est. 1995
Athens Institute
A World Association of Academics and Researchers: Promoting Global Education & Research
1995-2025: 30 Years of Bringing Academics and Scholars together in Athens
A Symposium on “Sports, Media and Wars”
was held on Monday 11 & Tuesday 12 May 2026
On Monday 11 May 2026 and Tuesday 12 May 2026, as part of the 26th Annual International Conference on Sports: Economic, Management, Marketing & Social Aspects and the 24th Annual International Conference on Communication and Mass Media, a Symposium on “Sports, Media and Wars” was held over two consecutive sessions.
Part I (Monday 11 May, 13:00–14:00) was moderated by John V. Pavlik, Head, Mass Media and Communication Unit, Athens Institute & Professor, Rutgers University, USA.
The session featured presentations by Maria Petrova Bakardjieva, Professor, University of Calgary, Canada (Politics by Other Means: Identity, Affect and Spectacle in Sport and War); Naila Hamdy, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Research, The American University in Cairo, Egypt (From Stadiums to Battlefields: Sports, Media, and the Making of War Narratives in the Middle East); Theodore Trafalis, Professor, The University of Oklahoma, USA (Sports Gambling and Geopolitical Intelligence); Laura Trujillo, Professor & Researcher, Universidad Panamericana, Mexico (Sport, Power, and Narrative: A Media Ecology Approach to the Case of Iran); and Gregory T. Papanikos, President, Athens Institute & Professor (Adjunct), University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA (Goals and Geopolitics: How Media Frames Iran, the U.S., and the 2026 World Cup).
Interventions were also delivered by Spiro Doukas, Deputy Head, Sports Unit, Athens Institute & Professor, American Public University, USA, and Elsa G. Sánchez Huerta Villalba, Professor, Universidad Panamericana, México.
Part II (Tuesday 12 May, 13:30–14:30) was moderated by Gregory T. Papanikos, President, Athens Institute & Professor (Adjunct), University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA.
The session included presentations by Brian Massey, Professor, East Carolina University, USA (Trivializing War: Performance Politics and U.S.-Iran Football Spat); John V. Pavlik, Head, Mass Media and Communication Unit, Athens Institute & Professor, Rutgers University, USA (From Prediction Markets to Artificial Intelligence: How Emerging Technology Is Reshaping the Landscape of Sports, Media and War); and Amani Ismail, Associate Dean, School of Humanities and Creative Arts & Mass Communications Program Lead, University of Hertfordshire hosted by Global Academic Foundation, Egypt (Media Narratives on Warring Nations and Access to Global Sports).
The symposium highlighted the evolving intersections of sport, media, and geopolitical conflict, particularly in relation to narrative framing, technological transformation, and the growing entanglement of sports with international politics and security discourses.
