Abstract booklet: https://easm2023.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/EASM-Belfast-2023-Conference-Abstracts.pdf
Presentation abstracts:
Revisiting The Circumstances Of The Commission For A Sustainable London 2012
Postlethwaite, Verity; Theodoraki, Eleni
Loughborough University, United Kingdom; University College Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Aim and Research Questions
How did the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 define sustainability and articulate its assurance roles across the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games event lifecycle? This research question is part of a larger research project which focuses on the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012’s role in identifying and representing different stakeholders and processes connected to sustainability assurance claims across the lifecycle of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, 2003 to 2013.
Theoretical Background and Literature Review
Flybjerg et al (2021, p.249) explain why the Olympic Games are so difficult to manage successfully, why “cities and nations should think twice before bidding to host and that hosting the [Olympic] Games is extremely risky business in terms of cost.” A significant component of this debate is how sustainable an international sporting event can or should be. This project focuses on the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 (the Commission) and sustainability assurance claims during the are the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games (London 2012) lifecycle. The Brundtland Commission coined the sustainable development term in 1987 as countries considered the principles of living within limits to protect the environment, the economy and society. Sustainability reporting in corporate environments started circa 1997 when the Global Reporting Initiative and its guidelines were created. It now includes a specific framework for the events sector. In 2012 ISO 20121:2012 further specified requirements for an event sustainability management system. External/third[1]party assurance is meant to follow reporting as a means of validating claims. Auditing, verification, and validation are some of the tools and processes used to explore performance data and a company’s underlying systems and processes, governance (Zadek & Raynard, 2004). Theodoraki (2018) has previously discussed claims of the accuracy of third-party sustainability assurance in the case of London 2012, with this presentation building on the work by focusing on the role and position of the Commission.
Research Design, Methodology and Data Analysis
The research design for this presentation adopts a chronological approach to documentary analysis. Data from 25 of the core Commission documents were accessed and organised into the years between 2007 and 2013, for example, the Commission (2013) Beyond 2012 – Outcomes Report. The content, layout and authorship of the documents were analysed by considering the definitions of three key discourses: sustainability, assurance, and responsibility. The analytical understanding of an event lifecycle will inform the chronological approach adopted for this oral presentation. Authors, including Maurice Roche (2017), have championed the notion of tracing an event across the bidding, preparation, delivery, hosting, and legacy stages as this accounts for an event being part of a social and political milieu rather than set in a sanitized vacuum of event management. The findings and discussion will highlight chronological changes, continuities, and trends in how the three discourses were defined and the assurance role was articulated by the Commission documents between 2007 and 2013.
Results/Findings and Discussion
The findings of the documentary analysis highlight several valuable discussion points, arranged into three periods. Firstly, the inception and early development of the Commission demonstrate a managerial and technical approach to establishing the parameters of sustainability, assurance, and responsibility. Secondly, during the planning and delivery part of the event lifecycle, the Commission was notably influenced by the 2008 global financial crisis and changes in Mayoral and national UK Government leadership in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Finally, the negotiation of the event management and wider event circumstances can be seen in the latter Commission documents where there is a shift in the description of the role of assurance and responsibility around sustainability claims, there is a particular articulation of a ‘critical friend’ and how the Commission development socio-legal understanding of assurance rather than a legislative interpretation.
Conclusion, Contribution, and Implication
The conclusions are relevant to scholars considering aspects of event management, sustainability and sport, and governance of sporting events, as it contributes learnings from London 2012 over a decade from the delivery of the Games. The findings and discussion emphasize the discursive complexity of defining sustainability and assurance across the London 2012 lifecycle by the Commission. It raises questions about how the contribution and value of the Commission can be understood, and perhaps most importantly how this knowledge and learnings can be used in the current context of the ‘new norm’ event model being promoted by the International Olympic Committee and others. In terms of sustainability, there was one form of assurance conceived and another form of assurance delivered, this contributes to an important revisiting of the professional or accepted standards around sustainability claims and events.
