7th Annual International Symposium on Leisure & Recreation
9-12 May 2022, Athens, Greece Program (Athens Local Time) (Note: each presentation includes at least 10 minutes for questions and discussions if available)
Monday 9 May 2022
09.00-09.30 Registration
09:30-10:00 Opening and Welcoming Remarks:
Gregory T. Papanikos, President, ATINER
10:00-12:00 TIME SLOT 1 – MORNING PRESENTATIONS
Yann Carin, Associate Professor, University of Lille, France. Title: How Fear, Serendipity and Leadership Impact Change: The Case of Economic Models of the French Men’s Professional Basketball Clubs.
This paper examines the economic models followed by France’s men’s professional basketball clubs between 2008/2009 and 2019/2020. Principal components and k-means analyses of financial data revealed four main types of economic model. In contrast to the overall inertia indicated by aggregated data for France’s basketball league, many clubs substantially changed their economic models during our study period. Combining quantitative and qualitative analyses of objective and subjective data allowed us to assess the factors underlying these changes and to guard against possible attribution biases. Although visionary leadership partly explains the changes at certain clubs, serendipity (e.g., local council decision to build a new arena, opening of a closed competition to new teams, glorious uncertainty of sport) played at least as great a role. For example, unexpectedly qualifying for a European competition can trigger a systemic professionalization process. However, such external factors are not sufficient to overcome some clubs’ organizational inertia, often due to a fear of change that clubs rationalize in terms of their limited local potential (small arena, small catchment area, intra-sport and inter-sport competition) or the weight of tradition. Our findings will be useful to the French basketball league in its efforts to improve the attractiveness of its competitions and help its clubs develop.
Ken Roberts, Emeritus Professor, University of Liverpool, UK. Title: Back to Normal? Time Use, Work and Leisure in The UK Before, During, Between And Following the Covid-19 Lockdowns.
This paper presents findings from time use surveys in the UK which were conducted prior to, during and following the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020 and 2021. These findings are set against the background of evidence from similar surveys in the UK, and globally, from the 1960s onwards. The indications are that the UK lockdowns have accelerated a shift of paid work from workplaces to homes with savings in travelling time to which the closure of out-of-home leisure services during lockdowns also contributed. A post-pandemic outcome has been an increase in leisure time which is being used for exercise, DIY and gardening, but mainly media use with a shift from ‘traditional’ television to streamed services and social media, accessed on mobile devices. These trends are evident among men and women, in all age groups and all income bands. They are being accompanied by a decline in mental well-being and reduced trust, all part of a societal long Covid.
Gregory T. Papanikos, President, ATINER. Title: An Ex-Post Analysis of the 2004 Olympic Effect. (Full Paper)
Ricardo Cardoso, PhD Student, Lleida University, Spain. Title: European Lex Sportiva – Myth or Reality?
To answer the question to whether the European Lex Sportiva is a myth or a reality it is vitally important, first of all, to rigorously define the concepts of Lex Sportiva and European Union Law and, in particular, the path taken until the specificity of Sport was established in the Treaties. Once this delimitation is made, it will be time to identify the tensions and historical intersections between Lex Sportiva and European Union Law, with special focus on the Bosman, Meca-Medina, Olivier Bernard and Claudia Pechstein cases. All this determined and was determined by the White Paper on Sport and the Teatry of Lisbon. By describing this path, it will be possible to identify a growing intersection between the Lex Sportiva and the European Union Law, but without that determining the annihilation of the specificity of Sport, which, on the contrary, has been reinforced over the years. This evolution occurred mainly due to new interpretations by the CJEU for resolving disputes directly or indirectly related to sports, which has been intensifying to the extent that sports as an economic activity is a differentiating factor between geopolitical blocs. Once we have covered the path of the interaction between Lex Sportiva and European Union Law, we will be able to assert or dispute as to the real existence of a European Lex Sportiva as an autonomous legal reality deserving of standardized protection, as well as to envision the future, immediate, of this special and dialectical relationship that often comes across as love versus hate.
12:00-14:00 TIME SLOT 2 – NOON PRESENTATIONS
Junhao Hong, Professor, State University of New York, USA. Title: New Media-Generated Online Opinion Leaders in China and the Socio-Political Implications.
Ricarda Drüeke, Associate Professor, University of Salzburg, Austria. Corinna Peil, Assistant Professor, University of Salzburg, Austria. Title: Datafication on the Farm: An Exploration of Changing Practices of Professional Work and Everyday Life.
