Routledge Special Issue Collection on the Olympic and Paralympic … · 4 The following five...
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Routledge Special Issue Collection on the Olympic and Paralympic Games
Knowledge Creation: Bibliometrics and General Trends
Dr Vassil Girginov, Brunel University, UK Professor Mike Collins, University of Gloucestershire, UK
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The Routledge Special Issue Collection on the Olympic and Paralympic Games
“Mega-events such as the Olympics have become vehicles for different forms of
transformation. To date, however such events have largely escaped mainstream academic
scrutiny. With the Olympics arriving at the heart of London this situation is apt to change”.
Kevin Haggerty, University of Alberta (review of Securing and
Sustaining the Olympic City: Reconfiguring London for 2012 and Beyond)
The publication of 174 papers in the Routledge Special Issue Collection alone demonstrates
Haggerty’s prediction coming true.
Acknowledgements
The authors of this report would like to register their appreciative thanks to Jonathan
Manley, Kate Nuttall, Zita Balogh and Leen Van Broeck from Routledge for their
commitment and support to this project. Our sincere thanks are also extended to all journal
editors, special issues guest editors and the hundreds of contributors for sharing their work
and for enhancing our knowledge of Olympism.
Table of contents
1. Background to the project 3
2. Approach to analysis 4
3. Bibliometric results 8
4. The Routledge Olympic Special issues: knowledge creation 12
a. Historical possibilities for scholars to become interested in the Olympics
b. How objects enter and exit the Olympic gaze 15
c. Things that come to be in the world as result of the research activities of
Olympic scholars 17
d. How Olympic objects of scientific research change themselves over the
course of being studied 19
5. The process behind the Routledge Special Issue Collection 19
6. Conclusions 21
7. References 23
Appendices 25
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1. Background to the project
In recognition of the unique opportunity presented by the 2012 London Olympic and
Paralympic Games for the academic community, Routledge commissioned over 40 Olympic
and Paralympic focused journal special issues from a wide range of disciplines to be
published during 2012 and 2013. This project was part of a broader strategy designed to
create unique synergy between the global public and academic interest generated by the
London Games, the publishing and knowledge disseminating capabilities of Routledge, and
the 2012 International Convention on Science, Education and Medicine in Sport (ICSEMIS),
the world largest scientific gathering which takes place every four years before the Olympic
Games. The ICSEMIS took place in Glasgow from 19-24 July 2012 and attracted some 2,700
scholars from 78 countries. The main objectives of this strategy were twofold: to generate
new knowledge and to raise the status of Olympic and sport studies in general.
Routledge has been at the forefront of promoting critical Olympic scholarship for
over 40 years. Its first Olympic-related publication dates back to 1969 (Abrahams, 1969),
and has since expanded considerably to include more than 2000 dedicated books and
journal articles. Therefore, when the idea for this project was first proposed in early 2009, it
did not take any persuasion for Routledge to embrace it and to offer the full editorial,
logistical and financial support of a leading global academic publisher needed for
implementing an undertaking of this kind.
The main purpose of the report is to critically reflect on the new knowledge and the
multidisciplinary legacy of academic writing that has been generated in publishing the first
23 journal special issues as well as on the process behind the project. What follows is the
first part of the analysis dealing mainly with bibliometrics and some general trends. The
second part of the report - ‘Thematic orientation and knowledge creation’ - will be available
in early 2014 after all Olympic and Paralympic special issues have been published.
First, this was an original and unique project that has never been attempted before.
Most commentators agree that Olympism is a complex phenomenon that requires a
multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach, but so far the academic community has
failed to embrace the study of the Olympic Games in a concerted and coordinate d fashion.
Second, a number of logistical issues had to be addressed. Journal publishing is a
complicated business and the relationship between Routledge and different journals
depend on a number of factors including journal ownership (i.e., a professional society or a
single institution), the editorial policy of the journal and the contractual arrangements with
the publisher. Finally, in signing up to the project both Routledge and separate journals have
taken a risk as producing a special issue has always been a challenging prospect, regardless
of how popular a topic may look like.
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The following five sections of this report detail what and how the Routledge Special
Issue Collection on the Olympic and Paralympic Games project was achieved. The first
section explains the approach to the analysis; the second section discusses the bibliometrics
of the collection; the third section examines four interrelated questions concerned with
what makes it possible for scholars to engage with the Olympics as a topic, how
topics/issues enter and exit the Olympic gaze; what new ideas have been introduced as a
result of the research undertaken, and how Olympic objects of scientific research change
themselves over the course of being studied. The fourth section discusses areas of potential
and neglect and the readiness of academia to respond to old and (re-)emerging issues, and
finally, the logistics of the project are discussed.
It should be noted that our findings are limited to the 23 special issues referred to in
this report and that what follows should not be seen as a comprehensive analysis of the
field of Olympic and Paralympic studies. The authors are conscious that a great number of
new books and academic articles have been produced by Routledge and other publishers
over the course of this project.
