Call for Papers | Olympism: Contributions from media, journalism and communication studies. Special Issue of Mediapolis – Journal of Communication, Journalism and Public Sphere | Call ends January 31, 2024

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Following on from issues 8 and 15 of Mediapolis, dedicated to sport and football and their relationship with the media, this new issue is dedicated to the study of Olympism and its interaction with the media, journalism and communication. Let us not forget that the Paris Olympics will be held in 2024, on the centenary of the 1924 Paris Olympics, which had a huge impact on the Portuguese and international press and contributed to the creation of the Portuguese sports daily, Diário de Sport, in the same year.

Once again, as we said in Issue 15, we believe that dedicating an issue of this journal to the relationship between Olympism, the media, journalism and communication is in itself a bold step, especially in the Portuguese academic and scientific context, where a paradox arises: sport is one of the most representative phenomena of popular culture, yet it receives little academic attention, especially from the humanities and social sciences. The same is true of Portuguese journalism, where sports journalism (often sidelined) plays a hegemonic role, albeit biased, with football dominating the sports media narrative. We would also like to point out that, from a commemorative point of view, this theme is justified in 2024, the year of the Olympic Games and the centenary of the historic 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, which inevitably influenced the history of the media, journalism and communication.

Once again, from a scientific point of view, on the one hand, the academy still inherits from the Anglo-Saxon sport studies, which includes the Olympic movement itself, crystallised in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, accustomed to associating sport with concepts of order, discipline, the body, alienation, and mass culture. Sport and Olympism are thus epistemologically located in the field of leisure and recreation, understood as a marginal topic, removed from major topics such as politics or economics, which rule international dynamics and the idea of the present. On the other hand, in the field of media, journalism and communication, the sport phenomenon has grown exponentially throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, with Olympism playing a fundamental role in this process. However, there is still a certain perception that the sport phenomenon is of secondary importance in terms of information compared to issues that are considered to be more socially relevant.

The huge and unrivalled global audiences generated by the Olympic Games every four years – and the massification (popular and by the media) associated thereto during this period – has led to a certain alienation from the intellectual community, averse to this kind of phenomenon, often pejoratively dubbed as “mass culture” or “low culture”. In contrast to football, which is much more popular, the Olympic movement has been characterised by a degree of elitism in relation to its practitioners, as well as the Olympic ideas and their multiple political, economic and social dimensions. These have been widely analysed in the light of disciplines such as history, sociology, philosophy, international relations, law, physical education and sport, among others.

Born in the late 19th century and popularised in the 20th century, the Olympic movement has reached the new millennium as a creator of trends and behaviours on a global scale, and as a complex “integral social fact” requiring requires reflection and study by the humanities and social sciences, and by journalism and communication studies. The challenge of this issue is to demonstrate once again how Olympism, given its social plasticity and its appeal to interdisciplinary and/or multidisciplinary approaches, can and should be the subject of academic and scientific research and study.

Mediapolis thus reinstates Olympism as a central theme, while also demonstrating its plural and interdisciplinary character, in line with the assumptions of the group (GICJEP) and the research centre (CEIS20) in which it is rooted. As this is the journal’s first foray into such a complex topic, the challenge is to open up and create a space for reflection and discussion on Olympism in its relationship with the media, journalism and communication, preferably based on original and innovative empirical research, and extended to multiple visions and themes that question and reflect on Olympism and its intersections with the media, journalism and communication.

We accept contributions in various fields, including:

      • Theories and methodologies;
      • History, mega-events, violence, discrimination, racism;
      • Sexuality, gender, celebrities, public;
      • Cyberspace, social networks and video games;
      • Sport audiences and spectacle;
      • Politics, nation and identities;
      • International relations and soft power;
      • Aesthetics, culture and Olympic ideals;
      • Cinema, photography and advertising;
      • Ethics and deontology;
      • Information and technological changes.

Papers must be submitted by 31 January 2024 to be published in this issue of Mediapolis in the second half of 2024.

Languages

        • English
        • Português
        • Español

Contact Information

Francisco Pinheiro, CEIS20 University of Coimbra
franciscopinheiro72@gmail.com


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