2009-01-Solvoll.Pdf (1.176Mb)

Televised sport Exploring the structuration of producing change and stability in a public service institution Mona Kristin Solvoll A dissertation submitted to BI Norwegian School of Management for the degree of Ph.D Series of Dissertations 1/2009 BI Norwegian School of Management Department of Public Governance Mona Kristin Solvoll Televised sport - exploring the structuration of producing change and stability in a public service institution © Mona Kristin Solvoll 2009 Series of Dissertations 1/2009 ISBN: 978 82 7042 944 8 ISSN: 1502-2099 BI Norwegian School of Management N-0442 Oslo Phone: +47 4641 0000 www.bi.no Printing: Nordberg The dissertation may be ordered from our website www.bi.no (Research – Research Publications) ii Acknowledgements Many people have contributed in various ways to this project. I am indebted to my outstanding supervisor Professor Tor Hernes for his very unusual mind. I am grateful to the Norwegian Research Council for the funding of this thesis and to the Department of Public Governance at Norwegian School of Management, BI. Special thanks to the boys at the Centre for Media Economics and to Professor Rolf Høyer who brought me to BI. I would also like to thank the Department of Innovation and Economic Organization that generously welcomed me. Very special thanks to the Department Administrators Ellen A. Jacobsen and Berit Lunke for all their help and bright smiles. I have received valuable inspiration from many “senior” colleagues, in particular professor Tore Bakken and Professor Lars Thue. Special thanks to Professor Nick Sitter, although he supports the wrong team. Thanks also to my proof-reader, Verona Christmas-Best and the members of the committee for their insightful, comments and criticism. Without the camaraderie of my fellow doctoral students, this PhD work would have been unbearable. I am forever grateful to Stine “Barbara” Ludvigsen and Anne Louise Koefoed – I am proud to know such excellent researchers. Thanks to the old gang (Anne, Helene, Catherine, Lars and Lars) and to the study group The Inspirea Girls who helped me out in the early days. I am grateful to Tor Bang, Gerhard E. Schjelderup and Berit von der Lippe who has trusted me with their beloved students. Special thanks to the process friends of the Mimosa 2005 – important days where I suddenly understood something... My family and close friends have been a long lasting source of energy during this exhaustive period. Thanks for never loosing faith in me. Most of all, I thank my parents for their encouragement and support and thanks to Gary – AML. Oslo, December 5, 2008 Mona iii Abstract This thesis has both an empirical and a theoretical ambition. First, the empirical concern is uncovering the processes that shaped and influenced the production of televised football in the Norwegian Public Service Broadcaster, NRK from 1960 to 1995. Secondly, I hope to provide some insight into the theoretical debate on how organisational change and stability act together. If we accept the assumption that organisations are pursuing change and, at the same time, promoting stability, we need to seek a theoretical context that embrace how an organisation undergoes renewal while retaining much of its institutional inertia at the same time. Drawing on Giddens’ structuration theory (1984), the thesis investigates how structures (rules and resources) provide temporal stability that enable agents to change them. In structuration theory, the structural principles are the most abstract elements of structures while the structural properties are the most concrete. My main concern has been how structures are instantiated in practice and how practices constitute structures. The term instantiation refers to the capacity of human actors to produce a more concrete realisation of some abstract structural principles, while constitution refers to a feedback device from larger concrete structural properties of practice to abstraction. Empirically, the thesis illustrates how various aspects of public service broadcasting interact. It suggests an understanding of the “conceptual glue” which constructs and reproduces public service broadcasting as (1) a daily professional practice of producing and delivering program output, as (2) a policy organised within an institution, and (3) as an institution with a cultural ideology underpinning both programme making practices and the organising of a public service broadcaster. iv Content 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Research Topic 1 1.2 The empirical case 3 1.2.1 Aspects of public service broadcasting 6 1.2.2 The place of sports programmes within NRK 9 1.3 Theoretical context 11 1.3.1 Views of organisational change and institutional stability 13 1.3.2 Research on televised sport 19 1.4 Research strategies 21 1.4.1 How to study institutional structures and actions 21 1.4.2 How to study institutional change and stability? 