Introduction and research questions The aim of this paper is to reconstruct abstract processes of digitalization and datafication in rural living environments and to provide insights into the interrelationships between technological and socio-cultural dynamics on farms. Our overarching research questions are: To which extent have digital media and datafication changed professional activities, everyday life and social interactions on the farm? What kind of digitalization-related challenges, opportunities and risks currently do exist (e.g., in relation to communicative infrastructures, emerging inequalities, changes in human-animal relationships, etc.)? Theoretical framework On the one hand, this project ties in with theoretical strands in communication studies which emphasize the ubiquity and interplay of different media technologies and point to the penetration of all spheres of life with different forms of mediatized communication (e.g., Couldry & Hepp, 2016). Here, the aim is to direct attention to the often-neglected, yet politically highly regulated and disputed, cultural field of farms and to analyze the consequences of the presumed condensation and increase in mediatized action. On the other hand, it draws on considerations and approaches from critical data studies by asking about the expectations, values, and consequences that data produce at the intersection of technological affordances and cultural contexts. The point here is to generate “small data” (Lupton, 2018: 1) in order to be able to analyze, on an individual level, how people respond to datafication processes and how they make sense of the data they deal with in everyday life. Method In order to investigate professional actions and everyday practices that rely on digital infrastructures we conducted qualitative in-depth interviews in Austria. The sample is based on 15 interviews with female and male farmers between the ages of 22 and 65 who work full-time on or own a farm. The interviews were conducted in December 2021 via video conferencing software or on-site. When possible, photos were taken and observations noted. The interviews were transcribed and are analyzed using MAXQDA. Preliminary Findings The preliminary findings show the meaning and significance of professional innovations (e.g., automation, computerization, etc.) from the farmers’ perspective. Digital media are primarily used in the barn, where feeding, livestock and weather conditions are checked via smartphone app. The smartphone is not only used for professional purposes, but also for entertainment while driving the tractor or working in the fields. The younger respondents make use of WhatsApp groups to connect with other farmers and in some cases Instagram to market products or portray everyday farming life. While the use of digital media in the private sphere tends to serve networking and self-expression and is mainly framed positively, digital communication in the professional sphere, while seen as inevitable, is also problematized, e.g., with regard to the complexity of new technologies, which promotes new exclusions, or data security. Further insights into digital transformation processes and new types of entanglements of online and offline spaces in agriculture will be presented and discussed in greater depth against the background of mediatization and Datafication.
Jakub Jakubowski, Assistant Professor, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. Title: Youth Online Functioning (#Yoof) between Creation and Translocation.
The main goal of the project is to examine the everyday behaviour of young people in terms of extralinguistic codes in online communication with the use of modern technologies. We still know very little about patterns of seemingly ordinary activities that shape online interpersonal relations among young people. Their examination is particularly important, since, according to socialization theories, they will influence long-term behaviour patterns, including those in adult life. Thus, it is worth discussing research based on theories of second generation CMC (computer-mediated communication) and personal relations (Walther, 2010). The theories claim that various factors influence the communication process, despite hypothetical absence of nonverbal cues while using, for instance, modern mobile devices. The study is expected to create a list of patterns, based on in-depth interviews with adolescents, and provide an answer to the following question: To what extent are the patterns specific for the contemporary media environment and to what extent do they originate from ways of shaping interpersonal relations through traditional extraverbal communication? The main research question reads as follows: Does the social behaviour of young people in online media originate from organic socialization (offline), or – due to the capacity of the media and mobile technologies – are they relevant and specific to the online environment only? The research process should lead to the development of a new theory mentioned in the hypothesis, namely the translocation of behaviour. The theory assumes that a certain catalogue of communication behaviours is translocated to the Internet, where the behaviours are consolidated. Thus, some patterns become embedded in the everyday functioning of individuals and their development of interpersonal relations. These should provide an answer to the following question: Do we have commonly accepted behavioural and communication patterns that comprise a set of skills necessary to operate mobile networks and technologies? Several years ago these patterns were referred to as the netiquette, since the rapidly changing communication required a new terminology. It has been assumed that the initial set of rules evolved to a complex system of norms mainly due to the growing number of channels, tools, their functions and means of expression. A research method suitable to implement the above tasks is the individual in-depth interview (IDI). The actual procedure includes 16 interviews, four in rural schools and towns with population up to 20 thou., four in cities of 20-100 thou., four in cities of 100-500 thou. and four in cities above 500 thou. Inhabitants. The number of interviews in combination with additional variables should produce results necessary to develop relevant tools in phase two. The series in-depth interviews is a pilot stage for the main study. It will involve the use of mobile technologies (applications) to verify hypotheses and answers to research questions. Interviews should produce a catalogue of behaviours that will be used while developing the application. Therefore, the one of the goals of the presentation is consulting the results of the initial stage of the study to improve next stages of the research plan.
