward a united world, the local--in this case
national--perspective was the prevailing one in the coverage of this global event.
 
This article focuses on the theory of globalization and its relevance to the coverage of the Olympic games based both on a theoretical discussion and the author's empirical study of the 1992 Barcelona games. Employing content analysis, supplemented with interviews with journalists, it examines, comparatively, the buildup and coverage in British and Israeli newspapers in the context of the theoretical discussion. The findings of the empirical analysis show that despite the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) declaration which in essence go toward a united world, the local-in this case national--perspective was the prevailing one in the coverage of this global event.

GLOBALIZATION AND THE OLYMPICS: AN INTRODUCTION

From their inception, De Coubertin intended the modern Olympic games to be on a global scale (Whitson
& Macintosh, 1996). Over the years, the games transformed into "the most prominent regular global event
of our times" (Whannel, 1992, p. 173), most of the transformation taking place in the past 20 years. The
current global status of the Olympics has been attributed to its media coverage, especially that of television
(Tomlinson, 1996).

This article relates the globalization process(es) and its consequences to the case of the Olympics based
on a theoretical discussion and the findings of my analysis of the newspaper coverage of the 1992
Barcelona Olympics in Britain and Israel. The first part of this article relates to the literature, which
attempts to theorize the concept of globalization. It then proceeds to discuss briefly the role of the media in
relation to globalization and looks at a couple of large-scale international studies, which analyzed news and
sport, applying the concept of globalization to the analysis. Consequently, questions emerge concerning
the applicability of globalization as a concept when looking at it more closely. This discussion guided my
own study, which is reported in the second part of this article. Thus, this article examines mainly the
relevance of globalization to the world of sport and to the Olympics in particular.

The classifying of the Olympics as a global media event evokes, inevitably, the "catchy" (Wenner, 1996, p.
235) concept of globalization, which has become a fashionable term used in both public and academic
discourse. It is worth noting that this process (or indeed, processes) also has been equated with, or
discarded in favor of, other terms, such as internationalization, Westernization, Americanization, and even
the older notion of cultural imperialism.

The concept of globalization was recognized as significant in academic discourse during the mid-1980s
when its use increased to such an extent that discussions of it can be found across a wide range of fields
(Robertson, 1994). The interest in globalization and its consequences was, and is, related both to the wish
to understand current changes and to the realization that the future of "individual national communities were
increasingly bound together" (McGrew, 1992, p. 65). As can be expected, "conceptual clutter has led to
theoretical confusion" (Harvey, Rail, & Thibault, 1996, p. 258). In the field of social theory, numerous
publications on globalization in recent years (Braman & Sreberny-Mohammadi, 1996; Featherstone,
1994; Friedman, 1994; Hall, 1992; McGrew, 1992; Robertson, 1990, 1994; Wallerstein, 1991) reveal
an array of factors that have led to globalization, processes involved in it, and indicators used to measure
global trends. The literature is also multidimensional when it comes to assessing the impact of these
factors, processes, and indicators at the international and national levels. Indeed, "popular use of the term
and its many definitions within the social sciences have imbued the concept with multiple meanings"
(McGrew, 1992, p. 65) to such an extent that it is now used quite loosely and even in contradictory ways
(Robertson, 1990).

It is beyond the scope of this article to address in any great detail the thorny concepts of globalization,
world system, world society, identity, culture, and all other related terms as they are being discussed in
contemporary social science and other disciplines. The aspect of this debate that needs to be explored in
the context of this article is that "globalization has been, and continues to be, associated with a `crisis of
the territorial nation-state'" (McGrew, 1992, p. 87). One of the more crucial aspects assessed in the
literature regarding globalization is the degree to which it is characterized by processes and tendencies that
take place beyond the reality of the nation-state (Harvey et al., 1996; see also Featherstone, 1994;
Friedman, 1994; Robertson, 1994), although "a powerful argument can be made that globalization is
compromising the authority, the autonomy, the nature and the competence of the modern nation-state"
(McGrew, 1992, p. 92). It is important to note that some theorists acknowledge the evidence that
although the state might seem redundant functionally, "culturally and psychologically it remains of critical
significance in structuring the political and social organization of humankind" (McGrew, 1992, p. 93). Such
a line of thinking is reinforced by considering the extent to which nationalism is very much alive and well
(for a further discussion of both the dissolving and the rejuvenating of the nation-state, see McGrew,
1992).

In this context, I find it important to emphasize that although globalization processes are very evident, the
extent to which our world is now globalized should remain open to debate. My view is that globalization
has reached such a point where we can support the belief that industrialized countries already exist, to a
great extent, within a global world but that globalization processes are at different developmental stages in
different countries and even within parts of the same nations, a contention that applies even more
specifically in the case of developing nations. Thus, we need to be careful in applying the term sweepingly
because it clearly differs in several contexts.

