Examining the Broad Range of Social & Cultural Impacts of Events

This essay critically examines the social and cultural impacts of events, highlighting both positive and negative aspects. Positive social impacts include community development, improved health and well-being, and increased employment opportunities. Negative social impacts involve resource overutilization, pollution, and potential increases in crime. Positive cultural impacts encompass the development of cultural skills, promotion of social awareness, and strengthened community friendships, while negative cultural impacts may lead to cultural stereotyping and weakened community identity. The essay also addresses further issues such as authenticity loss, resource overutilization, inflated prices, and environmental concerns, concluding that events have complex and far-reaching consequences on society and culture.

Events are recognized for generating a
broad range of social and cultural
impacts.

Introduction
An event is defined as an important happening which can be of varied nature such as
historical, cultural etc. the social impact of an event is defined as the net effect that an event has
on the community and the way it affects the well- being of families as well as individuals. In
contrast this, cultural impact of an event is defined as the consequences that significantly change
the norms, practices, values and beliefs of human populations (Sharpley and Stone, 2020). The
difference between social and cultural impacts on an event is that while social impacts cover the
overall impact on the community and societies, cultural impacts include specifically the effect on
values and traditions. Events generate various social and cultural impacts which are of broad
range. The present essay critically explores these impacts of events.
Positive social impact
Major events are powerful and hold the capability to cause mobilization of large number
of people. These are also capable of creating meaningful impacts on the lives of people. Positive
impacts of events may be concerned with their ability to create an experience that is enjoyable
and pleasurable for the spectators. These events may also create an opportunity which brings
positive changes in the long term behavior of people. The various positive impacts can be
discussed as follows. Firstly, events positively impact the society by community development
(Reverté and Pérez, 2017). They perform the role of catalysts and lead to improvement in the
self-image of the residents regarding the community in which the reside. They also positively
contribute to the quality of life of people. The residents of the community feel a sense of pride
due to the event. The events also impact social networks and networking opportunities of the
residents. For example, an umbrella event named The Gathering 2013 was held in Ireland which
comprised of 5000 local gatherings and events. The event encouraged Irish people living all over
the world and they made a return visit to their native island. In this way, the event enhanced
spirit of the community and assisted in building networks within as well as outside the
community.
Secondly, events improve the health and well-being of the individuals and societies by
bringing long term behavior change. They work to improve the physical and mental health of
people. Some events also encourage and motivate people to engage in sports and art related
activities. Un this way, events lead to productivity gains and prevention of crime (Wallstam,
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Ioannides and Pettersson, 2020). Thirdly, positive impact of event can also be seen in the area of
human rights. Major events get national and international media exposure due to which they are
capable of impacting the human rights of the communities in the host country.
Fourthly, events lead to increased employment opportunities for people of the host area.
A number of activities are required to be conducted as a part of the event. These include various
tasks that need to be completed within deadlines (Roche, 2017). As the local people have better
knowledge about the area, they seem to be a great resource for the event. Hence, the people of
the host area get employment as a result of the event.
Negative social impact
The events have strong negative social impact, on working scenarios where it further has been
found to be also highly essential for gaining practical business avenues shaped on among rising
goals. Events have social negative impact on over utilization of resources within industry, where
exposure of functional new resources have been found to be also increasing as one of the major
negative impact. Events exposure has also led to literation aspect of resources in social
environment, and further critical decline among rising risk of over utilization. It can be also
analysed that negative social impact can be also analysed based on facts that there is also
increase in pollution. Events also leads to issues such as traffic, congestion and lack of access
based on community facilities and resources further on extended paradigms. Crime and
antisocial behaviour, can also increase from events if management strategies are not
implemented properly with significant focus on proper competitive goals (Jayawickreme and
et.al, 2021).
Within recent time of Covid-19, there is also risk among people getting affected within
social events where major have been postponed to minimize social interactions which is
significantly crucial. Example – Olympics 2021, has been found to be one of the major event
where there has been large decline found in social gatherings among social parameters. Negative
social impact holds crucial importance, where this needs to be minimized for attaining extensive
rise on events successful completion. There is risk of physical facilities decline, which brings on
significant factors to further be improvised on extensive developed goals. Negative social
impact, further leads to determinants where events with changing pace of time need to further
develop new range of working efficacy.
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Positive culture impacts
The events have strong positive impact, where host communities, participants are able to
further gain practical new creative advanced exposure with events being held within new
productive scenarios. There is new range of exposure developed, when events get held among
international benchmarks and further extended towards productive working scenarios. Culturally
people get diverse exposure of the best events resources, where expertise for strengthened
innovation is developed up successfully. Host country is able to develop the best cultural
ethnicity, rising social awareness among people for larger competent working avenue diversely.
This can be also analysed that culturally events are able to collaborate new talents together, work
on gaining strengthened expertise and technically bring on rise towards extensive new creative
businesses (Gorchakova and Hyde, 2021).
Example: World cup is one of the best event known to bring high range of people