Hong Zeng, Assistant Professor, Lingnan University, China. Title: Entangling Bodily Discourses and Social Media: The Materialization of #MeToo in China.
Sam Coley, Senior Lecturer, Birmingham City University, UK. Title: UK Radio’s Response to COVID-19: A Reappraisal of Radio as a ‘Crisis’ Medium through the Exploration of a Production Case Study.
Radio has earned a reputation for reliability in times of crisis. While new technologies may have challenged the medium’s status as an entertainment provider, it continues to play a crucial role in disaster management systems around the world. Radio’s ability to provide early warnings and help in the coordination of relief efforts is a well-known strength, alongside its portability and ease of use. However, this presentation focuses on the medium’s capacity to build a sense of collective community during ongoing emergencies, by considering UK radio’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. According to Radiocentre CEO Siobhan Kenny, radio helped listeners to stay connected during the UK’s first wave lockdown. She commented, “we are all finding our own ways to cope during the pandemic, and it’s great that radio is proving such a consistent source of comfort and trusted news to so many”. I explore various award-winning industry responses that radio programmers and producers developed to address the isolation many listeners felt. I also explore the production of a series of radio documentaries, created by Birmingham City University in partnership with the Greatest Hits Radio network, to demonstrate how the pandemic impacted on radio production techniques. This case study was funded by a ‘Coronavirus Support’ grant from the UK’s Audio Content Fund, a Govt supported initiative to “improve lives during COVID-19”. The project, titled ‘Cities of Sound’ utilized the talent of radio students and graduates from 5 UK universities to create compelling radio content for audiences across the UK. I unpack the strategy behind the production of these documentaries and explore their ambition to provide companionship and a sense of community. As Norris and Stevens (2008, 1) observe, radio has a resilience that is “as strong, and perhaps stronger, than that offered by other media”. In this presentation, I show how UK radio’s response to COVID-19 serves as a timely reminder of its key strengths and underscores its ongoing relevance as an electronic medium.
Klaus Schoenbach, Honorary Professor/Honorary Fellow, Zeppelin University/University of Amsterdam, Germany/The Netherlands. Title: Mixed Messages: Contradictory Images of the U.S. News Media – a Time-Lapse Study in a Year of Crises.
Based on two large and representative surveys of adult Americans in December 2019 and May 2020, this study investigates the state and development of the images of the U.S. news media during severe crisis times, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic and racial unrest after the violent death of George Floyd. Our analyses show that, both positive and negative public images of the news media nevertheless remain stable—with a slight preponderance of favorable perceptions, such as that the news media are useful, fair and deserving protection, over reproaches such as “fake news,” “enemy of the people” and even asking President Trump to close some media outlets. Strikingly, these positive and negative images overlap, particularly among younger respondents. However, the public becomes more polarized about them in the six months of crisis between the two surveys. Once party affiliation and political philosophy of the respondents are taken into account, socio-demographics such as gender, household income, race and ethnicity virtually disappear as important determinants of the news media’s images. Only age and formal education remain somewhat relevant.
Panagiota Koulouvari Rosenqvist, Researcher, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden. Title: Communication Strategy with AI as Strategic Imperative, Challenging Existing Strategies, Business Models and Organizational Processes.
Masudul Biswas, Associate Professor, Loyola University Maryland, USA. Title: Foreign-born Faculty Members’ Teaching Experience in U.S. Mass Communication and Journalism Programs: How They Navigate Challenges.
Diversity, both domestic and global, in media education is a key accreditation standard for the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism & Mass Communications (ACEJMC). Additionally, by bringing in global perspectives to their teaching and research, international faculty contributes to the institutional diversity. A number of past research focused on international faculty experience in general, not within a particular academic discipline. Given the nature of communication discipline and how its professional education can prepare future journalists and communicators to serve a diverse, multicultural society in a representative manner, international faculty can definitely play an important role in that educational process.
Shravan Regret Iyer, PhD Student, Rutgers University, USA. Title: Understanding How News Content Utilizes Experiential Media in COVID-19 Storytelling: Findings from a Content Analysis.
The novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) has been a deadly pandemic in history, infecting close to 220.6 million people and claiming the lives of around 4.6 million people worldwide since December 2019 (CNN, 2021). Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, media has played a critical role in keeping people connected and well informed about the disease and how it spreads. While traditional media and text-based news content online have played an important role in creating awareness, an emerging form of media known as Experiential Media (EM) – which refers to communication platforms or technical interfaces such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and 360° video that enable users to make practical contact or experience with the phenomena virtually – through its various multisensory and immersive qualities (such as the potential to put the user as part of the story or journey in the first-person point of view instead of passively watch, listen, read a narrative from a third-person point of view) is also being used in COVID-19 storytelling. A growing body of research indicates that EM technologies such as VR, AR, and 360° video are diffusing widely around the world, thereby transforming media practices and as well as the user experience (Sundar, Kang, & Oprean, 2017; Archer & Finger, 2018). Using qualitative content analysis, the current study looks at immersive news content productions (EM stories) that seek to inform the public on how the virus spreads, the precautions required to protect from getting infected by the virus, and a general understanding of the COVID-19 as a pandemic. The researcher, based on a list of criteria, identified and examined a total of six EM stories (two AR stories by the New York Times (NYT), two 360° video stories by National Geographic (Nat Geo), and two VR stories by Facebook’s Oculus App in collaboration with other media organizations) to particularly understand to what extent such immersive news content productions utilize EM qualities in COVID-19 storytelling?; what themes such EM stories and the accompanying static news story reported online cover?; and finally what new knowledge, if any, such EM stories provide compared to the accompanying static news story online? This exploratory study uses qualitative research methodology and the Experiential Media Model theoretical framework. The current study involved the use of a VR head-mounted display (HMD) and the latest iPhone 12 Pro Max with a LiDAR sensor for a seamless VR and AR experience/observation. Although the six EM stories captured the main themes reported in their accompanying static news story/text, findings also show that the EM content productions that utilized first-person narrative, 360° field of view, and presentation of facts pertaining to COVID-19 pandemic through 3D visualization at various stages of the immersive experiences offered new knowledge on a range of topics including: effectiveness of masks; importance of wearing masks; filtration efficiency; synthetic fibers; impaction and interception; zigzag motion of COVID-19 particles; social distancing, quality of ventilation; importance of building engineering; lack of ventilation; airborne transmission; concentration of the contaminant; virus transmission in-doors; asymptomatic; challenges faced by frontline workers; doctor-patient interaction; emergency care units; national emergency; global urgency; isolation; COVID-19 testing, COVID-19 cases (statistics); controlling the pandemic; humanizing the statistics; embodying grief, feeling of apocalypse; COVID-19 impact on essential workers, small businesses and daily labors.
Michael Damergis, Lecturer, Iona College, USA. Title: Smyrna: Paradise is Burning, the Asa K. Jennings Story.
08:00-10:30 TIME SLOT 5 – Old and New-An Educational Urban Walk
The urban walk ticket is not included as part of your registration fee. It includes transportation costs and the cost to enter the Parthenon and the other monuments on the Acropolis Hill. The urban walk tour includes the broader area of Athens. Among other sites, it includes: Zappion, Syntagma Square, Temple of Olympian Zeus, Ancient Roman Agora and on Acropolis Hill: the Propylaea, the Temple of Athena Nike, the Erechtheion, and the Parthenon. The program of the tour may be adjusted, if there is a need beyond our control. This is a private event organized by ATINER exclusively for the conference participants. Some participants have videotaped the event. Click here for an example.
10:30-11:00 TIME SLOT 6- MORNING PRESENTATION
Jinah Seol, Professor, Korea National Open University, South Korea. Eunkyoung Choi, Assistant Professor, HanShin University, South Korea. Title: Hyperlocal Cooperation between Local Creators and Local Broadcaster.
Due to the prolonged coronavirus outbreak, non-face-to-face online commerce and hyperlocal content services have significantly increased in Korea. The biggest digital media platform, Naver, has played a pivotal role in forming a local commerce ecosystem which connects local small and medium-sized business and local content creators. Using the Delphi interview survey method, this study attempted to explore the types of hyperlocal contents, interactions with local communities between local creators and local broadcasters, and to figure out how local broadcasters coexist with local creators. While ‘hyperlocal’ implies something beyond the traditional confines of ‘community media’, defined as ‘a range of community-based activities intended to supplement, challenge, or change the operating principles, structures, financing, and cultural forms and practices associated with dominant media’ (Howley,2009), ‘hyperlocal media’ operations are geographically-based, community-oriented, original-news reporting organizations indigenous to the web and intended to fill perceived gaps in coverage of an issue or region and to promote civic engagement(Metzgar et al. 2011). In light of the concepts of hyperlocal media, this study approached a qualitative study on practicable and sustainable hyperlocal contents created by Korean local media creators and local broadcasters and how they should cooperate with local communities. A total of 22 local creators and local broadcasters from 6 regions in Korea have participated in the first and second Delphi interviews from March 20 to April 16 in 2021. The main themes of the questionnaires were categorized into ‘hyperlocal content types’, ‘interactivity with local communities’ and ‘how to interconnect each other based on local contents’. The results show that both local broadcasters and local creators are struggling to produce hyperlocal contents in a variety of genres such as news, documentary, entertainment shows and v-logs. They mainly covered town events, village festivals, regional attractions, food, history, small schools, traditional villages, and well-known local products, and tourism, etc, in association with local citizens’ active involvements and utilization of social media platforms. Both local broadcasters and local creators put an emphasis on interacting with local community experts and active viewers to create profitable hyperlocal contents. However, there exist differences in perceiving of sharing economic benefits of hyperlocal contents created by local broadcasters and local creators, let alone sharing contents distribution platform. The most noteworthy result was that the various contents that are centered on local communities and created by local creators contain the spirit of the local emotions, sentiments, sympathy, and solidarity, which cannot be reduced by just economic value and thus, the local media foundation or regional government linkage projects are supporting local creators’ activities in recent years. In addition, local residents demand more practical contents that helps local economic activities directly or indirectly, and they showed a great deal of interests in hyperlocal news contents that deliver village centered activities and residents’ council matters.