GLOBALIZATION AND THE MEDIA

The notion of the responsibility of the media, especially television, to the world shrinking can be traced
back to Marshall McLuhan's (1960) concept of "the global village." This is echoed in much more recent
discussions that refer to modern communications technology (not only, or even mainly, television) as one
of the reasons the globe has effectively shrunk in the contemporary age (see McGrew, 1992). In the
literature, and following in the footsteps of writers who stress the multiple causal logics of globalization
(McGrew, 1992; Robertson, 1994), the media is not viewed as the causal factor of globalization but is
definitely considered to be one of the major forces involved in these processes (see McGrew, 1992).
From the literature, it becomes clear that the media is, and will certainly remain, central to developing the
analysis of the processes of globalization (Sreberny-Mohammadi, 1996).

The literature focusing on globalization and the media has covered a variety of issues, and numerous topics
can be raised in relation to this. In the context of the discussion in this article, the most relevant strand to
consider is that of globalization and news.

GLOBALIZATION AND NEWS

The topic of media news has been addressed by academics for many years, resulting in numerous writings
and research projects into this area. Throughout the past 50 years, the news process on the international
level has become of special interest (see Galtung & Vincent, 1992). For the purposes ofthis article, the
analysis of news flow on such a level is especially relevant because the reporting of sport events in the
media indicates some similar characteristics to news coverage in general (Bell, 1991). As
SrebernyMohammadi (1994) observes, this type of analysis has come into focus again in recent years
because of technological developments and the changing global political environment. In her discussion,
Sreberny-Mohammadi asks whether national news media indeed reflects on an emerging global, shared
news agenda or conversely whether "regionalism remains a key factor in news selection" (p. 5). In this
debate, the dichotomy of the global and the local is therefore illuminated (see further discussion below).

Contrary to what Robertson (1994) asserts, the issue of globalization of news media is, in fact, not new or
even recent (see Schramm, 1960); this area of investigation has started with the printed press but has
shifted its interest to television, which with the aid of satellite technology reached a global status, the most
notable example being CNN. In relation, an extensive international study of the Eurovision News
Exchange was conducted by Cohen, Levy, Roeh, and Gurevitch (1996; also cited in Gurevitch, Levy, &
Roeh, 1993). The researchers found that one of the core characteristics of the process they explored was
"news domestication," namely, the tendency to domesticate news stories. This domestication highlights the
fact that media professionals (and audiences) counterpull the globalizing forces, a fact ignored by many
other writers whose assumptions and arguments concerning the globalization of the media news tended to
be very much"imbued with the spirit and the vision ofthe `Global Village' "(Cohen et al., 1996, p. 152).

Thus, it is important to note that when a large-scale and in-depth empirical study is conducted, the results
show a different face of globalization, that is, that the local aspects are very much in evidence.

GLOBALIZATION AND SPORT

The spread of modern sport is considered to provide an interesting example of globalization (Horne,
1996; Rowe, 1996; Whannel, 1992). In fact, sport sociologists entered the globalization debate during the
1980s, that is, from the very beginning of the concept being dealt with in the social sciences in general. The
discussion of global sport, which originates mainly from North America (see Harvey et al., 1996), takes
different forms and the various contributors to this ongoing debate explore many of its angles (Wenner,
1996). As with the theorizing of globalization in general, this results in a literature range that is sometimes
"confusing, often contradictory, and always partial" (Harvey et al., 1996, p. 258). Confusion also remains
concerning the basic question of whether the globalization trends are actually influencing sport in a
significant manner. Writers who do recognize a noticeable impact of global processes on sport have
identified the process of globalization, whereas others have suggested Americanization, modernization,
cultural imperialism, and cultural hegemony (Harvey et al., 1996, p. 259; for further discussion, see
Donnelly, 1996; Rowe, 1996). Wishing to clarify the issue of global sport, Harvey et al. (1996)
developed a model of globalization that incorporates political, economic, social, and cultural dimensions.
Their web model provides a theoretical framework to enable analyses of the influence of globalization of
sport on national sport policies, taking into account the tensions between the local and the global (Whitson
& Macintosh, 1996; and see discussion below). One such example is the tension surrounding international
sporting events that have become occasions of nationalism and where national comparisons inevitably
occur (Donnelly, 1996; see also Boyle & Haynes, 1996).

Although literature relating the concept of globalization to sport does exist (see also dedicated issues ofthe
Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 1996, and Media, Culture, and Society, 1996), it is interesting to note
that sport falls more convincingly into the concepts of Americanization and cultural imperialism. Indeed,
much of the debate expressed in the literature within the sport context is engaged in the issue of
globalization versus Americanization (Donnelly, 1996, p. 244). It is true that "arguments about the
imperialist Americanization of sport have not been quite so straightforward as those for film and television
because the product is not always so clearly American" (Donnelly, 1996, p. 245). One example to
support such a view is basketball, which is popular around the globe (although not in all countries, as the
British example shows) but is not played in most countries in its American version. However, on the other
hand, basketball is indeed an example of American marketing (on American marketing of sport, see also
Rowe, 1996) headed by the National Basketball Association (NBA) that led to a worldwide interest in
American basketball, peaking with the entry of the American Dream Team to the 1992 Barcelona
Olympic games.