awareness culturally within international grounds. Another positive cultural impact of events is
that there is high level social awareness evolved among people with new specific factors of
engagement evolved towards new range of working advancement significantly. This can be also
analysed that by further bringing in strengthened new range of positive cultural ethnicity, events
bring advanced platforms for new talent to develop the best primitive innovation. Optimum
utilization of new resources is done, which creates cultural awareness and technical expanded
business goals further for extensive new range of effectiveness.
Secondly, events lead to the development of various cultural skills and talents in people.
This makes the culture of the host area strong. Development of cultural skills is concerned with
improving the knowledge of people regarding their culture and making it strong. It also includes
knowledge about different cultural practices. Thirdly, events help in developing a positive
attitude towards the cultural differences. By making people aware about the various cultures, it
teaches them to accept the differences that exist among them. In this way, people become more
tolerable towards other cultures and accept their norms and beliefs. This leads to development of
harmony within the population of the host area (Pérez and Bernal, 2017). It also adds to the
cultural heritage of the area as the events keep the cultural beliefs and practices alive.
Fourthly, events help in strengthening of community friendships. When an event is
hosted in an area, the people of threat place work together to make it successful. Also the people
participate in the event together which improves their interaction and relations. People feel a
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sense of togetherness by participating in the event. In this way, events help in making the
community friendships strong. Fifthly, events lead to exposure to new cultural experiences.
Every event is different and gas various activities associated with it. the theme of the event is
also different and is inspired by various culture. In this way, engagement in these events enable
people to experience new cultural exposures thus adding to their knowledge (Pavluković,
Armenski and Alcántara-Pilar, 2017). This leads to a lasting positive cultural impact as people
come to know about different cultures in the host area and work together to promote them. They
learn to respect diversity. Lastly, events also have positive cultural impact by enabling the
achievement of common community goals. Some of the common community goals are
enhancement of resources for growth of individual and community, create employment
opportunities, establishment of safe and viable neighborhoods etc. Events lead to the
development of the host area as well as the people.
Negative cultural impacts
Along with the positive impacts, the events also have certain negative cultural impacts.
They highlight cultural stereotypes. Cultural stereotyping in a concept whereby people develop a
belief that all individuals within a culture have the same behavior and act the same way. It
categorizes all the members of a group as possessing the same characteristics. As a result of this,
an individual is unable to understand that significant differences exist among the people within a
culture. Events lead to cultural stereotyping which prevents the presentation of complete picture
of an individual (Shaw, 2020). Cultural stereotyping significantly impacts productivity and
morale of people and may lead to disharmony within the community at the host area.
Stereotyping leads to prejudice and discrimination which may be both intentional and
unintentional. This is a profound negative cultural impact of events.
Events may lead to weakened community identity which is based on birth and belonging.
These are determined by birth and do not involve the choice of individual. Strong community
identity provides a deep sense of security and satisfaction to the people. Events sometimes bring
abut cultural dislocation leading to the loss of cultural identity. People develop a sense of
placelessness. This may particularly happen if there is an increase in the number of events hosted
in the area.
Further issues
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Apart from the social and the cultural impacts, there are further issues associated with the
events. The may lead to authenticity loss of the host area. This is because events attract a number
of tourists who come from different parts of the world. They bring their ideas, values and
tradition which mingle with those of the host area. Continuous hosting of events may thus lead to
loss of authenticity. Another issues associated with events is that these lead to over utilization of
the resources of the host area (Radzuwan, Tan Abdullah and Tp Harun, 2019). Human, physical
and financial resources of the area are utilized to the fullest to make the event a success. Hence,
it exerts a pressure on the host area and its resources. Further, events lead to inflated prices. With
the hosting of an event, there is an inflow of the tourists to the area which makes the prices rise.
The negative impacts of the inflated prices are also borne by the people of the host area. While
event create new employment opportunities, they may also lead to greater seasonal
unemployment. This has significant negative impact on the economy of the area.
Events also have environmental impact associated with them. These include aspects such
as waste disposal, noise pollution, crowd movement etc. major events require development of
infrastructures. For example, FIFA World Cup event requires infrastructure such as roads, stadia,
rental facilities etc. All these developments may have negative impact on the environment
initially. However, it can be critically analyzed that in long term these infrastructures may prove
to be beneficial (Lundberg and et.al., 2017). The political impacts of the event are also important
to be considered. Hosting of an event would lead to issues due to misallocation of funds. Issues
may also arise due to loss of community ownership and control.
Conclusion
From the essay, it can be concluded that events have a number of social and cultural
impacts. These may be both positive and negative in nature. Positive social impacts include
creation of employment opportunities and development of area. Events lead to improvement in
the quality of life people of the host area. They also lead to better health and well – being of
people by bringing a long term behavior change. They also help in raising awareness about the
human rights of people. However, the events have negative social impact as well. These include
over utilization of resources and increase in pollution. Regarding cultural impacts, it can be
concluded that events raise awareness about the culture in the host area. They also lead to
development of cultural skills and talents in people. Further, the events are helpful in
development a positive attitude towards cultural differences.
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