Critically Exploring the Rugby League World Cup 2021 and the Promotion of Place in Three Towns and Cities in Northern England
Hayes, Christopher James; Postlethwaite, Verity
Teesside University, United Kingdom; Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Aim and Research Questions:
The driving research question for this presentation will be:
How was social media utilised to deliver event-related place-branding and communication strategies in three host towns/city during the Rugby League World Cup 2021 (RLWC2021)?
N.B. the event was postponed by 12 months due to concerns around the Covid-19 pandemic. It took place in October and November 2022.
Theoretical Background and Literature Review:
Scholars recognise the importance of the political context in an international sport events lifecycle. In relation to the United Kingdom (UK), de Ruyter et al. (2020) explored how sports events have been positioned as exercises in post-Brexit Britain’s growth, such as the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. However, there is limited research on the impacts of hosting such events in non-major urban areas and how national agendas or political changes (such as, Brexit, the Levelling Up agenda, or the Northern Powerhouse) have influenced the positioning of an event, particularly around the notion of placemaking. These national agendas and government visions have been framed by policymakers around the discourse of placemaking. Pertinent to this project, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has identified place-based strategies for growth as a key area for research and policy development. Hosting events is one such strategy to drive growth.
Previous research has looked at the North of England sports events from strategic and operational perspectives, demonstrating that events are significant because they can offer a range of perceived benefits to a host region and sub-regions, including raising the host’s profile, stimulating investment and growth, driving tourism, and the events themselves are increasingly thought of as legacy projects (e.g., Bell and Gallimore, 2018). Other scholars from across disciplines have developed a more holistic understanding of placemaking as part of wider policy processes and what the role of events (sporting, cultural and beyond) can play, such as Richards (2017) and Aquilino (2021). This project engages with established debates around sports events and placemaking to compare the experiences of Warrington, Middlesbrough and Doncaster during the RLWC2021.
Research Design, Methodology and Data Analysis:
This research follows a qualitative approach, drawing on a range of official and news media online sources. Specifically, the Twitter accounts for the three hosts’ local councils, destination management organisations, as well as the main tournament profile were scraped for posts during the event period, chosen for their role of communicating an official event narrative. The presentation will compare the announcements and description of the respective areas’ hosting elements of the RLWC2021. The data will be analysed through a place-based conceptual framework, constructed around UK government policies around placemaking and regeneration (Levelling Up, Northern Powerhouse). Following the approaches of Wodak and Meyer (2009), Critical Discourse Analysis will elucidate how the official and media sources communicated the announcement and description of hosting, such as the articulated benefits and use of particular phrasing connected to regeneration or larger local/national agendas.
Results/Findings and Discussion:
Through a Critical Discourse Analysis of official event documents, th RLWC2021 is a distinct example of how the UK has changed strategy in the past decade to bid for and host events in non-capital or major cities, this is connected to Brexit, Northern Powerhouse and Levelling Up rhetoric. The official documents demonstrate the influence of national agendas to frame hosting and investment of the RLWC2021. However, the findings beyond the national level and official documents exhibit a heterogenous experience for each of the three hosts, around their attempts to communicate in the build up to the event the impacts the event may have via social media. The Twitter data showcases how the three hosts utilised different Twitter accounts, such as tourism-based accounts, to communicate about hosting the RLWC2021.
Further to this, the content and discursive framing of the event was different between the three hosts. They all engaged with official hashtags and tournament branding, but used Twitter and local print media to communicate a place-specific narrative of the value of hosting the event in Warrington, Middlesbrough and Doncaster.
Conclusion, Contribution and Implication:
This presentation will critically explore the significance of sporting and political contexts in the communication strategies by Warrington, Doncaster and Middlesbrough during the planning and delivery of the RLWC2021. The presentation will demonstrate the diverse and varying impacts and articulations of placemaking that emerge from specific place-based contexts, reflecting the potential for events to be leveraged for individual local priorities. It will contribute to the growing body of non-capital or major city case studies on the hosting of major and mega events in the UK and globally.
VPos
veritypostlethwaite.com 