The hypothesis of Americanization in the sport context may seem problematic when we remember that
truly international sports such as football (soccer) and international events such as the Olympics and the
football World Cup are not American. Such examples may deny the Americanization of sport as a sole
explanation for the changes in global sport. However, another aspect of Americanization has emerged in
the literature, relating to corporate sport (McKay, Lawrence, Miller, & Rowe, 1993, and see Rowe,
1996). This entails the notion that sport has become less important than its capacity to be a vehicle for
attracting massive audiences; even more than that, its shows that sport has come to express ideas about
"competition, excellence, corporate efficiency, and what it is necessary to do to win-ideas that have their
origins in the United States" (Donnelly, 1996, p. 246). The American style of sport has become the
international example for corporate sport around the world, including aspects of showbiz, the ability to
attract sponsors, and, not in the least, having the characteristics necessary for good television coverage.

Thus, Donnelly (1996) concludes that "Americanization as cultural imperialism has at least some
explanatory power" (Donnelly, 1996, p. 248). Rowe (1996) and others (see Whannel, 1992) also
advocate that for global sport, Americanization and cultural imperialism make a persuasive argument (for a
discussion of the economic aspect of this, see below).

GLOBALIZATION AND THE OLYMPICS

When considering the applicability of the concept of globalization to the Olympic games in particular,
various issues can be raised, for instance, the fact that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is an
example of a nongovernmental international body that influences and affects the making and changing of
sport policies in different countries around the world (Donnelly, 1996). Another issue raised in the
literature is the question of to what extent the Olympic games have led to the merger of professional and
corporatized sport (see above). This has been underlined by rumors that IOC President Juan Antonio
Samaranch has threatened to withdraw baseball as an Olympic sport if American major league players are
not permitted to participate in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney (Donnelly, 1996). This can be seen as an
example of the degree to which the Olympics has been Americanized (see further discussion below).

In keeping with the thrust of this article, the main question to ask is whether the games reflect on a world
that is truly globalized. It is worth noting, for example, that in proposing the possible consequences of
globalization on cultural identities, Hall (1992) suggests that one possible consequence is that national
identities are being eroded as a result of the growth of cultural homogenization (p. 300). However, in a
comparative study of the television coverage by 28 broadcasters around the world of the opening
ceremony of the Barcelona Olympics, Moragas Spa, Rivenburgh, and Larson (1995) found varying local
perspectives of this (same) event. According to Moragas Spa et al., these local perspectives "serve as an
important reminder that local circumstances can greatly colour the experience of a global event like the
Olympic games" (p. 11). They proclaim as their most interesting finding the fact that although the opening
ceremony, and by extension the Olympics as a whole, certainly has a global character, it is the local
dimensions of it that sustain the broadcasters' and audience's interest (Moragas Spa et al., 1995). By local
dimensions, they refer to such features as special attention to specific performers, largely to a nation's own
performing athletes.

To conclude, it is important to stress that both the empirical analysis of international news conducted by
Cohen at el. (1996) and the empirical study of the coverage of the opening ceremony of the Olympics
(Moragas Spa at el., 1995) point to the local within the global context.

THE GLOBAL ECONOMICS OF SPORT AND THE OLYMPICS

To further clarify the argument with respect to sport, and the Olympic games in particular being more
Americanized than globalized, I have chosen to ascertain the economic aspects of the globalization of
sport and especially the Olympics. This decision is based on the notion expressed in the literature that "a
core in contemporary theories of globalization is that political, economic [italics added] and social activity
are increasingly world-wide in scope" (Sreberny-Mohammadi, 1996, p. 368).

Regarding the Olympic games, much of the evidence clearly points in the direction of Americanization as
an explanatory concept for the developments over the years. Scholars (Hill, 1996; Tomlinson, 1996;
Whannel, 1992) attribute to television, especially American television, the fact that the Olympics has
become a global event. The most important factor has been the massive sums of money that have become
readily available to the Olympic movement from American networks battling over exclusive broadcasting
rights. Indeed, these are now legendary for having caused the price of television rights to soar. The biggest
television deal in the history of sport (at the time of writing) was announced in New York on August
7,1995, when the American television network NBC disclosed that it would pay the IOC
$1,250,000,000 for the US. rights to the Sydney Olympic games of 2000 and the 2002 winter Olympic
games in Salt Lake City, Utah (The Guardian, August 8, 1995).

In Europe, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) negotiates with the IOC for the rights for all
European broadcasters and pays similar amounts for broadcasting rights (see Table 1). However, the
whole of the African continent paid the IOC $0 from the Atlanta Olympic games onward.
  