2. Approach to analysis
The analysis of the content of 22 very distinct academic journals and over 170
articles from a range of academic disciplines across the arts, humanities and social sciences,
united loosely by the word ‘Olympic’, presented considerable methodological challenges. It
was not possible to apply well-tested methods such as systematic review or meta-analysis to
understand a particular trend or issue within the collection of special issues. However, we
were able to do a basic measuring of the authorship, methods and topics as set out below.
For each paper we have identified: the authors and their gender, discipline, country and
institution (usually but not always an Institute of Higher Education), which qualitative or
quantitative methods were used, the main topic and 4 keywords to describe it, and
whether, in our judgement, it made an empirical, theoretical or discursive new contribution
to knowledge (see Appendix 1 for details). Table 1 shows the invited journals and the
journals that have expressed an interest in the project. Journals from nine broad fields of
scientific enquiry across arts, humanities , social sciences and engineering were invited
including education, engineering, environment, culture, leisure, media, policy and planning,
tourism and sport. Table 2 shows the participating journals and the topic of the special
issue. Appendix 2 lists all participating journals and provides a hyperlink to the special issue.
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Table 1. Invited journals and those which expressed interest in publishing a special issue
Journal Field Journal
Education
Educational Review
Archives and Records
International Journal of Disability Development and Education
Physical Education & Sport Pedagogy
Engineering
Footwear Science
Journal of Building Performance Stimulation
Structure & Infrastructure Engineering
Environment
Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning
Landscape Research
Transport Reviews
Culture
Celebrity Studies
Consumption Markets and Culture
Cultural Trends
International Journal of Heritage Studies
Social Identities
Visual Studies
Leisure
Leisure Sciences
Leisure Studies
Media
Critical Studies in Media Communication
Mass Communication and Society
Policy & Planning
City
New Political Economy
International Gambling Studies
International Planning Studies
Mobilities
Planning Perspectives
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Tourism
Current Issues in Tourism
Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events
Journal of Sport & Tourism
Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change
Visitor Studies
Sport
European Journal of Sport Science
European Sport Management Quarterly
The International Journal of the History of Sport
International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics
Journal of Sports Sciences
Measure in Physical Education and Exercise Science
Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise
Research Methods in Sports Medicine
Reflective Practice
Soccer and Society
Sport in History
Sport in Society
Sport, Ethics and Philosophy
Sport Technology – 7/5 papers – 9/7 (paralympic)
Sports Biomechanics
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Table 2. Routledge Special Issue Collection on the Olympic and Paralympic Games (2012)
Journal name Volume Issue Issue title J-IF
City 16 4 Un-linking the rings: Cities and the Olympic Games N/A
Educational Review 64 3 Olympism and Education: A Critical Review 0.66
International Journal of Disability, Development and Education 59 3 The Paralympic Games 0.592
Archives and Records 33 1 Community Engagement and the Olympic and Paralympic Games N/A
Reflective Practice 13 3 Coaching for Performance: Realising the Olympic Dream N/A
Sport in Society 15 5 Bearing Light: Flame Relays and the Struggle for the Olympic Movement N/A
Sport in Society 15 6 The Olympic Movement and the Sport of Peacemaking N/A
Research in Sports Medicine 20 3 & 4 ACL Injury: Incidences, Healing, Rehabilitation and Prevention N/A
Mass Communication and Society 15 4 Olympics, Media, and Society 0.827
Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science 16 3 World Record Prediction and Human Limit in Track and Field and
Swimming
N/A
Celebrity Studies 3 3 The Olympics N/A
European Sport Management Quarterly 12 4 Managing the Olympic Experience: Challenges and Responses 0.875
Journal of Sports Sciences 30 11 Sport Science and the Olympics 1.93
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Journal of Sport & Tourism 16 4 Sport, Tourism & the Olympic Games N/A
Leisure Studies 31 3 Leisure, Culture & the Olympic Games 0.556
Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events 4 2 The Unintended Policy Consequences of the Olympics and Paralympics N/A
Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise 4 2 Paralympics and Disability Sport N/A
Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 6 2 Olympic Ethics and Philosophy N/A
Sport in History 32 2 Britain, Britons and the Olympic Games N/A
Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change 10 2 Tourism and the Olympics 0.175
Sports Technology 3 4 Aerodynamics in Olympic Sports N/A
The RUSI journal 157 2 Olympic Security N/A
Visual Studies 27 2 Olympics Special Issue N/A
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As the underlying premise of the Routledge Special Issue Collection was to promote
new critical scholarship, it was decided to focus this analysis on knowledge creation. In the
context of the present report, knowledge is interpreted both as a means (i.e., routine-
procedural knowledge that is concrete and manual) and as a goal (i.e., declarative-
generative knowledge that is abstract and intellectual). It is generally believed that the apex
of generative declarative knowledge is creative knowledge in the sense of knowledge
creation (Kaufman and Runco, 2009). However, knowledge is not an enduring object with
constant properties, but rather something which is constantly recreated in a particular
context. Therefore, it has to do with understanding, and as Piaget (1976) argued, “to
understand is to create”. The main generative mechanism for new knowledge creation
comes from the exercise of judgement – the ability of researchers to draw new distinctions
concerning an issue at hand within the context of a dialogical relationship with particular
group, community or society (Tsoukas, 2009).
