Home Advantage: Ceremonial Soft Power in the New Arena of E-sports

Abstract

This thesis investigates how opening ceremonies of sporting mega-events and e-sports events, as tool of cultural diplomacy, contribute to enhancing the host country’s soft power. Where existing literature has put considerable focus on traditional sporting mega-events, such as the Olympics and FIFA World Cup, this thesis offers a contemporary lens by adding e-sports as platform for symbolic projection in a digital age. Through a comparative case study analysis, an analytical framework is developed to compare four dimensions: Intended Audience & Style, National Narrative & Story, Symbols & Iconography, and Technology. With the analysis and comparison of the Sochi 2014 Olympics, the Games of the Future 2024 in Kazan, and the Olympic E-sports Week 2023 in Singapore, the analysis examines how the opening ceremonies are utilized as soft power tool, focusing on similarities and differences between sporting mega-events and e-sports events. Findings reveal how e-sports events offer a considerable focus on technological development - not as part of, but as the narrative. Accordingly, the concept of techno-symbolic soft power is introduced to define this phenomenon. The study advances scholarly understanding of ceremonial soft power as cultural diplomacy tool and contributes a novel understanding of e-sports as an emerging domain of cultural influence.