Maurice Roche
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526117083
- eISBN:
- 9781526128416
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526117083.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Sport and Leisure
This book analyses the biggest, most spectacular and at times most controversial types of events, namely ‘mega-events’, and particularly recent Olympics and Expos. In this respect it builds on the ...
More
This book analyses the biggest, most spectacular and at times most controversial types of events, namely ‘mega-events’, and particularly recent Olympics and Expos. In this respect it builds on the sociological, historical and empirical account of mega-events originally presented in Roche’s influential study ‘Mega-Events and Modernity’ (2000). This new book addresses how mega-events have changed in recent times. It argues that contemporary mega-events reflect the major social changes which now influence our societies, particularly in the West, and which amount to a new ‘second phase’ of the modernization process. These are particularly visible in the media, urban and global locational aspects of mega-events. The book suggests that contemporary mega-events, both in their achievements and their vulnerabilities, reflect, in the media sphere, the rise of the internet; in the urban sphere, de-industrialisation and the growing ecological crisis; and in the global sphere, the relative decline of the West and the rise of China and other ‘emerging’ countries. It investigates the way in which contemporary mega-events reflect, but also mark and influence, social changes in each of these three contexts.Less
This book analyses the biggest, most spectacular and at times most controversial types of events, namely ‘mega-events’, and particularly recent Olympics and Expos. In this respect it builds on the sociological, historical and empirical account of mega-events originally presented in Roche’s influential study ‘Mega-Events and Modernity’ (2000). This new book addresses how mega-events have changed in recent times. It argues that contemporary mega-events reflect the major social changes which now influence our societies, particularly in the West, and which amount to a new ‘second phase’ of the modernization process. These are particularly visible in the media, urban and global locational aspects of mega-events. The book suggests that contemporary mega-events, both in their achievements and their vulnerabilities, reflect, in the media sphere, the rise of the internet; in the urban sphere, de-industrialisation and the growing ecological crisis; and in the global sphere, the relative decline of the West and the rise of China and other ‘emerging’ countries. It investigates the way in which contemporary mega-events reflect, but also mark and influence, social changes in each of these three contexts.
