The spectacle of major cultural and sporting events can preoccupy modern societies. This book is concerned with contemporary mega-events, like the Olympics and Expos. Using a sociological perspective Roche argues that mega-events reflect the major social changes which now influence our societies, particularly in the West, and that these amount to a new second phase of the modernization process. Changes are particularly visible in the media, urban and global locational aspects of mega-events. Thus he suggests that contemporary mega-events, both in their achievements and their vulnerabilities, reflect, in the media sphere, the rise of the internet; in the urban sphere, de-industrialisation and the growing ecological crisis; and in the global sphere, the relative decline of the West and the rise of China and other emerging countries.

Maurice Roche is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Sheffield

Introduction1 Mega-events and macro-social changePART I: Mega-events and media change2 Mega-events and mediatisation: between old and new media3 The Digital Age, media-sport and mega-events: piracy and symbiosis in the cultural industriesPART II: Mega-events, legacy and urban change4 Embedding mega-events: staging spectacles in changing cities5 Mega-events and urban development: Olympics and legacies6 Mega-events, urban space and social change: expos, parks and citiesPART III: Mega-events and global change in East and West7 Mega-events, globalisation and urban legacy: events in China in the early twenty-first century8 Mega-events, glocalisation and urban legacy: London as an event city and the 2012 OlympicsIndex