Since the themes of the special issues in this collection spanned a wide range of
fields, from pedagogy to psychology, management, politics and bio-sciences, it made little
sense to focus on discipline-specific knowledge, as the analysis would have been very
limited. Instead, the analysis borrowed from Hacking’s (2002) historical ontology approach
to analyse the knowledge generated in the field of Olympic studies. We were conscious that
the analysis engages with a subject area with long history and contested interpretations,
and that the studies under consideration have been published at a particular historic
moment in time leading up to the London 2012 Games.
Hacking (2002) outlines three main approaches to historical ontology, each
concerned with a different central issue. The first approach examines how the historical
possibilities arise for scholars to take interest in a ‘thing’. The second approach is concerned
with how objects enter and exit the scientific gaze, and the third focuses on the things that
come to be in the world as result of the very activities of scientists. Ribes and Polk (2012)
proposed a fourth approach to historical ontology, which is interested in how objects of
scientific research themselves change over the course of being studied. The combination of
these four approaches provided a structure to the analysis. More specifically the following
questions were addressed:
(i) How did the possibility emerge for the wider academic community to take
an interest in Olympic and Paralympic matters?
(ii) How did objects enter and exit the Olympic and Paralympic gaze?
(iii) Which topics and issues have emerged as result of the research activities
of Olympic and Paralympic scholars? and
(iv) Which Olympic/Paralympic-related phenomena have themselves changed
over the course of being studied?
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3. Bibliometric results
(Note: the data below are based on the first 23 special issues, as of January 21st
2013).
Volume: These issues covered 2,535 pages of varying sizes and formats, and contained
174 articles including relevant editorials. The smallest were the pages (two articles) in
the Royal United Services Institute Journal on security and private investment in
London, and the largest (201 pages) in Sport Ethics & Philosophy (13 articles). These
were prepared by 308 writers, of whom 35% were women.
Of these, 36% were from non-sport disciplines and backgrounds, who had not published
regularly on sport or Olympism. The twelve sports- related journals had been running
for an average of 17 years, with only three relatively new titles; the 11 non-sport
journals were twice as old on average at 34 years, with only two new titles.
Special focuses: As Table 3 shows, there were eleven specific topics, only one of which
- paralympism - appeared in both a sport and non-sport journal. Only sports tourism
was also given two separate issues. The most microscopic attention was given to
diagnosing, treating and preventing anterior cruciate ligament injuries, one of the most
common and debarring sports injuries.
It was good to see the introduction of fields such as archiving, photography, journalism,
architecture and planning. Many, of course, will have used 2012 opportunistically, and
probably will not repeat their adventure. Likewise, it was good to see journals like
Archives and Records, City, Mass Communication & Society, the Royal United Services
Institute Journal entering the Olympic fray. Eleven journal editors were from a non-
sports background and some invited guest editors knew something about the field.
Table 3. Journals’ special focuses
Focus Journal/Issue No of
articles
AC Ligament injuries Res in Sp Med 20,3-4 (7)
Torch Relay Sp in Society 15,5 (8)
Paralympics Qual Res in Sp Ex& Health 4,2 (7)
Olympics & peace(making) Sp in Society 15, 6 (11)
Sports tourism Sp & Tourism 16,4 (4)
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J Tour Cul Change 10,2 (8)
OG unintended consequences J Pol Res in To Lei Events 4,2 (5)
Archiving Archives Records 33,1
(5)
Olympic celebrity Celebrity Studies 3,3 (5)
Media coverage Mass Comm & Society 15,4 (8)
Coaching Reflective Practice 13,3 (11)
Security Jnl Roy Unit Serv Instit 75,2 (2)
Paralympics Int Jnl Dis Dev & Educ 59,3 (7)
Origins: Authors come from only 19 countries, but 88% from six countries: UK 116
(38%), USA 57 (19%), Canada 39 (13%), Australia 38(12%), China 9(3%), and Italy 9 (3%).
People are obviously clustered by discipline, and often work with their PhD tutors or
students. Likewise, editors choose individuals they know well and believe, rightly on the
evidence, will deliver, which tends to cluster writing (for a sophisticated analysis of
sports scholarship in the US, see Quatman and Chelladuriai, 2008). Of the top four
countries of origin 110 HEIs were mentioned, but only twelve five or more times, as
follows:
UK USA Australia Canada
Loughborough 9 U Chicago 5 Griffith U 6 U Ottawa 5
UC Lancs 8 U Sydney 5
ChrCh U Cant 6 U Queensland 5
U Wolv’ton 5
Leeds Met U 5
Bath U 5
Harperbury C 5
Total HEI 43 32 14 22
Non HEI 16 7 5 4
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In the UK it is not surprising to see Loughborough in first place, but Harperbury
College’s appearance is due to three authors working together. There were a few
people from outside HEIs, local or central government, and private companies or
consultancies. Half of the papers had single authors, 27% had two, 14% three and a
handful more –one Australian paper on preventive practice for AC Ligament injuries had
nine, from six HEIs!
Coverage of Games and allied issues: As Table 4 shows, 29% papers focussed on a
particular summer or winter Games, and only one article in ten focused on London
2012, with Beijing next.
