Leading scholars in sports communication tackle a wide range of subjects in these essays, including the ways in which people root for their teams, the consumption of sports information, and the uses of technology to cultivate fan communities. Taking an interdisciplinary approach through the fields of communication, psychology and telecommunications, this collection explores modern fans, their motives and culture, and their identification with sports and individual teams. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Communication and Sport: Surveying the Field provides students with an understanding of sports media, rhetoric, culture, and organizations through an examination of a wide range of topics. Authors Andrew C. Billings and Michael L. Butterworth address everything from youth to amateur to professional sports through varied lenses, including mythology, community, and identity. A comprehensive focus on communication scholarship gives attention to the ways that sports produce, maintain, or resist cultural attitudes about race, gender, sexuality, class, and politics. The Fourth Edition includes new interviews with prominent figures in the field and new discussions on current events like the Black Lives Matter movement and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Looking toward a future with increasingly hybridized media offerings, Sports Media: Transformation, Integration, Consumption examines sports media scholarship and its role in facilitating understanding of the increasingly complex world of sports media. Acknowledging that consumer demand for sports media content has influenced nearly every major technology innovation of the past several decades, chapters included herein assess existing scholarship while positing important future questions about the role sports media will play in the daily lives of sports fans worldwide. Contributions from well-known scholars are supplemented by work from younger researchers doing new work in this area. Developed for the Broadcast Education Association's Electronic Media Research series, this volume will be required reading for graduate and undergraduate students in media, communication, sociology, marketing, and sports management, and will serve as a valuable reference for future research in sports media.
There exists in America a peculiar, fascinating subculture. Its exotic rituals include withstanding subzero temperatures with an upper body clad only in brightly colored paint, shouting arcane statistics at talk-show broadcasters, adopting the graphic images of lucrative businesses in bursts of patriotic fervor, and finding a curious but tangible form of self-esteem in the spectacle of overgrown armored men banging each other into unconsciousness. Hello, sports fans, this is a book about you. In fact, about us! For true fans, sports are close to a religion, a substitute for politics, an outlet for the most violent tendencies, and an excuse to vent primal instincts -- in other words, to act like the maniacs we are. But for the professional leagues and the megacorporations that exploit them, sports is a lot more important than any number of brew-soaked stadium seats. It's a serious business with rules you don't break and customers you don't serve, and it makes a small group of talented and/or connected people very, very, very rich, often at the expense of "home team" taxpayers who never hear the crack of a bat or the swish of a net. In this scathing, passionate, hilarious book, Dennis Perrin, the acclaimed author of Mr. Mike, examines the species Sportus fannus from the point of view of a lifelong member. But his love of America's great games does not blind him to their routine, often cynical misuse by a sports marketing establishment that goes to absurd lengths to glorify, even deify, professional athletes, just to sell a few more pairs of sneakers to awestruck fans at home. With wit and vision, the author leads us on a no-holds-barred journey from a Midwestern high schoolbasketball rivalry to the dizzying pinstriped heights of Michael Jordan, Inc.; from the call-in-show sports "media" to the magnificent prose of legendary boxing writer A. J. Liebling; from the outrage of Dennis Rodman to the courage of Muhammad Ali; from the exultant beauty of sport to its slow desecration on the ever shorter stroll from the locker room to the board room, the one that tramples on sports fans every step of the way. Let's cut to the chase: win or lose, love or hate, rain or shine, one thing's for sure -- this book is about to start arguments in living rooms, bars, and broadcasts nationwide. So check it out for yourself. Grab a snack and a beverage, and dig in!
