Olympic Media: Reflecting or Directing Society?

About the event

Acclaimed author, professor and speaker Andrew Billings will visit Washington State University on Thursday, April 9 at 4 p.m. in Cleveland Hall 30E. The event is free and open to the public.

In his lecture, Billings will discuss the ways in which the Olympics represent America and how the mass consumption of content from the Olympic Games affects issues of identity.

“I’ll share how the Olympics can render altered views of issues such as nationality, gender, and race, yet with a practical eye on the balance between NBC’s broadcaster’s aims and the perhaps altruistic goal of a representative telecast of what I have labeled ‘the biggest show on television,’” Billings said.

The 2012 London Olympics generated 99,982 hours of television coverage — the equivalent of 11 years of uninterrupted broadcasting, and the resulting audience of 3.6 billion people made it the most watched event in TV history.

Billings has published nine books which have been translated into five languages. One of them, titled Olympic Media: Inside the Biggest Show on Television, intertwined research findings with interviews with leading NBC Olympics figures such as Dick Ebersol and Bob Costas.

Billings is currently working on a follow-up book that is set to be published in 2017. WSU sport management professor Simon Ličen has collaborated with Billings since 2007, resulting in several co-authored scholarly articles.

“His research uncovers important findings regarding American society and its position in a broader world,” Ličen said. “In a way, it embodies the increasingly strong global focus and reach of Washington State University.”

Andrew Billings currently serves as the Director of the Alabama Program in Sports Communication and is Ronald Reagan Chair of Broadcasting in the Department of Telecommunication & Film at the University of Alabama.

Billings will speak as a guest of the Sport Management Program in the College of Education and the Murrow College.