Australian nationalism and globalization: Narratives of the nation in the 2000 Sydney Olympics' opening ceremony

This paper examines how the Sydney Olympics Games' opening ceremony presented images of a linear, multicultural, and chronological narrative of Australian history. However, the ceremony's attempts to manage difference produced multiple narratives of the Australian nation. Textual analysis of the Australian Channel 7 broadcast and newspaper coverage of the Olympics show how the ceremony's narrative of a united Australian nation responds to the increasing disintegration of nation-states' boundaries in the context of globalization.