Table 1 makes clear why American money exerts a great influence over the IOC, which has, in turn,
become increasingly dependent on it. One aspect of this is the location of the Olympic games themselves
because prime-time live broadcasting of the major events is of crucial importance to television. Thus, not
surprisingly, Atlanta (city of Coca-Cola and CNN) was the choice for the 1996 games, although the
games were away from the United States for just two Olympiads since Los Angeles in 1984. There is also
small wonder that the games have never been hosted by an African nation. Moreover, since the 1984 Los
Angeles Olympics, commercial sponsorship has become a central source of revenue for, and allegedly
influence on, the IOC. It should be noted that the major players in this context, namely the main sponsors,
most important Coca Cola, also are American.

To conclude, it is important to stress that the economic aspects-and the actual figures-surrounding the
Olympic games, as discussed (see also Hill, 1996), clearly point in the direction of Americanization, rather
than globalization, as the explanatory factor.

THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

The above discussion has already stressed the applicability of the macro-micro approach to globalization,
which unfolds in the idea of the global and the local. The following discussion inspects this concept a little
further, maintaining the focus on the Olympics.

The sense of complexity and ambiguity that surfaces from the existing literature on the topic of
globalization may result from the fact that this process is understood as "a process which is essentially
dialectical" (McGrew, 1992, p. 74), dialectical simply in the sense that it embraces contradictory
dynamics. For this discussion, as should be apparent by now, the most relevant of these "binary
oppositions" or "dualities" (terms used by McGrew, 1992, p. 74) is indeed that of the global and the local.

The first point to make in relation to the local is that if the global is difficult to conceptualize, so is the local.
Hall (1992) cautions of the local being "confused with older identities, firmly rooted in well-bounded
localities" (p. 304; see also McGrew, 1992). However, for some writers, the local is indeed the national,
and this is especially true for academics who focus on sport in the globalization context (Harvey et al.,
1996; Moragas Spa et al., 1995). Another valid observation to point out is that for writers from the sport
perspective, the global does not mean the disappearance of the local, and this is "underlined by virtually
everyone who has written about globalization" (Harvey et al., 1996, p. 260).

In relation to the Olympics, the global and the local (in this case national) conception was explored in
literature in two main directions. The first aspect is of the tension between the ideals of the games, which
bring nations together in the hope of enhancing international understanding, which in essence goes toward
globalization (nations ofthe world united) and the fact that the games are, and are portrayed by the media
as, a competition between nation-states (Billig, 1995; Blain, Boyle, & O'Donnell, 1993). The second
aspect is the different ways in which various nations (locals) perceive the games, as the media coverage of
the opening ceremony reveals (Moragas Spa et al., 1995; for another study of opening ceremonies, see
Tomlinson, 1996). This perspective shows that the images of the games are not that global, thus
emphasizing the importance of the local within the global. Both directions, based on empirical studies,
prove that although the Olympic games are a global event, reported worldwide, they retain an important
rooting in the local (national). It is worth noting that from this angle, one can agree with the notion that the
"'decline' vision of `the end of the nationstate' seems somewhat premature" (McGrew, 1992, p. 94; see
also Boyle & Haynes, 1996). Indeed, in the context of sport, there is much evidence to suggest that the
nation-state is very far from its demise, as the 1998 Football World Cup in France showed yet again.

The idea that the concept of globalization is a leaky one when examined closely (see also Boyle &
Haynes, 1996; Horne, 1996) and that the local is no less, and maybe even more, important is not unique
to the study of sport. It is also supported by the international study of news (Cohen et al., 1996), as
discussed above. I agree with Boyle and Haynes (1996), who argue that specific case studies should alert
researchers to "more empirically grounded theoretical discussions regarding globalization in all its various
forms" (Boyle & Haynes, 1996, p. 563; see also Horne, 1996). This is due to the fact that the empirical
studies that have been conducted so far tend to reveal a different picture of globalization from the one
found in theoretical writings, especially in regard to the manner by which they emphasize the importance of
the local.

THE NEWSPAPER BUILDUP AND COVERAGE OF THE 1992 BARCELONA OLYMPICS IN
BRITAIN AND ISRAEL

The 1992 Olympic games, which opened on July 25, 1992, and concluded on August 9, 1992, were
hosted by Barcelona; in the games, approximately 10,000 participants from 172 countries competed in 28
sports and were reported on by approximately 11,000 media representatives. My study analyzed the
buildup and coverage of the Barcelona Olympics in Britain and Israel. Employing content analysis,
supplemented with interviews with sports journalists and editors of the studied newspapers and detailed
analysis of Olympics-related items that were printed on the front pages of these newspapers, it examined,
comparatively, the buildup and coverage in four newspapers (The Times and The Express in Britain;
Yedioth Aharonoth and Hadashot in Israel) over a period of 5 months, from April 1, 1992, to September,
1, 1992. Overall, all 2,405 Olympics-related items in the studied newspapers were analyzed. The
theoretical framework guiding this study included the grand theories of media events, news construction,
and globalization and the concepts of national identity, heroes, and gender. In this article, however, I focus
on findings related to globalization-as discussed above-but also touch on some of the other aspects
studied, most notably news construction.

