Page 20 - Sport Culture and the Media

INTRODUC TION: IMMERSED IN

MEDIA SPORT

A day in the life of the media sports consumer

All over the world, spanning many time zones, people of otherwise very differ-
ent cultures, languages, religions and political ideologies are having a similar
daily experience. Various aspects of the ‘typical’ day I am about to describe are
representative of life in the more affluent reaches of late capitalist societies, but
they are by no means unknown in even the poorest and least economically
developed (by western standards) nations.
This daily round goes something like this: You wake up to the sound of the
alarm clock radio and, as the news of the day is reported and anticipated,
considerable prominence is given to seemingly bizarre cultural practices.
They involve individuals and groups getting together and agreeing to engage in
physical activities bound by rules (or even laws) in which people may be allowed
to strike various parts of others’ bodies with various parts of their own. Or
they may be forbidden from having any kind of bodily contact at all. Often,
they will be required to propel objects of various shapes and sizes using various
implements or body parts towards designated targets of diverse kinds, while
others do their best to stop them. Some people are paid huge sums of money
for partaking in these activities, while others do it for fun or by compulsion at
school. The ones who get paid do so because many more people want to watch
them in operation in the same time and space or by means of electronic trans-
mission. Those spectators also want to watch, read and listen to other people
who get paid for talking and writing about what those exerting themselves are
doing or what others have said or written about it. All that is shown, said and
written provides many opportunities in many contexts (like playgrounds, pubs,