23 1.4.3 Sources and interpretation 24 1.5 How the thesis is organised 24 2 THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS 26 2.1 Central concepts in structuration theory 27 2.1.1 Structures 28 2.1.2 Structural principles and structural properties 31 2.1.3 Agents 33 2.1.4 Practice and system 35 2.1.5 Structuration and organisation 37 2.1.6 Loss of sensation in the structuration theory 39 2.2 Structuration theory and organisational studies 42 2.2.1 Structuration in action 43 2.2.2 Legitimation as institutional and organisational structures 46 2.3 Continuity or transmutation of structures 51 2.3.1 Instantiation and constitute - from abstract to concrete and vice versa 52 2.3.2 Structuration, stability and change 55 2.3.3 The promise of the future is also the survival of the past 60 3 ACTIVATING STRUCTURATION THEORY 63 3.1 Empirical focus – how to study public service broadcasting 63 3.1.1 Public service obligations as structural principles of NRK 65 3.1.2 Policy and regulation as structures of NRK 68 3.1.3 Production guidelines as structural properties of NRK 72 v 3.2 Theoretical focus - How to study structural change and stability 78 3.3 Analytical focus – How to study production practices for TV sport? 82 3.3.1 How to study structural properties 84 3.3.2 How to study structural principles and structures 86 3.3.3 The choice of research strategy 88 4 INCITING MOMENTS AND EXPOSITION 91 4.1 Instantiating television practice within the radio system 91 4.1.1 Radio and television: two practices – one instantiation process 93 4.1.2 Instantiating the structural property of enlightenment 94 4.1.3 Constituting the structural principle of universalism 98 4.1.4 Instantiating the structural properties of entertainment and information 102 4.1.5 Emergent structures for programme structure, range and output 105 4.2 Early television sports production practices 112 4.2.1 Analysis of the World Cup in Ice hockey 1958 113 4.2.2 Analysis of the Cup Final in football 1961 115 4.2.3 Chapter summary - continuity from radio 120 4.3 Instantiating infotainment to prevent radio death 122 4.3.1 Constituting universalism: NRK Radio as “the” national medium 122 4.3.2 Instantiating information in radio sports productions 123 4.3.3 Instantiating structure of audience friendly radio programmes 125 4.3.4 Instantiating the structural property of audience demand in radio 128 4.3.5 A new radio sports practices – instantiating entertainment 131 4.3.6 Chapter summary – creating temporal stability 133 5 RISING ACTION 138 5.1 The need for structures 138 5.1.1 The “Bold and Challenging – strategy” of NRK TV 140 5.1.2 Conflicts within the structural property of enlightenment 142 5.1.3 Conflicts within the structural property of information 144 5.1.4 “Publicity Rules” introduced to resolve the tension 146 5.1.5 Changes in practices: from entertainment to infotainment 149 5.2 International influences on sports production in NRK? 152 5.2.1 Using sport in constituting television as a medium on its own 153 5.2.2 Sport instantiated as entertainment in the Olympic coverage 157 5.2.3 Audience-friendly practice within the BBC 160 5.3 Analysis of the Cup Final in football 1963, 1966 and 1969 162 5.3.1 Instantiating a festival of national belonging in 1963 163 5.3.2 Instantiating journalism by focusing on the game in 1966 164 5.3.3 Instantiating professional entertainment in 1969 166 vi 5.4 Analysis of the Cup Final in football 1971 167 5.4.1 Instantiating entertainment with action camera 168 5.4.2 Instantiating information with camera techniques 171 5.4.3 Instantiating a national hero with “up close and personal” 172 5.4.4 Instantiating infotainment in the commentary 174 5.4.5 Chapter summary: Difficulties in instantiating structures 175 6 CLIMAX – NRK AT THE HEIGHT OF ITS MONOPOLY 177 6.1 Closing in on two perspectives of structures 179 6.1.1 Conflicts with the structural property of information 185 6.1.2 Televised sports as a defensive position 188 6.2 Analysis of the Cup Final in football 1978 190 6.2.1 Instantiating information through camera alternation 191 6.2.2 Not using zoom and replay to instantiate entertainment 192 6.2.3 Not using plots and the syntax to instantiate entertainment 194 6.2.4 Instantiating enlightenment through “up close and personal” 195 6.2.5 Choosing action shots to instantiate entertainment 197 6.2.6 Instantiating information to football fans through team-pictures 199 6.2.7 Instantiating information in the commentary with game analysis 200 6.2.8 Attempts of personalisation and dramatisation in the commentary 202 6.2.9 Chapter summary – a constrained, but playful production practice 203 6.3 Analysis of the Cup Final in football 1980 205 6.3.1 Instantiating entertainment

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