Flagging the Nation’ in International Sport

A Chinese Olympics and a German World Cup

Bibliographic Data

ID12217876
AuthorsDavid Schrag (Lafayette College, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume26
Issue8
Pages1084-1104
Publication date2009-06-24
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe International Journal of the History of Sport (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0952-3367 • E-ISSN: 1743-9035
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09523360902904850
OpenAlexW2057389870
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited10

Looking at the ideological ‘flagging of the nation’, i.e. the signs, symbols and practices that play a role in the popular reproduction and circulation of national images, [1 [1] Drawing, in part, on Billig, Banal Nationalism. ] this paper analyses the heightened public display of national expression that characterized two recent mega sporting events: the 2006 Football World Cup hosted by Germany and the 2008 summer Olympic Games in Beijing. At such events, countries – or more specifically, the showcase cities that stand in as their representatives – become giant, self-promotional advertisements with the common-sense understanding that such displays are good for the country's international image while boosting domestic pride. Such events are understood as giving visual proof of the modernity and prosperity of a country – even when the officially-presented image is a recognizably idealized and selective one. For example, despite full knowledge of China's suppression of free speech and protest, the Beijing Olympics were nonetheless perceived in the international media as an impressive and efficient logistical success. Germany (mostly because of its undemocratic past) and China (mostly because of its undemocratic present), however, are two countries where national expression is often seen as particularly problematic by the outside world. Given this ambivalence, exceptional occasions such as large-scale sporting events come to be cultural sites of public and state ‘experimentation’ in practices of demarcating or flagging the nation. But what is being ‘represented’ (or even branded and marketed) by the mass iteration of national symbols, and what plausible ideological [2 [2] I use ‘ideology’, here, more in the sense of a general world view than necessarily as a kind of ‘false consciousness’ directly imposed by a ‘ruling class’ or the state. Conceptualizing ideology primarily as a kind of ‘false consciousness’ overemphasizes an idealist notion of consciousness in terms of mental content and belief and thus tends to overlook the practice aspect of ideology: the ways in which ideology is embodied in everyday actions and symbols despite what actors may consciously think. ] effect might such displays have on the broader intangible, but often strongly-felt, collective experiences of identity and national consciousness in everyday life? The German World Cup, which eschewed ‘monumentalist’ national images, and the Beijing Olympics, which employed both monumentalist and (seemingly) spontaneous national images, provide large-scale examples within an international sports context by which to compare cultural similarities and differences in flagging the nation. The author maintains that despite cultural differences flagging practices in modern nation states tend towards a ‘lite’ version of national expression, an ideology of ‘nationalism at a distance’ as typified by examples from the United States

Advertising · Beijing · China · Flagging · Ideology · Media studies · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · History · Law · Sociology and Education Studies · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts · Sports, Gender, and Society

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