Longlisted for the Porchlight Business Book Awards 2022 A close look at how big money and high stakes have transformed youth sports, turning once healthy, fun activities for kids into all-consuming endeavors—putting stress on children and families alike Some 75% of American families want their kids to play sports. Athletics are training grounds for character, friendship, and connection; at their best, sports insulate kids from hardship and prepare them for adult life. But youth sports have changed so dramatically over the last 25 years that they no longer deliver the healthy outcomes everyone wants. Instead, unbeknownst to most parents, kids who play competitive organized sports are more likely to burn out or suffer from overuse injuries than to develop their characters or build healthy habits. What happened to kids' sports? And how can we make them fun again? In Take Back the Game, coach and journalist Linda Flanagan reveals how the youth sports industry capitalizes on parents’ worry about their kids’ futures, selling the idea that more competitive play is essential in the feeding frenzy over access to colleges and universities. Drawing on her experience as a coach and a parent, along with research and expert analysis, Flanagan delves into a national obsession that has: Compelled kids to specialize year-round in one sport. Increased the risk of both physical injury and mental health problems. Encouraged egregious behavior by coaches and parents. Reduced access to sports for low-income families. A provocative and timely entrant into a conversation thousands of parents are having on the sidelines, Take Back the Game uncovers how youth sports became a serious business, the consequences of raising the stakes for kids and parents alike--and the changes we need now.
Written in a non-technical, narrative style, this book is an invaluable resource for anyone concerned with current trends in urban development. During the Reagan era, responsibility for urban planning and development was transferred from government to private business. This private sector hegemony over urban development differs markedly from the liberal policy initiatives of the 1960s and 1970s. Through a series of case studies, this book examines these shifting trends and shows that private sector efforts to revitalize America's central cities have not been uniformly successful. The contributors, who are among America's leading social scientists, utilize neo-Marxist urban theory to explain the conditions under which private initiative enhances or erodes downtown redevelopment.
A Companion to American Sport History presents a collection of original essays that represent the first comprehensive analysis of scholarship relating to the growing field of American sport history. Presents the first complete analysis of the scholarship relating to the academic history of American sport Features contributions from many of the finest scholars working in the field of American sport history Includes coverage of the chronology of sports from colonial times to the present day, including major sports such as baseball, football, basketball, boxing, golf, motor racing, tennis, and track and field Addresses the relationship of sports to urbanization, technology, gender, race, social class, and genres such as sports biography Awarded 2015 Best Anthology from the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH)
The Handbook of Intergroup Communication brings together research, theory and application on traditional as well as innovative intergroup situations, exploring the communication aspect of these groups. The volume is organized into four domains – cross-disciplinary approaches to intergroup study; types/processes of communication between groups; communication between specific group types; and arenas in which intergroup communication takes place. Editor Howard Giles worked with an internationally-based advisory board to develop and review content, and the contributors included here represent those scholars doing innovative and well-regarded work around the globe. The "intergroup" umbrella integrates and transcends many traditional conceptual boundaries in communication (including media, health, intercultural, organizational); hence the Handbook will appeal to scholars and graduate students not only in the core area of intergroup communication itself, but across varying terrains of study in communication and beyond, including intergroup relations and social psychology.
The Routledge Handbook of Sport Communication is the only book to offer a fully comprehensive and in-depth survey of the contemporary discipline of sport communication. It explores communication within, through, and for sport in all its theoretical, conceptual, cultural, behavioral, practical and managerial aspects, tracing the contours of this expansive, transdisciplinary and international discipline and demonstrating that there are few aspects of contemporary sport that don?t rely on effective communications.Including contributions from leading sport media and communications scholars and professionals from around the world, the book examines emerging (new and social) media, traditional (print, broadcast and screen) media, sociological themes in communication in sport, and management issues, at every level, from the interpersonal to communication within and between sport organisations and global institutions. Taking stock of current research, new ideas and key issues, this book is an essential reference for any advanced student, researcher or practitioner with an interest in sport communication, sport business, sport management, sport marketing, communication theory, journalism, or media studies.
Twelve-year-old Ross tries to discover the formula for being funny and getting his new classmates to like him in this laugh-out-loud MAX novel! Ross Stevens has changed schools twelve times in the last three years but when his beloved Pops becomes ill, Ross and his mom must plant roots—which means no more school moves. And no more moves mean no more school exits, and Ross has perfected the science of leaving a school with an epic prank. Worse, it means he will actually have to learn how to make friends and do a science project, two things he’s never had to do before. Then Ross hits on a hypothesis: if pranks are cool because they are funny then maybe he could discover the formula for funny! If his nerdy “peer review” partner doesn’t cramp his style and if the embarrassing notebook full of his “research” doesn’t get out, then maybe Ross can actually be happy staying in one place. But can he really figure out the formula for ultimate middle school happiness?