Table 4. Focus on particular Olympic or Paralympic Games
Summer venues Winter venues
Earlier 3 Turin 2006 2
Sydney 2000 2 Vancouver 2010 4
Athens 2004 6 Sochi 2014 2
Beijing 2008 12
London 2012 17 Youth Games 2010 2
Rio de Janeiro 2016 3
Disciplines: 14 sports-related disciplines and 29 non-sports disciplines were presented,
of which ten had more than four people, as follows (Table 5)
Table 5. Disciplines in sport and non-sport special issues
Sports no Non-sports no
Sociology 23 Journalism 13 (2 for sport)
Psychology 23 Engineering 12
PE 16 (5 Adapted) Photography 10
Philosophy 16 Geography 9
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Management 15 Sociology 8
Biomechanics 12 Design/architecture 5
Sport tourism 12 Political science 5
Sports medicine 12 Planning/urban studies 5
Sports history 8 Cultural studies 5
Coaching studies 8 History 5
This is an eclectic mixture in both cases, again substantially affected by the journals
which chose to take part, and the clustering of scholars. Perhaps one of the most
interesting teams was one from four US Universities studying the effect of parent child
functioning and TV watching on disabled and non-disabled children, with a paediatric
medic (interested in statistics), a child physiologist, a sociologist and a public health
specialist.
Research Methods: In this sample, quantitative methods are barely visible-
experiments by the biomechanists, some modelling but many use documentary analysis
and interviews (Table 6).
Table 6. Research methods used by the authors (where specified/derivable, excluding
editorials)
Qualitative Quantitative
Document analysis 74 Ethnography 3 Experiments 5
Interviews 20 Questionnaires 4* Modelling 4
Focus groups 2 Observation 5 C factor analysis 1
Discourse/debate 17 Photographs 9 Statistical modelling 1
Semiotics 1 Literature review 6+
Descriptive stats 3
*two by email and one claimed to be systematic
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4. The Routledge Special Issue Collection: Knowledge Creation
How, historically did scholars come to engage with the Olympic theme?
From the first modern history of the Ancient Olympic Games by Gilbert West (1749)
to the present day, scholars have been interested in the subject and a great deal of
knowledge has been created. But the conditions to enable engagement with the topic
have varied significantly over the centuries. There were three broad categories of
conditions – Games, governance and publishing-related - that have stimulated the
academic community to take an interest in Olympic matters.
Games-related conditions
London marked a departure from the traditional model of a single-themed or
abstract Games focusing on athletes (e.g., Athens 2004), regeneration (e.g., Barcelona
1996), the environment (e.g., Sydney 2000) or harmony, technology and peace (e.g.,
Beijing 2008). London made two concrete offers. The first was inward-looking and
promised to deliver a lasting social, economic and sporting legacy for Britain. The second
was outward-looking and promised to inspire the youth of the world to engage with
sport, which by extension was London’s way of saying ‘thank you’ to the Olympic
Movement for awarding the Games to the UK.
Governance-related conditions
Never before in the history of the Olympic Games has the government of the host
country made a commitment to use the event to deliver six substantial promises:
economic (supporting new jobs and skills, encouraging trade, inward
investment and tourism);
sporting (developing a world class sport system, providing more sports
facilities and encouraging participation in school sports and more widely);
social and volunteering (inspiring others to volunteer and encouraging social
change);
regeneration (reuse of venues, new homes, improved transportation, in East
London and at other sites) and
for people with disabilities (changing societal perceptions about disability and
creating equal opportunities for participation in life - DCMS, 2007, 2009).
The delivery of this commitment entailed putting in place complex governance
mechanisms and structures to steer collective actions, beyond what the I nternational
Olympic Committee (IOC) had previously required of the host Organising Committee.
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Publishing-related conditions
Routledge is a world leading academic publisher with a journal portfolio including
more than 1,700 academic journals. No other publisher has the same capacity and
breadth in its publishing programme. The company headquarters are in the UK which
allowed for better coordination with the Routledge Special Issue Collection’s executive
editor, journal editors and authors. Of the 23 journals participating in the project so far,
74% (17) had a UK-based editor and editors of the special issue. Another important
condition that emerged in the process of publishing this collection was Routledge’s
three-year engagement with ICSEMIS as a sponsor, allowing for active global promotion
of the project. An innovation of the project with considerable implications for creating
future possibilities for engaging with the academic community on Olympic themes was
to make some 70 articles (40%) of the content freely available online, which resulted in
some 5,000 downloads by the end of December 2012.
