Global Spectacle Research Articles

Post-Socialist Neoliberalism: Towards a New Theoretical Framework of Spatial Production

During the past five decades, the neoliberal market economy has become one of the most influential forces in the process of spatial production, transforming cities worldwide by subjecting them to the rationale of global finance. In a world where religions and ideologies continue to lose their influence, financial supremacy has turned into an adequate substitute. The global nature and overarching impact of neoliberalism has made it the research focus of a vast cohort of urban and architectural scholars, historians, theoreticians, geographers, and economists, leading to a significant body of literature that discusses the relationship between the market economy and the built environment on all scales. This “globality” of neoliberalism is recently being disputed by its widely-accepted depiction as a western phenomenon with varied local implementations. Post-socialist neoliberalism, we argue, is not an isolated occurrence but rather an extreme case that accentuates the distinct features of neoliberal spatial transformations, making its characteristics more evident and traceable. This thematic issue challenges the notion of neoliberalism as solely a post-Fordist Keynesian phenomenon, proposing a new theoretical framework that redefines the neoliberalization of the built environment as a global spectacle with diverse, yet analogous, localized expressions across various spatial scales.

Wizja wiejskiego krajobrazu w noweli bułgarskiej przełomu XIX i XX wieku

The rural landscape in the stories mentioned here is not idyllic, because even the descriptions of spring that fill with positive emotions show the temporary nature, because the inhabitants have time to contemplate the landscape only because of the church holiday. It seems interesting that in this affirmation of the world of nature, the characters see numerous parallels between humans and other species inhabiting the globe. This is, of course, a clear allusion to the works of Charles Darwin, in particular On the Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), in which the English researcher proved that we are really not much different from other creatures. The theory of evolution has revised the notion of nature into which man has been drawn, becoming part of a global spectacle in which some beings perish and then others take their place.

The Sun Rises on Coney Island

Abstract Japanese competitive eaters first arrived at the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest held annually on July 4 at Coney Island, New York, in the late 1990s, transforming the event from a local curiosity into a modern sport in the process. From 1997 to 2006, Hirofumi Nakajima, Kazutoyo Arai, Takeru Kobayashi, and other Japanese eaters redefined the quest for records in competitive eating and introduced new training and competition techniques to their American counterparts. By leaning into jingoistic rhetoric to market a series of regional qualifiers and form the International Federation of Competitive Eating, Nathan's organizers used the Japanese as a foreign rival around which to construct and expand the sport's bureaucracy. Japanese intervention at Coney Island catalyzed the popularity of competitive eating and sparked processes of sportification that transformed the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest from a boardwalk sideshow into a global spectacle.

The Philadelphia story: Jams and battles in Olympic shadows

As breaking moves to the Olympic stage, we anticipate that the dance will succumb to increased regulation, standardization and homogenization. The modifications that occur as dance migrates from a vernacular practice to a competition framework have been well identified in dance scholarship and are evident from existing international breaking contests that feature elite dancers who tactically train for these events. Undoubtedly, its presence in the Olympics will award breaking an unprecedented degree of international visibility, funding and sponsorship, and hyper-athleticism within this sporting domain. As breaking transforms into a global spectacle for a mass audience, many of whom will be unfamiliar with its history and culture, we look to Philadelphia as an exemplar of a collectively articulated and self-regulated breaking community to question what will be erased and no longer legible. We examine the diversity of participants, the myriad of styles and abilities, dancing in shitty spaces, the intimate presence of the crowd, and unregulated behaviours to consider what might be marginalized and why that matters.

Mediated Fire and Distant Suffering: The Global Spectacle of Australian Bushfires in Nature 2.0

ABSTRACT The present study collected 10,233 tweets from 193 countries regarding the Australian bushfires from June 1, 2019, to May 13, 2020. Based on the theoretical framework of spectacular environmentalism, distant suffering, and construal level theory, this study explores the spectacle of Australian bushfires in the context of nature 2.0. With the help of the STM, four conclusions are found: the Australian bushfires are a global spectacle co-created by media and audience using five different frames; the spectacle of the Australian bushfires is a metaphor for the end of the world; in the process of creating the Australian bushfires spectacle with media, humans’ relationships with animals, others, and nature have been reconstructed; and Web 2.0 technology does not exceed the limitations of time and space as expected. Social, spatial, and temporal distances still affect the construction of environmental spectacles.