11:00-13:00 TIME SLOT 7 – MORNING PRESENTATIONS
John Pavlik, Head, Mass Media and Communication Unit, ATINER & Professor, Rutgers University, USA. Title: The Ukraine War and the Implications for Mass Media.
The importance that social media has reached in the last years can be clearly seen in our daily life. In recent years, this has become even more obvious as it is reported that social media users’ consumption has risen to 72 percent more from the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. With the increasing of social media usage, a phenomenon related to them the so-called cancel culture has started to that has incremented from the massive amounts of online users finding common issues and speaking up about them on social media platforms. Cancel culture is still and open debate, which it has been seen as a limitation of freedom of speech in the negative sense, and in a positive sense as the exclusion of some terms that may offend some people or groups. In this context, this paper aims to observe Turkish students’ behaviour belonging to Z generation in cancel culture. A reception study will be done using focus groups; two different focus groups will be monitored, each of these groups constituted by five of social users belonging to the generation Z. The study will show the users’ perception and reaction of different cases of cancel culture.
Sushreema Dutta Sensharma, Associate Professor, University of Calcutta, India. Title: Mohit Chattopadhyay’s Plays: An Inspiring Communication.
The post-millenial era brings a societal change in India. The socio-economic milieu changes the life of Indians since 1990s with the advent of consumerism. Consumerism overpowers the simplicity of life in India. Consumerism, in the guise of a friend, entering the youth with dazzling products and ensuing apparent growth and development, is leading our society into decadence and erosion of social values. The age –old prevalent humanism of India gets threatened with the advent of market economy. Mohit Chattopadhyay, a Bengali Playwright, is afraid and conscious about this changing milieu. He communicates through his plays and wants to caution us. Mohit Chattopadhyay directly addresses the problems that India is facing and wants to awake humanism through his plays. He addresses overpower of greed in ‘Mallabhumi”, addiction of technology in ‘Cellphone’. He wants to sow the seeds of deep feeling for another person to combat this decadence and erosion of social values. His plays play an important role to communicate social darkness which emerges in the society and to imbibe positive thinking and love for mankind which will be able to illuminata the society. Mohit Chattopadhyay condemns the greed of building developer in the play ‘Mallabhumi’. He i8s very much aware of over-using of technology in the play ‘Cellphone’. In this play he highlights that over-use of cellphone can lead to mental illness ‘it can make zombie. He not only addresses the problems, but he shows the path by which the rays of sunlight can pour into the human mind. He flows the immeasurable flow of love for mankind in his’Harun Al Rashid’ and ‘Ayudaan’. He also portrays Lord Buddha in his play ‘Tathagata’. The life and teachings of Lord Buddha inspires people to live a peaceful life and enhances the love for mankind. Along with the fictitious characters he presents the one who felt for mankind. The immeasurable love enkindles the ray of hope for a loving, peaceful world.
13:00-15:00 TIME SLOT 8 – NOON PRESENTATIONS
Maud Blose, Lecturer, Durban University of Technology, South Africa. Title: Exploring Gender Identities of Females in Durban as Represented and Negotiated through Stereotypes by South African Soap Operas Generations: The Legacy and Isidingo: The Need.
