Date of Award
5-2015
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Communication and Rhetorical Studies
Advisor(s)
Erin Rand
Keywords
National Narrative, Olympics, Public Memory
Subject Categories
Communication
Abstract
This thesis examines the construction and effects of the XXVII Olympic Games’ opening ceremony as a national narrative, scripted by and for the state. The performance’s chronological structure and staging of its characters have profound effects on how Australian bodies are read and remembered as citizens. The ceremony’s narrative features a distorted retelling of colonial history that produces enormous consequences in how Indigenous and non-Indigenous, male and female actors are presented. An analysis of these characters reveals how the national narrative comes to function as a piece of political propaganda that perpetuates idealized forms of citizenship within a hegemonic patriarchal society.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Presley, Rachel Elizabeth, "Embedding Nationalism: Construction & Effects of National Narratives in the XXVII Olympic Games' Opening Ceremony" (2015). Theses - ALL. 110.
https://surface.syr.edu/thesis/110