The Spectacle of Flags: The Russian and American Flags as Global Spectacles of National Identities

This paper explores through perspectives of rhetorical criticism the stories of two rivals planting their national flags in unexplored territories. While the American flag on the Moon proved the American technological superiority over the USSR, the Russian flag in the Arctic can be seen as a political move by President Putin to recreate the lost grandeur of the Soviet Union and reenact the Cold War to revive his political support at home. By doing so and recording their exploits, the two actors created national narratives that go beyond the simple performance of erecting a flag; these images construct an affectual nationalist identity through elites’ performance of flag planting, and mass media’s staging of these political events as a “spectacle.”

From television to YouTube: digitalised sport mega-events in the platform society

ABSTRACT Technological changes have dramatically transformed the ways in which contemporary sport mega-events are produced and consumed worldwide. As the production and consumption of these global spectacles have moved beyond the traditional television and radio broadcast, this article examines and reflects on the hyper-digitalisation of sport mega-events. More specifically, we explore how one emerging platform presents a window for examining questions of power and inequality; social integration and identity; social change and development, and finally, the experience of time and space related to sport mega-events in the present-day. By employing video-sharing platform YouTube as a paradigmatic case study of the Olympic Games’ digital shift, the paper contributes towards an enhanced understanding of mega-events, technologies and digital platforms. We argue that systematic efforts to understand the digital manifestations of mega-events in a ‘platform society’ remain extremely crucial when situated against the emerging but overlapping fields of digital sociology, digital leisure studies and digital football studies in which mega-events feature.

Mediatization and Doping: Investigating the Interplay in News Framing of Rider/Doping Suspicion During the Tour de France

Mediatization theory has been used to describe the development of the Tour de France, from its inception as an event created by a newspaper to sell newspapers to the global spectacle it has become. Yet, perhaps the Tour’s most infamous aspect, its historical reputation for doping, is yet to be explored through the lens of mediatization, as both a media and a social issue. Furthermore, that sport media scholars allude to a need for better understanding of media coverage of doping beyond headline-capturing doping scandals, establishes a precedent for the examination and comparison of newspaper framing of Lance Armstrong (2004) and Chris Froome (2017). To do so, this research operationalizes mediatization theory in combination with framing theory to investigate news framing of rider/doping suspicion grounded in the historical context of the event, revealing the interplay between framing of rider/doping suspicion and event mediatization processes.

2018 평창올림픽 개막식에 나타난 춤 공연 양식 연구

The Olympics, which represent mega sports events, are not only attracting worldwide attention as a venue, but also provide an opportunity to raise awareness of the host country enhancing the national image through cultural events such as eve, opening ceremony, and closing ceremony. They are such a special world event that gives the host country an opportunity to show their unique cultural and artistic identity presenting the trend of the times through cultural events while building strong international relationships. Since ancient times, dance has been closely related to festivals and has existed with different contents and functions depending on the purpose and location of the festival. The Olympics are global spectacles and national festivals that charm people around the world. Moreover, the host country may enjoy the privilege of promoting their artistic values powerfully through the opening ceremony. In the same vein, the dance performed at the opening ceremony of the Olympics plays an important function as a medium that can naturally express and convey the cultural artistry of the host country. Therefore, this study examines the dance works performed during the opening ceremony of the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, explores the thematic elements of dance, and studies its expressive characteristics using the framework of the first stage of the Janet Adshed dance analysis method. This study explores the motif of the work by examining each thematic element inherent in the dance work shown at the opening ceremony, and uses the first-stage framework of Adshed dance analysis to create movements, dancers, visual environments, and auditory effects. Through element analysis, we explore the overall framework of artistic identity expressed in Korean dance culture in dance parformance styles according to the trend of the times. This study is discussed as follows. First, it explores the thematic elements that can be thoughts, cultures, or motifs inherent in Korean dance works performed at the opening ceremony of the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. Second, It explores the expression style of Korean dance performed at the opening ceremony of the PyeongChang Olympics by analyzing movement, dancers, visual environment, and auditory elements that make up the Korean dance work performed at the opening ceremony of the PyeongChang Olympic Games in 2018.