In recent years, arguments have been made about the absence of Emirati women journalists in analysing political and economic news stories. The role of Emirati women in journalism has been and remains anonymous. They are rarely seen taking part in this field, in comparison with their peers in other states in the Arabian Peninsula, particularly in Kuwait and Bahrain, where women have reported on complex political and social issues since the 1960s and 1970s. In addition, the field of broadcast media and journalism has proven to be a challenging one for Emirati women to enter, due to socio-cultural constraints set by a patriarchal society that prefers the practise of traditional gender roles. To shed light on this phenomenon, I would like to present my research study on media development and the emergence of women’s journalism in the UAE, in which two types of empirical research methodologies were applied. The first is participant observation at Dubai Media Incorporated’s news centre (Dubai TV) and Abu Dhabi Media Company’s news centre (Abu Dhabi Channel One). The second is semi-structured interviews, in which 40 Emirati and Arab expat journalists were interviewed and categorized based on gender, with 30 females and 10 males, and stratification. For the latter, journalists were divided into two generational groups: journalists who belong to ‘the early generation’, between the ages of 30 and 60, who practised journalism from the 1970s to the 1990s; and journalists who belong to ‘the new generation’, who are in their 20s, and started practising journalism from the year 2000 onward. This research study will make a significant contribution to the study of Gulf and Arab media and gender studies, as it is the first to investigate gender dynamics in Emirati newsrooms, and in particular the influence of tribal and patriarchal culture in determining Emirati women’s roles as newsmakers. It is also the first to observe and document the newsroom norms and journalistic practises in the Emirates, which are delimited by an oppressive 40-year-old media law, authoritarian political power control, and censorship. Therefore, this research study highlights specific themes that are under-examined in the Emirates, including gender dynamics and self-censorship practises in the newsroom. It is also the first empirical study to use ethnography in order to examine these themes.
Mario Nicoliello, Researcher, University of Genoa, Italy. Title: The Impact of the Absence of Spectators on the Business Model of the Olympic Games.
For the first time in history, due to the Covid 19 pandemic, the Tokyo 2021 Summer Olympic Games were organized without the presence of any category of spectators, while the B eijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games only contempl ated the presence of local fans . Despite the lack of involvement i n the organization of the event of one of the main categories of stakeholders, the Olympic Games were staged regularly, highlighting how in the current state of affairs the presence or absence of the public is no longer rele vant to the economy of the event. In a business model mainly focused on the sale of television righ ts and global sponsorships (both revenue s levers firmly in the hands of the I nternational Olympic Committee and completely independent from the choices of the organizers )), the presence or absence of the revenues deriving from the sale of tickets is of little relevance on the turnover of the competition, therefore it does not questi on the performance of the Games . The sale of tickets, however, is one of the few sources of revenue left available to local organizers, who have to revise their economic model without the presence of fans Starting from these premises, this paper intends t o retrace the evolution of the business model of the Olympic Games, focusing on the current r elationships of power within the organizational structure. After discussing the current composition of the turnover of the e vent , the work will be dedicated to ana ly s ing the individual sources of income and the levers available to the organizers to increase them. All in order to demonstrat e the different role played by the spectators: residual role towards the interests of the IOC, extreme ly important role as regards the point of view of the local committee. The originality of the work consists in declining the role of a single stakeholder (spectators) within the more general busin ess model of the Games and considering spectators a s a source of income for the event. The implications of the research are of a theoretical type, as the economic literature about the organization of the Olympic Games is increasing, and of a practical nature, since future organizers are made available some keys to understanding how to interpret the role of spectators on a double side : on the one hand the production of new revenues, on the other hand the management of costs.
15:00-16:00 Lunch
16:00-18:00 TIME SLOT 9 – AFTERNOON PRESENTATIONS
Amy Eperthener, Assistant Athletic Trainer, Edinboro University, USA. Title: Financial and Management Barriers to Safety Education in Youth Sports in the United States.
The sport industry is valued at $498.4 billion and continues to grow (Kearney, 2021). Globally it is valued at $1.5 trillion (NASSM, 2021). The first graduate program in Sport Management commenced in 1966 at Ohio University (Hall, 2013) and now there are over 400 programs in the U.S. (NASSM, 2021). The discipline has expanded to many countries in Europe, Asia and Australia (NASSM, 2021). Sport plays a major role in many different societies around the world. People who decide to study sport must be able to embrace its global outreach and its increasing power to transform lives. As the field of Sport Management continues to evolve, it is imperative for educators to properly prepare future professionals for a growing global industry. This presentation will highlight unique projects developed by Sport Management professors to prepare students for the job market. The projects include Esports production/collaboration, National Basketball Association rural development marketing plan, sports podcast production, and research participation project (coaching perception). All projects were designed to build the quintessential skills in Sport Management. In addition, the projects involved higher levels of student engagement, critical thinking, technology usage and have garnered high student satisfaction.