These three interrelated conditions have framed the London Games not just as a
sporting event but as a social, political, economic and cultural phenomenon with far
reaching implications. These also naturally generated the curiosity of researchers who
started interrogating a range of issues related to the organisation, management, political
and legal regulation of the Games, their media coverage, and their beneficiaries. Table 7
shows the history of involvement of non-sport journals with Olympic and Paralympic
matters prior to the launch of the Routledge Special Issue Collection in 2012. Over the
course of more than 150 years of their combined existence, the ten non-sport journals
published 14 articles dedicated to Olympic and Paralympic matters. Although the five-
fold growth of papers around 2012 in the ten journals cannot be solely attributed to the
project, it is clear that the combination of historical
Journal Established Olympic articles
published to 2012
(N)
Special issue articles
submissions/published
(N)
Celebrity Studies 2010 0 ?/5
City 1996 4 ?/5
Educational Review 1948 0 16/9
Intl Journal of
Disability,
Development and
1954 2 ?/6
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Education
Journal of Policy
Research in Tourism,
Leisure & Events
2009 4 ?/6
Journal Royal United
Services Institute
1857 2 ?/2
Journal of the Society
of Archivists
1955 0 ?/3
Journal of Tourism &
Cultural Change
2003 0 ?/8
Mass Communication
& Society
1998 2 40/9
Visual Studies 2002 0 ?/15
Total articles 14 ?/68
Table 7. Non-sport journals’ record of publishing dedicated Olympic articles
conditions has created an enhanced possibility for scholars from a range of non-
sporting background to engage with the Olympic theme. So, where disciplinary
attachments could be verified 45% (1233 of 276) authors came from non-sport
departments or institutions, exactly the sort of academic ‘diaspora’ one would hope to
engender through such an initiative.
Which topics entered and exited the Olympic gaze?
Warning, Ju Mae & Toohey (2008) mapped the discipline of the Olympic Games , and
identified 13 thematic clusters including critical feminism, critical reformers, sport policy
and international relations, ideals and questions, drugs, the revival, athletic
performance, legal aspects, performance, the history of women’s Olympic involvement,
the Ancient Games, the North American perspective and Olympism.
Although the historical period under consideration is very short to make any grand
conclusions about the total exit or emergence of topics in the Olympic gaze, the
Routledge Special Issue Collection nonetheless allowed for some interesting
observations to be made. Eight of Warning et al’s (2008) clusters were present in
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various forms in several journals. Four clusters, including international relations, the
revival (there was one article on Ancient Games), legal aspects and the Ancient Games
did not receive any treatment.
Well- worn topics related to the Olympics which had previously commanded much
writing but did not do so in this collection were gender (only four articles),race and
ethnic issues (three articles), only four items on the hot topic of the previous two
summer Games, environmental impact, and nothing so far on doping.
More specifically, we consider that several topics have successfully entered the
Olympic gaze. The focus of the European Sport Management Quarterly special issue was
on managing the Olympic experience, which is a topic of critical importance to the
Olympic Movement in times of changing multi-polar systems of international relegations
and a deep crisis of Western economies. This is because, as the guest editors noted,
“both of these phenomena have important implications for Olympic management, in
relation to understanding the issues of delivery of an event with universalist pretensions
in culturally varied contexts, and in respect to the need to deliver value in times of
economic difficulty” (Chatziefstathiou and Henry, 2012, p. 313). Since almost all of this
writing preceded the event, some ideas on how management performed will have to
await volume 2 of the Routledge Handbook of the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic
Games (Girginov, forthcoming) and the Ecorys/Loughborough University (2013) meta-
evaluation for the Department of Culture Media and Sport. It is of course very difficult
for researchers to get into the host OG/governmental machine at its time of greatest
pressure.
The topic of Visual Studies was on ‘Seeing the Olympics: Images, Spaces, Legacies’.
The editors and the contributing authors introduced a different perspective on the
Olympics as an international sporting spectacle. Using a style of photo-essays almost
entirely absent from the main stream Olympic/Paralympic studies, this special issue
provided “a series of shifting lenses on this complex global event, extending the visual
repertoire for representing the Olympics and providing new insights into its significance,
local and global” (Coles, Knowles and Newbury, 2012, p. 117).
The Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change explored ‘Tourism at the Olympic
Games: Visiting the World’. This special issue has shifted the academic preoccupation
with tourism solely as a consumptive practice of late capitalism to a much less
understood and explored topic. As the editors of the journal Ploner and Robinson (2012,
p. 99) suggested “at the level of the tourist experience, the Olympic Games produce a
kaleidoscopic range of intangible engagements with place, time and spectacle, fresh
negotiations with ideas of nation and the cosmopolitan, invoking collective memories,
touching on emotions and generating a sense, however fleeting, of global communitas”.
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Both the Journal of Sports Sciences and Measurement in Physical Education and
Exercise Science have submitted to scrutiny the link between sport science and the
Olympics. The success of the Olympic spectacle relies to a large extent on the record
breaking performances of athletes. But Balmer, Pleasence and Nevill (2012) questioned
human abilities and argued that in some sports/disciplines further general growth in
performance will need to rely on technological or technical innovations. This issue poses
a range of ethical issues for sport scientists and event organisers.
At the heart of the Olympic and Paralympic Games project is the notion of
excellence, as expressed through the exploits of athletes at the Games, and its
inspirational power to draw young people to sport and better citizenship. Celebrity
Studies submitted for consideration the controversial role of modern elite athletes when
they get elevated to celebrity status and whether they serve the cause of Olympism or
the reproduction of an achievement culture and commercial consumption.
