Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1998

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Education

Major Professor

William J. Morgan

Committee Members

Joan Paul, Joy DeSensi, Christine Holmlund

Abstract

This study uses textual analysis to suggest new ways to approach Olympic interpretations. An oft-heard lament is that the Olympics today are beset by problems which endanger their future; for example, professionalism, commercialism, and politicization. Despite these concerns, worldwide television viewership is greater than three billion persons, a testimonial to the continued popularity of the Games. A difficulty for Olympic scholars is how to reconcile this popularity with increasing concern for the ability of the Olympics to impact lives positively. The role of authors, readers (including audience, spectator, viewer, and fan), genre, information theory, and intertextuality are examined to explore how Olympic meanings are produced. Following an introductory chapter. Chapter II explores the role of the author, and in the case of the Olympics, the role of Pierre de Coubertin, generally recognized as the founder of the modern Olympics. I draw on the work of Michel Foucault to explore Coubertin's continuing influence on the Games, suggesting that he functions as an unmarked author, in the sense of Foucault's founding authors. Chapter III considers the positions of spectator, viewer, and fan, and the role of the audience in generating Olympic interpretations. Evidence from an internet newsgroup-rec.sport.olympics-is used to suggest that fans of the Olympics are active participants in the production of meaning. They often resist pre-packaged meanings that broadcasters or advertisers seek to foist upon the Games. The role of genre, and particularly John MacAloon's highly regarded typology of genres for the Olympics Games, is examined in Chapter IV. I suggest that MacAloon's genres of game, ritual, festival, and spectacle are useful in considerations of Olympic interpretations--from particular perspectives. In other words, different interpretive communities may utilize different genres to help shape interpretation. I argue against the possibility for a universal genre structure for the Olympics. Umberto Eco's adaptation of information theory is the focus of Chapter V. The balance between meaning and information, which interact in inverse proportion to each other, helps explain how textual interpretations can proliferate, yet still be deficient in meaningful meaning. I use the examples of professionalism and commercialism to suggest that we are being saturated with Olympic texts which renders us insensitive to the unique impact that they might have on our lives. Intertextuality is the focus of Chapter VI and I utilize John Fiske's suggestion that intertextuality functions along horizontal and vertical axes to further the discussion of how Olympic meanings proliferate. Acceptance of an intertextual approach to the process of interpretation means recognizing that neither readers nor texts control the process of interpretation, but that interpretation takes place in the shifting intersections between them. Olympic texts, I conclude, are endangered (at least in the United States) not because their popularity is fading, but because they have become so popular that Olympic texts saturate our culture. The meanings of Olympic texts are rapidly being reduced to the mundane as advertisers and sponsors (whom I hold as the major culprits) co-opt Olympic texts for economic purposes.

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