Kostas Karadakis, Associate Professor, Southern New Hampshire University, USA. Maria Manus Painchaud, Retired Professor, Southern New Hampshire University, USA. Title: The KSAs while Studying the Esport Industry that Lead to Employment.
Introduction and Context Esport is a rapid growing form of digital entertainment; popular because of technological advancements, increased participation of online gaming (Hamari & Sjöblom, 2017), access to technology, and elite competition (Jenny et al., 2017). Esport encompasses several characteristics of traditional sport, including players, spectators, competition, and entertainment (Keiper et al., 2017). In this study, esport is defined as “any video game that allows for organized multiplayer non-geographically bound real-time competitions with or against other players or teams, where the primary aspects of the game are facilitated by electronic systems, and the input of players and teams as well as the output of the electronic systems are mediated by human-computer interfaces” (Hedlund et al., 2021). As the esport industry continues to grow, so have the career offerings. In early 2018, 2,497 jobs were available, an 87% increase in 2019, and over 22,500 jobs estimated in 2020 (Hitmarker, 2020); demonstrating a demand for esport-specific and traditional positions. In 2019, Hitmarker reported the largest esport employment areas were software engineering, marketing, design, operations, and sales; while data, project management, education, art, and engineering had the largest percentage increase in total number of jobs available between 2018 and 2019 (Hedlund et al., 2021). The esport industry offers a multitude of employment opportunities for trained and prepared individuals entering the industry. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) an individual seeking employment in the esport industry should possess. Methodology and Results The challenge with esport being an emerging, multi-faceted industry is the limited historical data. To that end, a semi-structured, virtual interview with 25 esport industry experts was conducted. Each interviewee was asked, based on their expertise, what are the KSAs someone studying the esport industry should acquire to gain employment in the industry? The process included interview transcriptions with the interviewee reviewing, editing, and clarifying responses prior to finalization. An inductive approach was used to analyze the data resulting in themes. The scrubbed, formatted data was analyzed independently by the evaluation team; specific themes were developed that captured core messages reported by participants (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). As a result, ten common themes appeared (reported by most to least frequent): Business Acumen and Strategic Approach (24); Human Relations Skills (21); Relationship Management (17); Effective Communication (16); Technology Management (16); Legal and Ethical Practices (15); Research and Creative Problem Solving (14); Global and Cultural Orientation (11); Leadership (8); and, Critical Evaluation and Analytical Skills (6). Additionally, requisite esport specific KSAs and competencies aligned with three broad organization categories: people (14), structure (25), and goals (22). Conclusion For more than 20 years, research efforts have transpired focusing on the KSAs and competencies that individuals should possess to be successful in various employment. The results and categories of the current study are supported by previous studies regarding what employers desire in recent grads (Seidman & Bradley, 2002, pp.15-16) and an extensive global study conducted by SHRM (Society of Human Resource Management) to develop its BoCK™ (Body of Competency & Knowledge) for Human Resource professionals (SHRM, 2018). While an individual requires competencies in traditional workplace knowledge as well as discipline specific, there is an expectation that with industry evolution, functional areas (domains) within esport will continue to emerge. Lifelong learning skills, passion, and a desire to acquire advanced knowledge will be integral to success and sustainability of an esport career. Specific definitions, examples, and quotes will be shared during the presentation, along with additional practical and managerial implications.
Giuseppe Luca De Luca Picione, Professor, University of Naples Federico II, Italy. Domenico Trezza, Research Fellow, University of Naples Federico II, Italy. Title: Maradona. The Media Representation of a Neapolitan Myth.
18:00-19:30 TIME SLOT 10 – AFTERNOON PRESENTATIONS
Abeer Bajandouh, PhD Student, University of Leicester, UK. Title: Environmental Portraits of Saudi Women Entrepreneurs: A Digital Ethnography Study on Instagram.
The present study aims to demonstrate how Saudi women entrepreneurs can benefit from the latest technologies, highlighting the strategies that might decline the complications these women face in contributing to Saudi economic development through social media use. On the other hand, Saudi women’s portraiture at work is very limited due to religious and cultural factors. Therefore, this study seeks to document the importance of women entrepreneurs’ presence in their work environment by examining Saudi women’s presence in the workforce through visual representation as a visual signifier of power. Without environmental portraits of Saudi women in their workspaces to document their presence, their contributions may go unnoticed. One of the essential elements to achieve women’s empowerment is relying on women’s involvement in politics; thus, this study explores whether empowering Saudi women entrepreneurs economically leads to improve their political position. The objectives of this study primarily serve three functions. First, identifying the challenges and opportunities that Saudi women entrepreneurs face in using social media for businesses. Second, understanding how cultural factors and power relations play a role in presenting Saudi women’s entrepreneurs in visual representations. Finally, discovering whether Saudi women entrepreneurs pursue economic power contributes to achieving women’s empowerment in politics. Methodologically, this study employs a case study (Instagram) method, using digital ethnographic research techniques (qualitative semi-structured interviews and offline/online observation). Research on social media and Saudi women entrepreneurs in the workforce in Saudi Arabia context is a relatively recent phenomenon; as a result, the study is developing a deep understanding of the situation of Saudi women entrepreneurs who use Instagram as a method for improving their positions in the workforce, especially after the new vision of the country 2030 which attempt to empower Saudi women in the workforce. So far, none of the previous studies has conducted visual methods in exploring Saudi women at work; this study produces environmental portraits of Saudi women entrepreneurs in their work environment within the Saudi context through visual representations to fill the gender gap in women representation in Saudi Arabia.
