One World One Dream? Sports Blogging at The Beijing Olympic Games

Abstract

2008 Olympics are finished, world records have been broken, medals have been distributed and athletes have returned home. Beijing Games were a much discussed event even before they took place. Not only was press freedom severely restricted by the Chinese government, hindering journalists from doing a decent job, but the International Olympic Committee (IOC) also decided to put a check on new media covering the Olympic Games. Although the IOC recognizes the freedom of the media, the organization seemed to deviate with ease from this fundamental principle in its own Internet Guidelines issued for the 2008 Olympics. This raises the question whether the restrictions included in these Guidelines can be justified, or whether the IOC yielded to the pressure of the Olympic host. In the first two Parts of this article we take a closer look at the recent developments in the sports media landscape due to sociological and technological changes. In Part 3 the risks and opportunities of broadcasting the Beijing Olympics via the Internet and the internet and blogging guidelines adopted by the IOC in order to protect the exclusive rights of stakeholders, are examined. In Part 4 we take up the challenge to analyse the aforementioned guidelines in the context of the European Convention on Human Rights to finally draw conclusions in Part 5. 1. Olympic Games: anywhere, anytime In the past, sports fans could only follow the Olympic Games on a traditional television set. Due to technological developments, however, the media landscape has changed tremendously. emergence of new communication technologies, such as the Internet and interactive digital television, the convergence of these technologies, and the multiplication of the number of viewing devices, has greatly affected how sports fans follow sports events. Fans can now be informed about the Games 24/7, consult highlights on sports websites, receive news alerts or pictures on their mobile phones, and watch extensive analysis on their television sets at home. In other words, sports news has become available and accessible at a place and time that suits the viewer. Whereas the Olympic Charter (1) states that the IOC will take all necessary steps in order to ensure the fullest coverage by the different media (traditional media as well as new media) and the widest possible audience in the world for the Olympic Games, (2) the IOC prohibited for a long time broadcasting images of the Olympic Games on the Internet and mobile phone. Although the IOC has acknowledged that television and new media are complementary instead of competing media, enriching the experience of the Olympic Games together, (3) the 2008 Games were the first for which a tender procedure was launched to sell Internet and mobile phone platform rights. When the Olympics took place in Athens in 2004, live Internet coverage was only available in a handful of territories. Beijing 2008, however, marked the first time that new media coverage (featuring live broadband Internet coverage and mobile phone clips) was available across the world. (4) Thanks to this initiative, the Olympic Games were apparently made accessible to more people than ever before ... But was that really the case? Beijing is a modern international city, but is the capital of a country where human rights violations still take place--we only have to recall the developments in Tibet, which almost caused a universal boycott of the Olympic Games--and where the concept of free media and freedom of speech is a controversial subject. Contrary to what journalists might have been accustomed to in their home countries or with previous Olympic Games reporting, the 2008 host is less likely to grant them full enjoyment of media freedom. Chinese government has the most developed surveillance systems in the world, which, collectively, are also known as The Great Firewall of China. …