Mega-events and modernity

"World's Fairs 'are rituals of the kind often studied by anthropologists... [Each one] is a collective representation that symbolizes an entire community in a massive display of prestige vis-à-vis other communities... They are about power and economics, but they are also about culture.'"

General Facts & Perspectives

• mega-events, such as expos, are definitely universal kinds of popular culture
• popular culture, on the other hand, can be made up of different forms or 'genres'
• cinema, movies, television, World's Fairs etc. they are all kinds of popular culture
• mega-events are large scale cultural events including a dramatic character, mass popular appeal and international significance
• organisation is carried out by governmental as well as non-gov. organisations
  
• World's Fairs can be differentiated into pre-modern and modern forms of societies
  
• both forms, however, have called into existence by capitalist systems (Marxist theory)
• mega-events occur on a multi-annual cycle

Significance of mega-events

• expos are examples of a dense social eco-system and a social calendar of public cultural events in modern societies
• other contemporary heirs of the expo types are events like international trade fairs for a vast range of technologies and industries
• there are also local-level urban events
  
• mega-events are also national and international 'media-events'
• researchers are interested in the personal, national historical, cultural historical, and general sociological reasons of mega-events

1. personal: people periodise lives and biographies according to 'live events' or 'rites de passage' (such as wars or revolutions and cultural events) -> kind of cultural marker
2. national historical: - development of mega-events equals the growth of and spread of modernity and nation-state consciousness
   - tell the story of a country
3. cultural historical: notworthy: the interdisciplinarity, popularity, institutional effects, and attitudinal effects
   - display of high cultural form of the West (science, technology, art, architecture)
4. general sociological: -mega-events are indicators for process of change and modernisation within and between nation-states, and for globalisation processes
   - they also identify urban and national places in the national,
   international and global spaces of media and tourist markets
   - create transitory uniqueness, difference and localisation in space
   and time
   
   Dimensions of mega-events
   
   • modern cultural mega-events are progressive -> non-religious/secular values, ideologies and principles of organisation connected with Western civilization (including techno-rationalism, capitalism universalistic humanism, urbanism, and transnational levels of organisations of transport and communication)
   • modern cultural events include exhibition and performance (ritual, ceremony, drama, theater, festival, carnival, celebration, spectacle)
     
   • non-modern process of modernisation can be seen as traditional or pre-modern, hence, the process seems to be behind
   • national -> nationally based involving national power elites in the host nation
   • international -> multinational (many foreign nations as exhibitors), cosmopolitan (development of touristic consumerist attitudes and values), supernational (host nations has a more powerful role than guest nations, leading status), and global
   • local -> urban events project image and status of local power elite
     
   • non-local -> mediatising of mega-events -> become media-events
     

Approaches to Understanding Mega-events

This should actually be a new topic now but I get the impression that the author repeats himself. Haven't I just read something like this? 'Mega-events are multi-dimensional phenomena.' Of course they are!!

• dramatological, contextual, and alternative approaches
  
• mega-events are the result of the 'logic of capital' and capital accumulation
  

International Public Culture

• 4 related phenomena: public images of divers subordinate nationalities, ethnicities or religious groups; national publics' images of and attitudes towards other nations; images of international society and transnational universalistic principles and practices; sphere in which different organisations (MNC, INGO) operate
  
• mega-events played an important role in development of national & international politics&culture in the West in late 19th century
• mega-events helped to create a transnational&international dimension within the public culture
• they are early forms of 'info-tainment' (I really like this word, because it describes really good what mega-events are like - entertainment and information)
• development of an international society in late 19th century
• 1930's are a period of new communication and transport technologies, cultural industries and institutions connected with radio, films, and cars -> major impact on structures and processes of modern societies after WWI
  

Global Culture in the late 20th century

• China becomes a 'supernation', USA is sole 'superpower'
• global consumer culture emerges
• new communications, transport technologies, satellite television and computerisation create 'one world'
  
• capitalist economy is growing faster
• world-wide mass movement of people, images and commodities
• life-style changes -> tourism and consumerism; also 'touristic consumerism' which has a 'mediatized' (esp. tv) and 'localized' (relation to time, place, and experiences) character
  
• media flow of information to the whole world -> global audience
• city has huge significance: attratction and accomodation of tourists as well as provision of technical facilities (tv transmission to the 'watching world')
• global governance
  

Difficulties

• the approaches are very hard to understand, maybe I should read it five times; twice is not enough ;)
• I didn't really get the differences between the international, supernational, and global society. Is it just a difference according to the time? First there was an international society which changed to a supernational society and so on...??
  

Questions

• What was institutionalized in the early mid-20th century? The mega-events? (ch.1,p.22)
  
• Why is so much attention drawn on the Nazi-German period although they did not host any expo during that time? Is it because of the propaganda?

Answers to Study Questions

• Roche divides mega-events into distinctive levels such as: Olympics, World Cup and Expos
• The relationships between the different levels lay in place and time involving the society. Hence, cultural events stand in relation to the time and space when they are held and the society shapes this event (historical level ) or the society is also shaped by the event (personal level ).