Olympic Ceremony and Diplomacy: South Korean, North Korean, and British Media Coverage of the 2018 Olympic Winter Games’ Opening and Closing Ceremonies

2019

Local Economy

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Almost two years have passed since the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, and this small rural province has now fully returned to its ordinary routine. In this viewpoint article, I present a critical review of the aftermath of PyeongChang 2018. This short essay focuses on three areas: (a) environmental damage and its restoration process, (b) the construction of the sport facilities and their use after the event, and (c) the sustainability of social infrastructure built for the Winter Olympics. The critical appraisal of the post-Olympic PyeongChang reveals that first, the winter sporting competition is more likely to degrade the natural environment surrounding the Olympic venues than its summer counterpart. Second, winter sporting activities such as ski jumping and bobsled are less likely to develop into community sports due to specific equipment and skills required. Finally, because of this comparatively high opportunity cost, the Winter Olympic Games is an excessively expensive event to host. The 2018 Winter Olympic Games may be seen as South Korean cultural diplomacy at its best. Yet, underneath this South Korean winter fantasy, symptoms of post-Olympic tensions, degeneration, and unfulfilled obligations remain.

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A winter sport mega-event and its aftermath: A critical review of post-Olympic PyeongChang

2019

Local Economy

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“…15 International VIPs and high-level diplomats also attend a sport mega-event, and the host nation can increase its voice in the regional and global political forum by building a network with such prominent individuals at the venues. 16 Not every international sporting event shares equal political weight. Political scientist David Black identifies three types of major sporting events: 1) first-order games that attract significant global attention, 2) second-order games with an international scope but lower-level participation and interest and 3) third-order games that are regional or continental competitions.…”

Section: The Winter Olympics As a Game For The Privilegedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Olympic Winter Games in Non-Western Cities: State, Sport and Cultural Diplomacy in Sochi 2014, PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022

The International Journal of the History of Sport

2021

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The summer and winter Olympics share the five-ring logo. However, their social and political connotations differ. The Olympic Winter Games displays an aura of a game for the rich and powerful. A few aspiring nations intend to host this luxurious sporting festival in order to polish their international reputations as powerful actors in the global capitalist order. The cases of Sochi 2014, PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022 illustrate this pattern. Wallerstein's world-system theory is a useful conceptual tool to examine the context of each Olympics, the content of the Olympic ceremonies, the nature of athletic competitions, and the post-event political environment. Although the three nations have different historical backgrounds and different diplomatic aims, the winter Olympics provided the trio with an opportunity to construct an image of major global or regional power. Russian Olympic diplomacy in Sochi was impressive but its post-event aggression undercut its soft power exercise on the ice. South Korea acquired desired political outcomes by hosting the Olympic Winter Games and its peace campaign continued after the event. China has the potential to highlight its emerging world power status at Beijing 2022. Yet, increasing China scepticism in the West may impede its winter Olympic diplomacy.While the summer and winter Olympics are global sport mega-events that share the identical five-ring logo, the social and political connotations of the two occasions differ significantly. 1 Most notably, the global north and south divide is more clearly visible at the Olympic Winter Games than its summer counterpart because economic and cultural barriers to winter sports are higher than most summer sporting activities. 2 At the same time, the winter Olympics today seems to reinforce Western cultural hegemony and white privilege as North American, European and Scandinavian athletes prevail in most of the winter Olympic events. 3 The winter sport mega-event awarded to non-Western cities, namely Sochi 2014, PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022, involves a distinctive interplay amongst state, sport, and cultural diplomacy. 4 Despite, or because of, the economic and cultural

“…The ignition of the Olympic Cauldron is the ritual that officially declares the opening of the sporting competition. Their collaboration at this ceremony symbolised this Olympics Games as a cooperative enterprise by the two Koreas, effectively reinforcing a unified Korean identity (Lee 2019). Moreover, under the Korean Unification Flag and under the banner reading "Korea", the athletes from the two Korean states marched as one at the parade of nations.…”

Section: The Surge Of Unified Korean Ethnic Nationalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We are fed up with such treacherous behaviour'. With left-leaning Moon as a new president, a unified ethnic nationalism was prevalent during the Olympics (Lee 2019). The protest and comments from the conservative parties clearly show their antipathy towards this circumstance, especially watching their hegemony in decline.…”

Section: The Rise Of South Korean State Patriotic Nationalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hegemony, domination and opposition: Fluctuating Korean nationalist politics at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang

2021

Sport in Society

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This article is concerned with a contested nature of nationalism expressed through sport. The 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang offers some useful episodes through which a different type of Korean nationalisms being represented via sport can be investigated. At this Winter Olympics, I observed four distinctive discourses on Korean identity being displayed via the winter sporting competition: 1) unified Korean ethnic nationalism, 2) South Korean state patriotic nationalism, 3) postcolonial anti-imperialist nationalism, and 4) cosmopolitan Korean identity. The four variants of nationalism were vying for a dominant position in the hierarchy of South Korean politics, and the Winter Olympics presented a platform on which each nationalist group asserts the legitimacy of their sense of nationhood. Therefore, I conclude that the 2018 Winter Olympics was not simply a physical contest between athletes but more importantly, was a field of the hegemonic struggle between adherents of different nationalistic views.