"Back the Bid": The London Olympic Bid Committee and the Sun newspaper

Mackay, Clare

Abstract

This article explores how the London Olympic Bid Committee (LOBC) sought to gain the popular support required for London's bid for the 2012 Olympic Games by attempting to influence the journalists of the U.K. newspaper with the greatest readership to communicate their discourse to the host urban population. The research draws on Michel Foucault's concept of discourse to investigate whether and, more importantly, how the journalists of the Sun articulated the key statements that the LOBC sought to convey to the U.K. public in their coverage of London's bid for the 2012 Games in order to discover how collusion and tension between the discourses and practices of bid committees and those of journalists affect the statements articulated to the reader. © 2012 SAGE Publications.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 15, 2011
• Publication Date: Nov 1, 2012
• Deposit Date: Apr 16, 2018
• Journal: Journal of Sport and Social Issues
• Print ISSN: 0193-7235
• Electronic ISSN: 1552-7638
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 36
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 410-421
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0193723512455922
• Keywords: mega-events, bidding, media, discourse, Foucault
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/943795
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0193723512455922
• Related Public URLs: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0193723512455922
• Contract Date: Apr 16, 2018