From local space to global spectacle: World Heritage and space utilization in Calle Crisologo, Vigan City, Philippines

Abstract World Heritage, a project of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that aims to protect and preserve tangible and intangible inheritances of mankind, enables the construction of 'distributed, "polycentric" networked economy of cultural production and exchange'. This article focuses on Calle Crisologo in northern Philippines, analysing the ways in which it has been creatively produced as World Heritage Site from postcolonial Vigan's built space. Building on Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, field, and capital and reading ordinances and an architect's plans, I argue that the World Heritage project reconfigures the once local space into a global spectacle. While World Heritage is a western construct and a result of the experience of late modernity, how it is manifested in Calle Crisologo also shows how vernacular modernity developed in Vigan as a colonial city. With the syncretic mixing of cultures in everyday Calle Crisologo as a resource, western modernity, supposed to be unitary and linear in its aims of progress and development, gets deflected.

Hyper‐planning Jakarta: The Great Garuda and planning the global spectacle

After a major flood in Jakarta in 2007, the government of Indonesia partnered with a consortium of Dutch engineers and designers to produce a solution. In 2013, this consortium proposed a plan for the Great Garuda, a megaproject that combined a deep seawall and private real estate, both in an archipelago of reclaimed islands that would be shaped like the mythical garuda eagle, Indonesia's national symbol. Despite a range of infeasibilities and opposition, the Great Garuda became the most prominent vision for the city's future. This article argues that the promotion of the Great Garuda was a process of ‘hyper‐planning’, which projected the city as a national triumph and a global spectacle. The plan served the political objective of creating the mere possibility of a ‘new Jakarta’ apart from the perceived chaos of the current capital. Further, the plan functioned as a performative object through its iconic imagery and its circulations. The process of hyper‐planning simultaneously projected a future of urban success, but also displaced the contingencies of the future to the private sector, beyond the purview of the state.

Managing Time for Heads of Music Departments

New Zealand secondary music teachers spend many hours each week in both preparing and training a variety of performance ensembles, often before school, during lunchtimes, after school, on weekends and during holidays. In many cases this can be regarded as unpaid labour, yet their efforts make a significant contribution to a school’s life: its atmosphere and spirit. In this paper we report on interviews with six music Heads of Departments and note the challenging nature of their work underpinned as it is by a what we describe as a structured antagonism and the bipolarity of compulsion and desire. The wider context is a world of increasing educational global spectacle as systems of teacher and school accountability, clustered together with associated targets and benchmarks, have become powerful and pervasive forces transforming the life and work of teachers.

Fun against fear in the Caliphate: Islamic State’s spectacle and counter-spectacle

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on non-violent spectacular images produced and circulated by Islamic State (I.S.). These include I.S.’s declaration of the Caliphate, the group’s peculiar depiction of the good life, and its presumptive currency, the dinar. I.S.’s spectacle is explored through Situationist theory. Using the case study of the declaration of the Caliphate in June 2014, I explain how I.S. uses spectacle as a technology of rule. Then I move on to what I call the “counter-spectacle,” focusing on one case study, a program on Iraqi television al-Iraqiyya, Dawlat al-Khurafa (The Apocryphal State), that parodies I.S. as an entity. Probing ontological connections between “fear” and “fun” in the I.S. spectacle, the article concludes with a discussion of the im/possibility of countering spectacle, and the argument that the “success” of I.S.’s global spectacle rests on grafting I.S.’s own concentrated spectacle of rule onto the diffuse spectacle of a global commercial media discourse preoccupied with “Islam” as the main Other to a putative “Western” identity.