GLOBALIZATION AND THE BARCELONA OLYMPICS-FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

In the nations parade, which is an integral part of the opening ceremony of the Olympics, of the Barcelona
games, 172 nations entered the stadium waving their flags. However, of these nations, the British and
Israeli newspapers concentrated on a relatively small number of nations. In fact, 20 nations participating in
the Olympics accounted for most of the coverage of the games, even when the coverage in the two
countries is combined. Table 2 refers to the overall Olympics-related coverage of the top most-covered
nations; nations were selected to be included in this table if their coverage accounted for 1% of the
coverage in at least one of the newspapers studied. This breakdown relates to the main actor in each item.

From Table 2, it becomes evident that the focus in national newspapers was firmly fixed on the
performance of the delegation of that country. The coverage of Britain in The Times accounted for well
over half (60%) of this newspaper's Olympics-related coverage. In The Express, consistent with its
tabloid-style coverage that in general tends to focus on the British angle of sporting events, the coverage of
Britain accounted for 79% of the overall coverage. Because Britain was represented by a relatively large
delegation, of which some athletes performed very well, indicated by their tally of 20 medals, there were
relatively many national interest stories to report. However, although the Israeli delegation to the
Barcelona Olympics was much smaller than the British one and only two of its athletes won medals (in
judo), the coverage of Israel in the Israeli newspapers was most extensive (47% in Yedioth Aharonoth
and 29% in Hadashot).

Further cross-tabbing of the coverage of the two countries in their national newspapers through the means
of categories that were aimed at assessing the prominence of items reinforced these findings. For example,
most of the large headlines of the analyzed items were about the nation's own athletes. It should be
clarified that these findings revealed a clear pattern in Britain and Israel in addition to also showing some
differences between the newspapers in each country.

The above-discussed findings were further reinforced by comments made by the sports journalists I
interviewed. For instance, Raffi Naee (Yedioth Aharonoth, personal communication, August 21, 1993)
acknowledged that in terms of its sporting performance and achievements, Israel "is just a drop in the sea"
but explained that "the readers in a certain country are most interested in how their athletes performed."
Moreover, as Craig Lord (The Times, personal communication, November 21, 1993) explained, "The
perspective was British rather than foreign [italics added] .... You can't ignore The Times is a British
paper... You have to consider that the people reading the paper will want to know what happened to `our
boy' or dour girl.'" In other words, the local-in this case national-perspective of this global event prevails.
In the context of my study, another finding contextualizes this discussion into perceptive, that is, that the
coverage of Britain accounted for, on average, 3% of the overall coverage in Israel (2% in Yedioth
Aharonoth and 4% in Hadashot) and Israel was not mentioned at all in the British coverage.

The 30 items printed on the front pages of the newspapers also illustrate this discussion: In Israel, the items
that were printed on the front page were in 100% of cases about the Israeli athletes. In the British
newspapers, the proportions were not as absolute, and yet 69% of items on the front page of The Times
and 88% of front page items in The Express were about British athletes. Thus, there is a clear trend that
shows that the Olympic stories deemed most newsworthy and considered by newspaper editors to be of
interest to the general public and not only to the devoted sports fans (who read the sports pages) were the
stories related to the nation's own performance.

In addition to the focus on the national team, Table 2 also illustrates that the coverage of athletes from
relatively few nations accounted for the majority of the Olympics-related coverage in both Britain and
Israel. In The Times, the 11 most-covered nations accounted for 90% of the overall Olympics-related
coverage (of which Britain totaled 60%), whereas in The Express, these nations constituted 95% of the
coverage (of which Britain had 79%). In Yedioth Aharonoth, the most-covered nations accounted for
85% of the overall Olympics-related items (of which Israel totaled 47%), and in Hadashot, these nations
made up 80% (Israel share being 29%) of the overall Olympics-related items.

Generally speaking, in the two countries, those nations that attracted most coverage were dominant
Western nations, such as Canada, Germany, and most notably the United States (see further discussion of
the United States below). This is both related to the news value of reference to elite nations (Galtung &
Ruge, 1965) as well as to the actual sporting achievements of these nations in the Barcelona Olympics. To
illustrate, Canada achieved 18 medals and Germany attained 82 medals. The fact that these nations were
successful in athletic sports, which generated the most extensive coverage in the two countries (on average
athletics accounted for 37% of the Olympics-related coverage), contributes further to explaining the
coverage of these nations.

The relative prominence of other nations can be explained by the expectations that these nations held in
the buildup to the games. In addition, their sporting achievements in sports that are popular-and
extensively covered-in Britain and in Israel, and also by more general news values, further explain their
place within the coverage of other countries. The former USSR, for example (totaling on average 4% of
the overall Olympics-- related coverage), participated in Barcelona for the last time as a unified team. This
in itself generated interest, but in this case as well, the sporting achievements of this team in events such as
gymnastics also explain the coverage.