Butler Cain, Assistant Vice Provost, University of North Alabama, USA. Title: Publicize, Pressure, and Protect: An Analysis of Journalism Advocacy Groups’ Headline Responses to the 2021 Military Coup in Myanmar.
In the weeks and months after Myanmar’s February 2021 military coup, advocacy groups across the world focused their attention on the country’s worsening conditions for free expression and professional journalism. Three of these organizations – Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the International Federation of Journalists – are globally-recognized advocacy groups that publicize threats to freedom of expression, pressure governments to support civil liberties, and seek to protect journalists from physical and political harm. Collectively, they issued dozens of press releases, statements, and alerts that addressed changing conditions in Myanmar. Based on a descriptive content analysis of 87 headlines published between February 1 and December 28, 2021, three broad categories emerged. Headlines in the first category were written to publicize threats to free expression in Myanmar, while headlines in the second category were meant to pressure governments to respond to the country’s worsening conditions. Headlines in the third category were aimed at protecting journalists through international publicity of their work. Examining these organizations’ published headlines provides insight into how they pursue their missions to defend free expression globally.
Michael Lithgow, Associate Professor, Athabasca University, Canada. Title: From Engraving to U-Tubing the News: The Politics of Illustrating Conflicts over the Years.
Our paper argues that the rise of user generated content (UGC) in news production reflects an important discursive shift that echoes comparable changes with the emergence of engravings and then photographs in the 19th and early 20th centuries. User generated content can not only signify a heightened proximity to the events it records and thus greater “authenticity” than conventional journalism, it introduces new epistemic categories of legitimate utterance rooted in unique ontological conditions. As with engravings in early forms of pictorial reporting, UGC harbours the marks of the artist, so to speak, in its aim for accuracy – images that recreate and perform not only the events they record, but the relational conditions of their recording distinct from those of ‘objective’ reporters. And yet as with photographs, UGC is often understood as having greater indexicality and more authenticity than conventional sources of journalism images, a result of the assumed unintentionality and innocence of the eyewitness to an event. These emerging aesthetic and epistemic complexities require, on the one hand, new literacies, which we define as the capacity to ‘read’ images. In our society, the image is so omnipresent that it is difficult to imagine a time where the written word was almost exclusively transmitting information. Consequently, literacy was concerned with written texts, and education by and through images has been shamefully underestimated; no specific terminology exists either for this way of perceiving or acquiring knowledge from images. The 19th century introduction of engraved illustrations in news weeklies demanded unprecedented kinds of news literacies, not least among them was an understanding of “truth” mediated by the authorship of visual artists. Engraving demanded new skills requiring new schools for engravers who quickly became an unorganized and largely exploited pool of industrial labour (Martin 2014). The move to photography also required new visual literacies and a shift away from authored and artistic truths to what passed for as the un-authored, mechanical truths of photochemical indexicality. Similarly, the rise of UGC introduces new visual literacies that not only signal a return to the subjective ontologies of “truth” through mediated eye-witnessing, but also demand a range of specific skills and presents a growing reliance on pools of labour whose status, role and remuneration are uncertain. In this paper we draw comparisons between the production of engravings and then photographs in 19th and early 20th Centuries in illustrated papers in France, Canada anad England, to changing practices in newsrooms in response to UGC in France, Canada, England and beyond. New discourses require new practices. We are suggesting that journalism must now contend with UGC skills encompassing finding, verifying and contextualizing stories through UGC, tracing and monitoring the originas and circulation of false news, and a range of unique skills required for UGC journalism.
19:30-21:00 Greek Home-Made Dinner (includes the traditional Greek household hospitality and quality)
Wednesday 11 May 2022Educational Islands Cruise
Mycenae Visit
Thursday 12 May 2022Delphi Tour
Friday 13 May 2022
Ancient Corinth and Cape Sounion Visit