Two journals – Educational Review and Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, albeit
completely independently and from different perspectives, submitted the topic of
whether Olympism, as an educational philosophy, is fit for children and schools. While
Educational Review was concerned with Olympism in the curricula and the experiences
of children and athletes, Sport, Ethics and Philosophy questioned the values of the IOC’s
latest project, the Youth Olympic Games.
Of course, the legacy issue has appeared in the literature for some years, for the
earlier times as a matter of good after-use of the venues, then of environmental
sustainability, and more recently and in response to the London bid of social
sustainability in terms of increased mass and elite participation, and local residents and
traders feeling fairly treated. This time 24 articles concerned themselves with aspects of
legacy, two raising the issue of the level of security precautions after the New York and
London terrorist attacks and after Beijing’s precedent, one even speaking of ‘lockdown
London,’ elements of which will outlast the event.
What were Researcher- generated Olympic topics?
A notable contribution of the Routledge Special Issue Collection on the Olympic and
Paralympic Games has been to the further construction of the topic of Olympic legacy.
While concerns with mega events’ legacy have existed before this project, what the 24
(14%) articles in this collection have achieved was to interpret Olympic legacies as no
longer an abstract concept but to legitimise it as a specific way of being and acting.
Through introducing new categories of legacy subject to scrutiny and classification
systems for their interpretation and management, various contributions have been
questioning the role of the Olympic Games as a project for social change as well as the
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behaviour of individuals and institutions to live up to the proclaimed legacies of the
Games.
What were changing Olympic phenomena?
The Routledge Special Issue Collection on the Olympic and Paralympic Games made
some distinct contributions to the fourth analytical question, which Olympic-related
phenomena have themselves changed over the course of being studied? Firstly, Sport,
Ethics and Philosophy examined the changing nature of the fundamental Olympic
values, the format of competition, and the key factors that have contributed to this
change. More specifically, the special issue engaged with one of the more recent
innovations within the Olympic Movement – the Youth Olympic Games, which for the
first time included mixed gender and nationality competitions. It questioned where the
new slogan ‘Excellence, Friendship, Respect’ sprang from and its relation to earlier
formulations or other emphases. As the guest editors, McNamee and Parry (2012,
p.104) observed “this mutation reminds us that the Olympic Games, and the Olympic
movement more generally, is not a static phenomenon, but one that changes through
time, and requires continued attention and analys is”.
Secondly, the special issue Journal of Sport & Tourism, as well as other papers in
various journals, not only helped generate a new topic of investigation, but also
documented the changing interpretations of Olympic legacy and their implications for
policy makers, educators and managers. Weed, Stephens and Bull (2011) point out that
the Games were, to borrow an economic term, an ‘exogenous shock’ to English tourist
policy, which in London then took a battering from local policies to discourage workers
and traders form travelling in the Olympic fortnight, when some regular tourist flows
had already been diverted (as in most world-city Olympics) by threats of congestion and
high prices, which did not eventuate.
Thirdly, in the first of the two special issues of Sport in Society, ‘Bearing light: Flame
relays and the struggle for the Olympic Movement, the guest editor, John MacAloon,
offered a fascinating study of the Olympic Flame Relay which was instituted in 1936 to
celebrate the Berlin Olympics, spanning 25 years, from the Los Angeles in 1984 to the
IOC pronouncement in 2009 that there would be no more global relays. As MacAloon
(2012, 575) pointed out “this extended ethnological research offers a rare case study of
continuity and change in a leading transnational and transcultural ritual form. It also
further exposes the managerial revolution, with its characteristic language of ‘world’s
best practice,’ that has succeeded the commercial revolution in international Olympic
affairs”.
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5. The process behind the Routledge Special Issue Collection on the Olympic and
Paralympic Games
The Routledge Special Issue Collection was conceived as a contribution of the
research community to the academic legacy of the London Olympic Games. The decision
making process on the part of the publisher took a very short time which allowed a
sufficient period to plan and prepare the special issues. A critical part of the process was
its openness, inclusiveness and lack of any attempts to appropriate and institutionalise
the initiative. All journals retained the editorial freedom to decide on the thematic
orientation and the format of their special issue. The editorial boards of some journals
took longer than others to negotiate these issues, but eventually they were able to
publish their collections. The only coordinating roles were these of the executive
academic editor and Routledge to ensure regular and efficient communications with
editors and authors, and quick logistical decisions.
Ensuring a timely subscription to the project by as many journals and as early as
possible proved to be critical for creating greater synergy between the various special
issues, topics and authors. As a result, several journals which were not originally
approached expressed an interest in the project, and delivered very original numbers.
There were also journals which for various reasons had to drop out. Regular
communications between Routledge’s editorial team and participating editors was
maintained for three years through two workshops, a news bulletin and countless
personal emails and telephone calls.
The project was widely promoted through a number of interna tional conferences
between 2009 and 2012, via global professional email lists, ICSEMIS congress
communications, and a dedicated original online platform – Routledge Online Studies on
the Olympic and Paralympic Games (www.routledgeonlinestudies.com).
The official launch of the project took place at a friendly reception during ICSEMIS in
Glasgow, was hosted by Routledge, and generated a high level of publicity (Figures 1, 2).