It is important to emphasize that the former super power attracted far less coverage in the Barcelona
games than in previous Olympics (see Whannel, 1984). More important, this occurred even though it was
the most successful team in terms of achieving medals at the Barcelona Olympics, with a total of 112, of
which 45 were gold. Indeed, the Americans, who won a total of 108 medals overall, placing them second
in the medals table after the unified team, received much more coverage in both Britain and Israel (totaling
on average 15%), very likely owing to a much greater meaningfulness, namely, cultural familiarity, in both
Britain and Israel with this nation and its athletes than with the former USSR. Moreover, this finding also
can be related to the argument that in sporting terms, Americanization is a more convincing term than
globalization.

Although this trend was very clear in the two countries, it is important to observe that the United States
was covered, proportionally, much more in Israel than in Britain. It can be argued that because Israel did
not have as many (successful) athletes as Britain, the remainder (or the leftover) of the coverage was
dedicated to the United States. This, in turn, also can be related to the great cultural familiarity Israel has
with the United States in general, its athletes, and many of the sports in which the United States has been
successful. This is also relevant within the British context, although it was reflected in a much smaller
proportion of the coverage than had been evident in Israel.

The general relevance of news values and meaningfulness in particular also were reflected in the relative
large proportion of coverage of other nations. Spain (on average gaining 2% ofthe overall
Olympics-related coverage), as the host of the Barcelona games, was considered newsworthy to begin
with. Moreover, the local supportive crowds were attributed with affecting positively the performance of
their nation's athletes, who performed much better than expected in athletics and other sports. Their
achievements of a total of 22 medals, including 13 gold, brought the news value of unexpectedness into
play. China (attracting on average 1% of the overall Olympics-related coverage) was becoming a major
sporting power in the period up to the games. This became evident during the games when China won a
total of 54 medals, of which 16 were gold (placing it in fourth in the medals table); such achievements
were reflected only to some extent in the degree of coverage this nation received. In this case, there was
an element of unexpectedness-the majority of the Chinese athletes were not well-known in the West.
However, in contrast to the Spanish case, this meant that in fact the Chinese delegation received less
coverage than might have been expected from its sporting performance. As Craig Lord (The Times,
personal communication, November 21, 1993) explained, "It's a cultural thing ... we find it difficult to
pronounce their names, remember their faces." Kenya (on average gaining 1% of the overall
Olympics-related coverage) has become over the years the world's leading "long-distance nation." In
terms of news value, Kenya is an elite nation with elite persons (i.e., athletes) in this context of which high
sporting achievements have been predictable, which explains the coverage of this nation in the buildup as
well as the games themselves and its inclusion in this top-nations table. Such a case serves as an example
of the importance of the sport in which a nation has been successful; although Kenya only achieved a total
of eight medals, of which two were gold, these were in the high-profile sport of athletics.

The above analysis demonstrates that the defining factor in the buildup and coverage of the Olympics is
the national interest. Following that, standard (Galtung & Ruge, 1965) (and sporting) news values come
into play, most significantly meaningfulness, as the above discussion underlines. The findings discussed
above were further supported by the answers given by sports journalists and editors when asked what
guided them in determining which nations to cover. Raffi Naee (Yedioth Aharonoth, personal
communication, August 21, 1993), for instance, claimed, "It's obvious that when we went to cover a
certain event, to write a story, then in centre stage were the Americans, [the] Chinese, [and] the Russians
[who] competed for the last time as a unified team." It is important to observe, however, that this
sentiment was reflected, according to my findings, only in the coverage of the American team and to a
much lesser degree on the Chinese and Russians.

Of importance, the sports journalists interviewed believe that, apart from the focus on the performance of
their national athletes, the remainder of the coverage relies on the story and not on the nations that athletes
represent. When questioned which countries he thought his newspaper covered most, Raffi Naee
(Yedioth Aharonoth, personal communication, August 21, 1993) put it bluntly, "I don't think that's a
relevant question because we cover the sports." The interviews with the British journalists also confirmed
the view that the guiding principle in the coverage of the Olympic games is, what I would label, the story
values of events that are reliant on certain sports in which a given newspaper expresses the most interest
in, as well as the personalities involved. Thus, for example, James Massop (The Express, personal
communication, November 23, 1993), by employing the famous "gut feeling" argument, explained,

It's really where the best story is, now, where is the best story is obvious, your news sense tells you "that
is what they [the readers] would be most interested in." It's a combination of a few things plus the names
that we know about.

Although it is important to in bear in mind the warning in the literature of accepting arguments made by
journalists at face value, my own findings support this argument to some extent. That is, the reasons behind
the coverage of certain nations is related to the sports they were successful in, the athletes involved, and
other traditional sporting (and general) news values, not necessarily which nation was involved.

