The Olympic Games are a global sports mega-event where the aggregation of mass audiences is still observable at a time when multiplying forms of personalized connective media – digital, mobile and social – are making inroads into media consumption habits. Using the 2016 summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as a case study, this article examines the intersections between (1) broadcast television coverage of the Games, (2) digital live streaming of Olympic events via desktop computing and mobile apps, and (3) the social networking services, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. It is argued that broadcast television anchors the flow of content across screens, with social networking services both extending the televisual logics of media sports coverage and emphasizing their own commercial influence and command of massive user numbers. This arrangement ultimately bolsters the power of television as the primary means through which sports mega-events are experienced.
AltheideDLSchneiderCJ (2013) Qualitative Media Analysis, 2nd edn.Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
2.
BillingsAC (2008) Olympic Media: Inside the Biggest Show on Television. New York: Routledge.
3.
BillingsACQiaoFConlinL. (2015) Permanently desiring the temporary? Snapchat, social media, and the shifting motivations of sports fans. Communication & Sport5(1): 10–26.
EvensTIosifidisPSmithP (2013) The Political Economy of Television Sports Rights. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
12.
GalilyY (2014) When the medium becomes ‘well done’: Sport, television and technology in the twenty-first century. Television & New Media15(8): 717–724.
HighfieldT (2014) Following the yellow jersey: Tweeting the Tour de France. In: WellerKBrunsABurgessJ. (eds) Twitter and Society. New York: Peter Lang, pp. 249–261.
HoltJSansonK (2014) Introduction: Mapping connections. In: HoltJSansonK (eds) Connected Viewing: Selling, Streaming, & Sharing Media in the Digital Era. New York: Routledge, pp. 1–15.
17.
HorneJWhannelG (2012) Understanding the Olympics. London: Routledge.
18.
HutchinsBMikoszaJ (2010) The Web 2.0 Olympics: Athlete blogging, social networking and policy contradictions at the 2008 Beijing games. Convergence16(3): 279–297.
19.
HutchinsBRoweD (2012) Sport beyond Television: The Internet, Digital Media and the Rise of Networked Media Sport. New York: Routledge.
JohnsonVE (2009) Everything new is old again: Sport television, innovation, and television for a multi-platform era. In: LotzAD (ed.) Beyond Prime Time: Television Programming in the Post-Network Era. New York: Routledge, pp. 114–137.
LockwoodS (2016) Facebook sports: What’s next? The world’s largest community of sports fans. Head of Marketing Science for Facebook. In: Asia-Pacific Sports Analytics Conference, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 22 July. Available at: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/sac16/ (accessed 9 August 2016).
25.
LotzAD (2014) The Television Will Be Revolutionized, 2nd edn.New York: New York University Press.
SørensonIE (2016) The revival of live TV: Liveness in a multiplatform context. Media, Culture & Society38(3): 381–399.
36.
ThussuDK (2008) News as Entertainment: The Rise of Global Infotainment. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
37.
TurnerG (2016) Re-Inventing the Media. London: Routledge.
38.
TurnerGTayJ (eds) (2009) Television Studies after TV: Understanding Television in the Post-Broadcast Era. London: Routledge.
39.
TusseyE (2014) Connected viewing on the second screen: The limitations of the living room. In: HoltJSansonK (eds) Connected Viewing: Selling, Streaming, & Sharing Media in the Digital Era. New York: Routledge, pp. 202–216.
40.
van DijckJ (2013) The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
41.
WeedM (2008) Olympic Tourism. Oxford: Elsevier.
42.
WhannelG (1992) Fields in Vision: Television Sport and Cultural Transformation. London: Routledge.
43.
ZirinD (2016) Brazil’s Dance with the Devil: The World Cup, the Olympics, and the Fight for Democracy, 2nd edn.Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.
