Week 8:

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Week 8 Sport and the media

• ? Introduction
• ? Key characteristics of the sport media
• ? Power relations and the sport media
• ? Sports media texts images, narratives and the
  construction of sports
• ? Sports media consumers media effects
• ? Sports media producers media professionals
• ? Conclusion

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Introduction

• Media are important in influencing how we see the
  world the media dont tell us what to think,
  but they greatly influence what we think about.
• The media provide information, interpretation and
  entertainment entertainment goals are likely to
  have a higher priority than the others within
  commercial media
• Media producers encode info and we
  interpret/decode it. They decide what camera
  shots they want us to see.

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Key characteristics of the sport media

• Print media (old media form) this includes
  newspapers, magazines and fanzines, books
  catalogues, event programs and trading cards
  words and images printed on paper and available
  to many readers.

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Key characteristics of the sport media

• Electronic media this includes radio, TV, film,
  video games, the internet and online
  publications words commentary and images we
  receive in audio and video forms
• The real world itself is influence by the
  artificial
• The collapse between artificial, superficial, and
  the real. (the matrix plays with this idea)

5
Power relations and the sport media

• What we get to see (or not) is influenced by a
  range of actors from producers, editors and
  program directors to sponsors, owners and
  government regulations. Coakley identifies 5
  goals that such actors use in deciding how media
  products are made (p.404)

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Power relations and the sport media

• Making profits-will it sell?
• Shaping values is it moral
• Providing a public service is it for the common
  good?
• Building their own reputations how does this
  make us look?
• Expressing themselves in technical, artistic or
  personal ways is it good?
• These goals may sometimes be in conflict with
  each other
• Power begins to shape these processes. People
  usually emphasize images and messages consistent
  with the dominant ideologies in society as a
  whole. Thus the media serve the interests of
  those who have power and wealth in society

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Sport and the Media symbiotic relationships

• The dependency of sport on media
• When sports exist just for the participants there
  is little need for media
• When sports become commercial entertainment there
  is an increased need for media dissemination and
  therefore increased dependency on the media
• Sports require both coverage and news
• Sports discourse dominates sport compared to
  other cultural forms

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Sport and the Media symbiotic relationships

• The media provide huge resources for sports and
  enable them to reach worldwide audiences 715.1
  millino people watched the Italy vs. France mens
  soccer world cup final in 06
• It was one of the most viewed events in tv
  history
• Television companies are thus willing to spend
  hundreds of millions of dollars to secure
  exclusive rights to sports events
• Fox paid 4.3 billion or 712.5 million a year
  until 2011 to get exclusive rights to cover NFL
  games

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Sport and the Media symbiotic relationships

• To accommodate the commercial interests of
  television sports have changed the way they are
  organized, packaged and presented
• The schedules and starting times for many sport
  events have been altered to fit televisions
  programming needs
• Game times are subject to change throughout the
  season. Time changes are usually a result of
  rescheduling to accommodate TV schedules and for
  make-up games due to rain-outs.

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Sport and the Media symbiotic relationships

• The dependency of the media on sport
• Most forms of the media - film, books, and the
  internet are not dependent on sport (these can
  survive without sports)
• But TV and Newspapers are now newspapers devote
  25 of their content to sport

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Sport and the Media symbiotic relationships

• Sports have also become a major part of the
  programming schedules for most television
  networks
• The high viewing figures can therefore translate
  into higher premiums on advertising space a 30
  second slot during the 2008 Superbowl cost 2.7
  million
• Cable and satellite networks in particular have
  used sport to gain access to markets

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Sports media texts images, narratives and the
construction of sports

• The media do not simply relay reality to us,
  unmediated as it happens even though this is
  what is often claimed - but rather we are
  re-presented with an edited version of what has
  taken place which we, the audience, then attempt
  to decode
• This is what is referred to within media studies
  as the encoding/decoding model of how signs and
  media texts work
• Semiology is the process of reading these signals

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Sports media texts images, narratives and the
construction of sports

• Signification refers to the way signs work within
  a given culture
• There are two orders of signification
• Denotation
• Connotation

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Sports media texts images, narratives and the
construction of sports

• Myth
• Texts can be open or closed
• An open text requires a number of readings to be
  made simultaneously for its full richness to be
  appreciated
• A closed text has only one preferred meaning

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Sports media texts images, narratives and the
construction of sports

• Three main types of decoding readings or texts.
  These correspond to the reader's response not to
  the structure of the text
• i) dominant-hegemonic
• ii) negotiated reading
• iii) oppositional reading

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Sports media texts images, narratives and the
construction of sports

• Success themes
• US sports programming tends to emphasize hard
  work, domination, obedience to authority and the
  big play
• Competitive rivalries are played up and
  competitive success becomes the master narrative
  for coverage

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Sports media texts images, narratives and the
construction of sports

• Gender and sexuality themes
• coverage of women sports is not a high priority,
  except for tennis, golf, and Olympics
• Coverage given tends to be on sports that
  reinforce traditional notions of femininity
• Mens events remain unremarked by gender whereas
  womens events are gendered the soccer world
  cup vs. the womens world cup.

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Sports media texts images, narratives and the
construction of sports

• Race and ethnicity themes
• The focus on a selected number of sports gives a
  distorted picture of black domination of sports
• While black athletes have a high profile on the
  field of play this is less so in the commentary
  boxes, sports newsrooms and media executive
  offices

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Sports media consumers media effects

• Audience research and fan behavior
• There is inconclusive evidence about the effects
  of watching sport and actual physical activity
• While coverage has increased since the 70s, so
  has the rates of obesity and inactivity this
  does not imply causation
• Similarly there is little evidence to suggest
  that coverage of sport on television affects
  spectator rates in any uniform way (there may be
  a short term increase in activity after major
  sporting events.tennis after Wimbledon)

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Sports media producers media professionals

• Tensions between journalists and athletes
  grounded in differences between background and
  salary
• Within the news media there are sometimes
  tensions between those looking for exclusives
  and those reporting the sports

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Conclusion

• Sports and the media have a complex, symbiotic
  relationship
• This mutual dependency has grown over the past 50
  years, especially as companies have sought to
  sponsor events and teams and advertise games
• Not all aspects of the media are equally
  dependent on sport and not all sports depend on
  the media
• Sports centrality to public discourse is linked
  to its central place within the mass media
  disproportionate to the actual numbers who play
  sport

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Conclusion

• Not all aspects of the media are equally
  dependent on sport and not all sports depend on
  the media
• Sports centrality to public discourse is linked
  to its central place within the mass media
  disproportionate to the actual numbers who play
  sport. Sports are increasingly a central part of
  celebrity culture