Apart from the top most-covered nations (as represented in Table 2), some further countries were
accorded attention. Algeria, Cuba, France, Ireland, Italy, Morocco, Korea, and Sweden can be grouped
together as nations that were mentioned as main actors in the Olympic coverage, either in Britain or
Israel-or both, at least once. In these cases, the coverage can be related to a major Olympic story, mainly
in the athletics competitions. Athletes who were expected to perform well-largely based on their previous
performances-also were covered in the news stories. Thus, their coverage began in the buildup to the
games; even when failure to succeed occurred, it still made for a good story. For example, Algeria was
represented in Barcelona by two long-distance world champions, and they both indeed won this nation's
two medals. Hassiba Boulmerka, the women's champion, made for a particularly interesting story, defying
a ban in her native country for running in shorts and eventually winning a gold medal. Negativity as a
prevailing news value also contributes to explaining the inclusion of Morocco, which had won three medals
overall, in Britain and Israel's coverage (on average 1% of the overall coverage). The negative story that
reached the front page of The Times (August 4, 1992) was described as follows, under the headline
"Olympic Winner Loses 10,000 m Gold Medal": "Khalid Skah of Morocco finished first in the Olympics
10,000 metres last night but was disqualified for being paced by a team-mate [Hammou Boutayeb] whom
he had lapped towards the end of the event." However, Richard Chelimo of Kenya, who received the
gold medal that then was awarded after all to Skah-to the sound of booing and hissing by the Barcelona
crowd-was in contention with Skah for this competition in the buildup to Barcelona; the scene had already
been established for this race ahead of the games, which made it simultaneously predictable and
unexpected in news construction terms.

Of the nations participating in the Barcelona games, 50 were mentioned one to four times (proportionally
close to 0; therefore, further discussion relates to the number of mentions) in the combined newspaper
coverage for Britain and Israel. This list included nations such as (in parentheses is the total number of
medals that they won in Barcelona) Angola, Brazil (3), Bulgaria (16), Egypt, Ethiopia (3), the Netherlands
(15), Hungary (30), Iran, Iraq (3), Japan (22), Namibia (2), Nigeria (4), Norway (7), New Zealand (10),
Switzerland (1), Turkey (6), and Croatia (3). This list can be read, to some extent, in terms that relate it to
the news construction preference of elite nations, or indeed as related to political issues, because it
includes smaller West European countries, East European countries, and African countries. However, it
should be pointed out that in a sporting context, some of these nations were less successful in the sports
that were most covered at the Barcelona Olympics than were the nations covered extensively. Such a
tendency has its root in the criteria that guide sports editors and journalists in the construction of news
from the Olympics. For example, 22 out of these 50 nations did not win any medals whatsoever, and a
further 13 won between one to three medals. However, the argument that the news values of elite nations
and meaningfulness are central in determining the newspaper coverage is supported by the examples of the
Netherlands, Hungary, and Japan, all of whom attained an impressive amount of medals and yet were not
covered extensively in Britain and Israel, very likely owing to a relatively small cultural familiarity with these
nations, their athletes, and the particular snorts in which they were successful.

The reasons for covering these nations varied, with one such example focusing on the fact that nations
were mentioned simply because they competed against an elite nation in a sport that was covered. This
was clearly the case with Angola, who was the first (unfortunate) team to meet the mighty American
basketball Dream Team, which accounted for its coverage in the Israeli newspapers. In other cases, the
nation itself generated interest owing to its position on the general news agenda, as with Bosnia, despite
the fact that it did not win any medals.

However, the notion that the story values comprise the essential guide for the newspapers in many cases is
confirmed by the fact that nations that were mentioned only one to four times were mentioned prominently
in some cases. For example, Ethiopia, although mentioned on very few occasions (once in The Times,
three times in The Express, once in Yedioth Aharonoth, and twice in Hadashot), featured prominently on
the front page of The Times (August 8, 1992). This item, accompanied by a quarter-page photograph,
covered the winners of the women's 10,000 m race-Derartu Tulu of Ethiopia (gold) and Elana Meyer of
South Africa (silver). The fact that this item appeared on the front page is related to various general and
Olympic stories: It was the story of the return of South Africa to the games-after 32 years of exclusion-of
which this race seemed symbolic; indeed, the headline proclaimed, "Olympic 10,000 Symbolises New
Africa Harmony" This was emphasized by the smiling faces of both athletes taking a lap of honor together,
each holding her national flag, which was described in the item thus, "The pair embraced and ran round the
track arm-in-arm, their flags draped around their shoulders." This theme was supported in this item by a
quote from Meyer, who stated, "We did it for Africa. The continent needed two really good runners. We
were an example for the continent." This was made poignant by the fact that Meyer is White and Tulu is
Black. It was the story of a surprise winner in a high-profile race, and not in the least, particularly in the
British context, it was also the story of Britain's Liz McColgan, the reigning world champion who was
expected (at least by the British newspapers) to win this race but failed. All of these story lines combined
account for the prominence of this item and for the entire coverage of Ethiopia in the Barcelona Olympics.
This example also illustrates that in some cases the performance of one athlete in a high-profile sport
accounted for all mentions of that nation. This was the case with the Namibian 100 in and 200 m finalist
Frankie Fredericks, who was covered from a British angle, owing to his training background in Britain.

