THE BRAZILIAN MEDIA AND THE SELECTION OF RIO DE JANEIRO TO HOST THE 2016 OLYMPIC AND PARALYMPIC GAMES
THE BRAZILIAN MEDIA AND THE SELECTION OF RIO DE JANEIRO TO HOST THE 2016 OLYMPIC AND PARALYMPIC GAMES

Summary/Abstract: The city of Rio de Janeiro was selected to host the 2016 Olympics and Paralympics Games [Rio 2016], increasing the amount of international attention focused on Brazil and its regional leadership. In this article, we investigate and describe how this event was perceived domestically in the aftermath of the announcement that Rio de Janeiro had been selected. Following a brief contextualization on the political, social and sport situation in Brazil in the years preceding its Olympic selection, we present the results of a content analysis of two national print media channels – one daily newspaper and one weekly magazine – in which we identify the major stakeholders and their interests, the challenges, and the possible legacies of Rio 2016. The study argues that, taking into account local specificities, similar discourses to past cases identified by the literature are also present in the print media, mainly the arguments of developmental discourse and identity signaling.

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