School
University of AlbertaDepartment
Physical Education, Recreation and Leisure StudiesCourse Code
PERLS104Professor
Melanie MuiseChapter 12 Sports and The Media
Characteristics of the Media
•Print media: words and images on paper (ex. Papers, mags, books etc.)
•Electronic media: words, commentary, and images transmitted by audio
and/or video devices and technologies (ex. Radio, video games, tv, etc.)
Media Differences in Coverage Of Sports
Newspaper/Magazine
•Emphasizes info and interpretation primarily
•Offers previews and summaries of events
•Provides written representation of events
•Success depends on credibility
•Highlights facts and dominant ideology
•Provides criticism of sports and sport personalities
Radio/TV
•Emphasizes entertainment primarily
•Offers play-by-play images and narratives
•Provides real-time representations of events
•Success depends on hype and visual action
•Highlights heroic plays and dominant ideology
•Provides support for sports and sport personalities
Characteristics of the Internet
•Extends and radically changes (potentially) our connections with the world
•Isn’t limited to sequential programming
•Enables each of us to be the “editors” of our own media experiences, if we
wish
•Gives us the potential to create our own sport realities and experiences as
spectators and virtual athletes
•Media provides Info, Entertainment, and interpretation
Functionalist Theory
•Functionalism identifies the main social effects of the mass media:
coordination, socialization, social control, and entertainment. By
performing these functions, the mass media help make social order
possible
Conflict Theory
•Conflict theory offers a qualification. As vast moneymaking machines
controlled by a small group of increasingly wealthy people, the mass
media contribute to economic inequality and maintaining the core
values of a stratified social order
Interactionist Theory
•Interactionist approaches offer a second qualification: audience
members filter, interpret, resist, and sometimes reject media
messages according to our own interests and values
Feminist Theory
•Feminist approaches offer a 3rd qualification. They highlight the
misrepresentation of women and members of racial minorities in the
mass media
Media Content
Is always edited and “re-presented” by those who control media organizations
•Editing decisions are based on one or more of these goals: making
profits, sharing values, providing a public service, building artistic and
technical reputations, expressing self
Media And Power
•The media often serve the interests of those with power and wealth in
society
•As corporate control of media has become more concentrated, media
content highlights: consumerism, individualism, competition and class
inequality as natural and necessary in society
Global economic Factors in the Sports-Media Relationship
Global economic factors intensify the sport-media relationship; large corporations
need vehicles for developing
•Global name recognition
•Global cultural legitimacy
•Global product familiarity
•Global support for a way of life based on consumption, competition, and
individual achievement
Images And Messages In Media Sports
Media coverage is constructed around specific themes and messages:
Success themes
•Emphasis on winners, loser, and scores
•Emphasis on big plays, hits, and sacrificing self for team success
Masculinity and Femininity Themes
•Coverages privileges men over women
•Heterosexuality is assumed; homoness is erased and ignored
•Coverage reproduces dominant ideas about manhood, but may challenge
ideas about femininity
Images and Messages In Media Sports
•Race and ethnicity themes: racial ideology has influenced coverage of
minority athletes in Canada, especially males. Whiteness is erased in
coverage; it is assumed as the standard
•Nationalism is emphasized: “we” – “they” distinctions are common
•Individualism is highlighted
•Aggression glorified; athletes are presented as warriors