‘Behead, burn, crucify, crush’: Theorizing the Islamic State’s public displays of violence

The militant group known as the Islamic State has become notorious for its public displays of violence. Through slick high-definition videos showing beheadings, immolations and other forms of choreographed executions, the Islamic State has repeatedly captured the imagination of a global public and provoked vehement reactions. This article examines the Islamic State’s public displays of violence. Contrary to the public constitution of the Islamic State’s violence as an exceptional evil, the article argues that the group’s staging of killings and mutilations is not an unprecedented phenomenon, but a contemporary version of a distinct type of political violence that has been mobilized by various political agents throughout centuries. However, what is new and significant about the Islamic State’s choreographed executions is the public visibility of the acts and the global spectacle that the group has created. Thus, if the Islamic State is introducing a new dynamic in global politics, it is not a new form of violence or brutality, but rather a transformation of how spectacles of violence unfold on the global stage. Subsequently, the article highlights three dimensions of the Islamic State’s public displays of violence that have facilitated the creation of the global spectacle: the Islamic State’s technological skills and professional use of media ( technology); the Islamic State’s mobilization of acts of violence that transgress prevailing sensibilities ( transgression); and the violent acts’ function as not only a form of terror, but also an integral element of a state project and a visual manifestation of an alternative political order ( politics).

Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee as a global spectacle and projection of late Victorian imperialism

The Diamond Jubilee held in London in 1897 marked a historic moment in which Queen Victoria became the first British monarch who spent a full six decades on the throne. Examining the conditions in which the jubilee took place and the variety of reactions that it provoked provides insight into the tensions within the British Empire and the complexities of the political situation towards the end of the nineteenth century. This paper evokes the Diamond Jubilee through contemporary testimonies and historical reflections, observing it as an extravagant celebration as well as a resolute demonstration of British power and an affirmation of its imperial order. The mass appeal and emotional charge of the event made it an impeccable propaganda vehicle to spread an image of the empire at the apex of its glory. In the process, the colonial troops served as a confirmation of military omnipresence and the queen herself as a symbol of the God-given hierarchy.

Crisis, violence and hope in the global spectacle

Abstract The analysis of selected works of the 56th Venice Biennale places these works in contemporary social reality and reflects on the importance of contemporary curating practices. The paper finds that the 56th Biennale has demonstrated a diminishing faith in progress and in the weakening emancipatory power of art. At the same time, it has also undermined the domination of the Western view because the exhibition began to open to non-European perspectives, too.

Chinese law in imperial eyes: sovereignty, justice & transcultural politics

AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Imperial Archives and Historiography of Western Extraterritoriality in China2. Translation of the Qing Code and Colonial Origins of Comparative Chinese Law3. Chinese Law in the Formation of European Modernity4. Sentimental Imperialism and the Global Spectacle of Chinese Punishments5. Law and Empire in the Making of the First Opium WarConclusionList of AbbreviationsNotesGlossaryBibliographyIndex

To Catch a Tiger by Its Toe

This article discusses a global theatrical spectacle that Moral Re-Armament (mra), a spiritual movement originating in the United States, produced in 1961. mra used contemporary protests in Japan, and actors ostensibly involved in them, as a strategy to bolster its authority in the context of U.S. Cold War policy in East Asia. How it claimed to represent Japan to the world and attempted to transform itself into the spokesman for the “Free World” offers insight into the symbolic position of East Asia in the United States and the areas it sought to influence during the early 1960s, a key moment in the intensifying U.S. involvement in East Asia, and offers a case through which to explore Christina Klein's model of “Cold War Orientalism.” mra tapped into this more inclusive discourse and also exploited ignorance in the United States about Japan to bolster widespread misconceptions about demonstrations in Tokyo. While introducing mra’s history, this essay teases out a gap between the reality and representation of Japanese politics and protest in the case of The Tiger, which reflects the historical context in which popular culture excluded real knowledge about how U.S. foreign policy affected, and often threatened, local political autonomy.

Chinese labour in South Africa, 1902–10: Race, violence and global spectacle

Chinese labour in South Africa, 1902–10: Race, violence and global spectacle

Rachel K. Bright. Chinese Labour in South Africa, 1902–10: Race, Violence, and Global Spectacle.

Rachel K. Bright. Chinese Labour in South Africa, 1902–10: Race, Violence, and Global Spectacle.