Spectacle

Abstract

Abstract A large-scale, extravagant cultural production that is replete with striking visual imagery and dramatic action and that is watched by a mass audience. The spectacle is especially characteristic of modem societies, socialist and capitalist, but is also found in traditional societies significantly affected by modem influences. It is arguable that spectacle has surpassed religious RITUAL as the principal symbolic context in which contemporary societies enact and communicate their guiding beliefs, values, concerns, and selfunder standings. The repertoire of spectacles is vast, but the most familiar examples come from the field of sports. The greatest of all spectacles is probably the Olympic Games, which attract tens of thousands of participants, live audiences of two to three million persons, and media audiences estimated to number a third of the world’s total population. World Cup soccer matches also draw huge live and television audiences, as do, in the United States, championship and other “classic” games in professional baseball and football, college football, and various other sports ranging from golf through horse and stock car racing. When the magazine Sports Illustrated was started in 1954, it included a photographic section called “Spectacle,” which in its prospec tus stated, “Sport . . . is magic to the eye. It lingers in the life-long treasury of vision.”