21
Figure 3
Team members, Kate Nuttall, Rachel Kirton and Vassil Girginov (left to right) at the RCUK
award ceremony with Gareth Smith, head of Podium
Figure 1
Executive Editor, Vassil Girginov
at the launch in Glasgow
Figure 2
Team members Kate Nuttall and Vassil
Girginov at the launch in Glasgow
22
Further, the Research Council UK (RCUK) presented the prestigious bronze award for an
exceptional research contribution to the Routledge Special Issue Collection project
members at a gala reception in East London on 2nd May 2012 (Figure 3), amongst more than
200 projects entered in the national competition.
Conclusion
What are the challenges arising from this wide collection of paper?
For publishing – the project initiative was innovative and demonstrated that
publishers can make significant contribution to promoting multidisciplinary and
interdisciplinary studies in a particular field through focused publication
programmes. Although such initiatives should not be seen as substitute for proper
research projects, they can nonetheless provide considerable impetus in generating
new knowledge, and can be selectively replicated with regard to other events or just
to promote a field.
For Olympic/Paralympic research – given the fixed timescale, how can proper
measurement of longer term legacies be successfully instituted when the earliest
they can have an effect is on the Games after next? Can more research be done to
gather the opinions and responses of schoolchildren, host city residents and citizens?
And can there be follow up on earlier studies? Only two, one empirical and one
opinionative, appear in this collection.
For the IOC - what are the sport development and social legacies of the Games to
be? Does it want the Olympic machine to continue growing in economic power,
political influence and organisational complexity, foreclosing its hosting by all , but
the ‘safe hands’ of mega-cities, when the generative effect is clearly greater on cities
of a more modest size?
For host cities - can top down, mandated and bottom-up responsive-to-people
planning be reconciled?
Even at this interim report stage, Routledge may be pleased with the outcome of the
initiative in terms of the number of non-sport journal and authors taking part, at some new
topics, and the stimulation of many new ideas.
23
References
Abrahams, H. (1969). The Commonwealth at the Olympics, The Round Table, 59: 233, 44-50
Balmer, N., Pleasence, P. and Nevill,A. (2012). Evolution and revolution: Gauging the impact
of technological and technical innovation on Olympic performance Jnl of Sports Sciences
30,11 1075-83
Chatziefstatiou, D., and Henry, I. (2012) .Managing the Olympic experience: Challenges and
responses Eur Sport Management Quarterly 12,4 313-5
Coles, P. Knowles, C. and Newbury, D. (2012) Seeing the Olympics: images, spaces, legacies
Visual Studies 27, 2 117-8
Girginov, V. (forthcoming 2014?) Routledge Handbook of the 2012 Games Volume 2
Celebrating the Games London: Routledge
Grant Thornton/Ecorys/Loughborough University/Oxford Economics (2012) Meta-
evaluation of the impacts of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games Interim
evaluation London: GT
Hacking, I. (2002). Historical Ontology. London: Harvard University Press.
Kaufmann, G. And Runco, M. (2009) Knowledge management and the management of
creativity, 150-9I in T. Rickards, M. Runco and S. Moger (Eds) The Routledge Companion to
Creativity London: Routledge.
MacAloon, J.J. (2012). Introduction: the Olympic flame relay. Local knowledge of a global
ritual form Sport in Society 15, 5 575-94.
McNamee, M. and Parry, J. (2012). Olympic ethics and philosophy: Old wine in new bottles
Sport Ethics and Philosophy 6, 2 104-7.
Ploner, J. and Robinson, M. (2012). Tourism at the Olympic Games: visiting the world Jnl of
Tourism and Cultural Change10,2 99-104.
Quatman, C., and Chelladuria, P. (2008). Social network theory and analysis Jnl of Sport
Management 22, 3 338-60.
Tsoukas, H. (2009). Creating organisational knowledge dialogically: an outline of a theory. In
T. Rickards, M. Runco and S. Moger (Eds). The Routledge Companion to Creativity, (pp. 160-
176). London: Routledge.
Veal, A,J., Toohey, K. and Frawley, S.(2012). The sport participation legacy of the Sydney
2000 Games and other international sporting events hosted in Australia Jnl of Policy
Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events 4,2 155-84
24
Warning,P. Ju Mae,R.C. and Toohey,K. (2008). Mapping the discipline of the Olympic Games
in author co-citation analysis, SMU Economics & Statistics Working Paper15 Sydney
University of Technology
Weed, M., Stephens, J. and Bull, C. (2011). An exogenous shock to the system? The London
2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and British Tourist policy Jnl of Sport & Tourism, 16,4
345-77
West, G. (1749). Odes of Pindar, With several other Pieces in Prose and Verse, Translated
from the Greek. To which is prefixed A Dissertation on the Olympick Games (London, 1749,
1753, 1766; Dublin, 1751).
