The present PhD thesis focuses on the relations of social change and sport, and in a narrower context, the impact of the recent and current socio-economic changes on world sport, and on Hungary's situation and opportunities in the global sport arena. Owing to the process of globalization in sport, its nation-building function, which was a defining one in the 20th century, has become a field of special interest for the sociology of sport. The objective of the dissertation is to explore the relationship of sport and national identity, through the examination of Hungarian sport politics, sport media and the views of the Hungarian public, since, despite the wide range of international literature, Hungary.s case has not been dealt with in this respect, and the issue of sport and national identity has only been marginally touched. During the research work, both qualitative (analysis of sport political documents, content analysis of sports newspapers and supporters views, case study) and quantitative methods (survey on a representative sample of the Hungarian adult population, n=1027) were applied, in order to analyze the relationship of sport and national identity more thoroughly. The research results indicate that the impact of elite sport success on national pride is taken for granted for the politicians, the media and the population as well, however, in the public discourse, the negative effects of failure, and the identity-building potential of other areas of sport are largely overlooked. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, it could be observed that political and media actors building up the discourse of a 'sport nation' were in a difficult position during the assessment of the results. The data also underline that the majority of Hungarians identify with sporting success, yet, in case of disappointing results, the identification decreases both among citizens and journalists. Elite sport can only boost national pride if it remains prolific, however, it is more difficult to be successful in the global sport arena today, than it used to be in the bipolar world, therefore, in order to strengthen the community of the nation, the integrative power of sport should also be recognized on other areas less related to competition. For this, the influence of politics ought to decrease, and civil society should come into the forefront both in the operation of sport as a social subsystem, and in the formation of national identity.
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