In this context, it is important to stress that 102 nations were not mentioned even once in the buildup and
the coverage studied. Overall, at the Barcelona Olympics, 64 nations won at least one medal, which
means that the majority of the nations that were not mentioned were not expected to and did not perform
well at these games in medal-winning terms.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The concept of globalization, the debates, and (few) empirical studies surrounding it was important to my
study because it dealt with a global event-the Olympic games. It was particularly relevant to address this
concept in view of the fact that the IOC declares that the "goal of the Olympic Movement... which has
arisen from modern Olympism, is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world" (Samaranch,
1995, p. 3). However, it should be emphasized that the games themselves are engulfed by symbols of
nationhood ranging from the opening ceremony when the athletes march behind their respective national
flags to the national anthems of gold medal winners played during the victory ceremonies (see also
Goldlust, 1987; Hill, 1996). Thus, a tension exists between the ideals of the games, as proclaimed by the
IOC, which in essence go toward globalization (nations of the world united), and the manner in which they
truly unfold and are portrayed by the media.

In the context of the theoretical discussion of globalization, my empirical findings have clearly shown in
both Britain and Israel that the most significant factor in determining the newspaper buildup and coverage
of the Barcelona Olympics was the interest in the performance of their own country. Thus, clearly, the
local-in this case national-perspective of this global event prevails. Of importance, the findings also
showed that some patterns of the coverage were similar in the two countries and among their different
newspapers, reinforcing the notion that a shared professional culture (Gurevitch et al., 1993) does exist in
the coverage of the Olympics. However, the empirical evidence illustrated that news criteria affect
differently the coverage of the Olympic games in different countries, most notably through being
predetermined by a focus on the newspaper's own nation. The focus of the newspapers on their own
nation also can be explained through the news value of meaningfulness, which denotes that the closer
(geographically and otherwise) an event is to the society and culture of a given media outlet, the more
newsworthy it will be deemed. This news value also goes some way toward explaining the coverage of
nations other than the newspaper's own. Most notably, meaningfulness can account for the extensive
coverage of the United States that appeared in both Britain and Israel. However, in this context, it should
be stressed that the Americans placed second in the medal winnings behind the Unified team. This team
was covered significantly less than the American team in both countries, which in turn can be related to the
argument that in sporting terms, Americanization is a more convincing term than globalization. Put
differently, in both Britain and Israel, the cultural familiarity with the United States meant that the American
team was deemed much more newsworthy than the Unified team. This also illustrates that the coverage of
nations cannot be explained exclusively by their performance in sporting terms at the games, despite what
some sports journalists seem to believe.

As outlined, the coverage of certain nations other than the newspaper's own was found to be determined
by general and sports news values. Thus, nations that were successful in sporting terms were covered, in
general, more so than were nations that did not perform well in medal-winning terms. However, it should
be emphasized that the national perspective featured in this context too: Nations that were successful in
sports that are of routine interest in Britain and Israel were perceived as far more newsworthy in their
newspapers than were nations who excelled in other sports. To illustrate, as related findings of the
above-discussed study showed, basketball was extensively covered in Israel (10% on average) and
relatively little in Britain (2% on average). Indeed, basketball is one of the most popular and most routinely
covered sports in Israel. Furthermore, the Israeli media covers the American basketball league, the NBA,
on a regular basis. This explains why, although there was no Israeli basketball team in Barcelona, this
sport retained considerable coverage, concentrating on the American Dream Team, whose players are
very familiar to Israeli readers. As mentioned previously, this is a further illustration of the Americanization
of sport within the Israeli context. Yet, it is important to observe that in the coverage of sports, as with
other determining factors of the coverage, the most significant consideration centered on the interest in
national athletes, regardless of the sport in which they participated. For example, judo was reported to
some extent in the British newspapers (2% on average), whereas in Israel it was covered extensively (9%
on average) because this was the sport Israel was expected to be, and indeed eventually was, most
successful in at the Barcelona games.

To conclude, the discussed findings illuminate the more general debate of the global and the local found in
the literature (Braman & Sreberny-Mohammadi, 1996; Hall, 1992; Harvey et al., 1996; McGrew, 1992),
which refers to the fact that globalization embraces contradictory dynamics between global and local
forces. Based on my study, it is my position that the theoretical concept of globalization emerges as a
leaky term when studied empirically (see also Boyle & Haynes, 1996; Horne, 1996) and that the local is
no less an influential pulling force than is the global. Furthermore, in this context it is also important to
observe that in relation to sport in general and the Olympics in particular, Americanization applies as a
more relevant explanatory concept than globalization.

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  AUTHOR

 Alina Bernstein is a lecturer at the Film and Television Department of Tel Aviv University, Israel.