25
Appendix 1 Lists from bibliometry 21.1.2014
Issues 23 Articles 174 including editorials where relevant Pages 2,535
Authors 299 males, 109 female;
Countries of origin
UK 116 Greece 5 Serbia 2
USA 57 Czech Republic 4 Brazil 2
Canada 39 Sweden 4 Netherlands 2
Australia 38 New Zealand 3 Russia 1
Peoples Rep of China 9 France 3 Singapore 1
Italy 9 Norway 3 S Korea 1
Japan 5 Germany 3 Not known 2
Coverage of Games and allied issues
Summer venues Winter venues
Earlier 3 Turin 2006 2
Sydney 2000 2 Vancouver 2010 4
Athens 2004 6 Sochi 2014 2
Beijing 2008 12
London 2012 17 Youth Games 2010 2
Rio de Janeiro 2016 3
26
Special focuses
Focus Journal/Issue no of article/s
AC Ligament injuries Res in Sp Med 20,3-4 (7)
Torch Relay Sp in Society 15,5 (8)
Paralympics Qual Res in Sp Ex& Health 4,2 (7)
Olympics & peace(making) Sp in Society 15, 6 (11)
Sports tourism Sp & Tourism 16,4 (4)
J Tour Cul Change 10,2 (8)
OG unintended consequences J Pol Res in To Lei Events 4,2 (5)
Archiving Archive Records 33,1 (5)
Olympic celebrity Celebr Studies 3,3 (5)
Media coverage Mass Comm & Society 15,4 (8)
Coaching Reflective Practice 13,3 (11)
Security Jnl Roy Unit Serv Instit 75,2 (2)
Paralympics Int Jnl Dis Dev & Educ 59,3 (7)
Research Methods (where specified/derivable) (Excluding editorials)
Qualitative Quantitative
Document analysis 74 ethnography 3 experiments 5
Interviews 20 questionnaires 4* modelling 4
Focus groups 2 observation 5 C factor analysis 1
Discourse/debate 17 photographs 9 Statistical modelling 1
Semiotics 1 Literature review 6+
27
Descriptive stats 3
two by email +one claimed to be systematic
28
Appendix 2. List of participating (and now published) journals with hyperlinks to the special Olympic or Paralympic special issue
Also available here: http://explore.tandfonline.com/page/pgas/roso-olympic-special-issues.php
Special Issue: Sports, Ethics and Philosophy
Olympic Ethics and Philosophy
Volume 6, Issue 2, 2012
Special Issue: Journal of Sport & Tourism
Sport, Tourism and the Olympic Games
Volume 16, Issue 4, 2011
Special Issue: Leisure Studies
Leisure, Culture and the Olympic Games
Volume 31, Issue 3, 2012
29
Special Issue: Reflective Practice
Coaching for Performance: Realising the Olympic Dream
Volume 13, Issue 3, 2012
Special Issue: Archives and Records (formerly known as Journal of the Society of Archivists)
Community Engagement and the Olympic and Paralympic Games
Volume 33, Issue 1, 2012
Special Issue: Mass Communication and Society
Olympics, Media, and Society
Volume 15, Issue 4, 2012
Special Issue: Visual Studies
30
Olympics Special Issue
Volume 27, Issue 2, 2012
Special Issue: Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events
The Unintended Policy Consequences of the Olympics and Paralympics
Volume 4, Issue 2, 2012
Special Issue: Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change
Tourism at the Olympics
Volume 10, Issue 2, 2012
Special Issue: Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health
Paralympics and Disability Sport
Volume 4, Issue 2, 2012
31
Special Issue: Sport in History
Britain, Britons and the Olympic Games
Volume 32, Issue 2, 2012
Special Issue: Educational Review
'Olympism' and Education: A Critical Review
Volume 64, Issue 3, 2012
Special Issue: Sport in Society
Bearing Light: Flame Relays and the Struggle for the Olympic Movement
Volume 15, Issue 5, 2012
32
Special Issue: Sport in Society
The Olympic Movement and the Sport of Peacemaking
Volume 15, Issue 6, 2012
Special Issue: European Sport Management Quarterly
Managing the Olympic Experience: Challenges and Responses
Volume 12, Issue 4, 2012
Special Issue: Research in Sports Medicine
ACL Injury: Incidences, Healing, Rehabilitation, and Prevention
Volume 20, Issue 3-4, 2012
Special Issue: International Journal of Disability Development and Education
The Paralympic Games
Volume 59, Issue 3, 2012
33
Special Issue: Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science
World Record Prediction and Human Limit in Track and Field and Swimming
Volume 16, Issue 3, 2012
Special Issue: Sports Technology
Aerodynamics in Olympic Sports
Volume 3, Issue 4, 2010
Special Issue: Celebrity Studies
The Olympics
Volume 3, Issue 3, 2012
34
Special Issue: Journal of Sports Sciences
Sports Science and the Olympics
Volume 30, Issue 11, 2012
Special Issue: City
Un-linking the rings: cities and the Olympic Games
Volume 16, Issue 4, 2012
Special Issue: The RUSI Journal
Olympic Security
Volume 157, Issue 2, 2012
35
Special Issue: International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics
Olympic and Paralympic Policy
Volume 4, Issue 3, 2012
Special Issue: Sports Technology
Paralympic Sports Technology, Published in Sports Technology
Volume 5, Issue 1-2, 2012
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