The Web 2.0 Olympics

Abstract

The Beijing Olympics was the largest sports mega-event in history and represents an opportunity to assess the dynamics of the media sport cultural complex in a post-broadcast age. This article argues that the internet and web are transforming and intensifying the digital mediatization of Olympic sport in terms of the amount and types of content available across multiple platforms. From the perspective of Olympic and sports officials, these developments possess a Janus-faced character, simultaneously offering additional avenues to promote the Olympic brand and experience globally and challenging their capacity to maintain control over Olympic related media in online environments. This situation is the result of long-established broadcast media strategies colliding with the networking capacity of Web 2.0 and the operation and popularity of ‘social software’ such as blogs and Facebook. The evidence presented is drawn from Olympic policy documents, media reports and interviews with sports officials and athletes.