Page 55 - Sport Culture and the Media

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sports boycotts, and setting regulatory parameters for broadcast rights and
the advertising of unhealthy products like tobacco and bicycle shorts;
• constitute much of the verbal and visual imagery in circulation, from
sports metaphors in business and politics to street billboards and television
super-slow-motion replays;
• occupy the ground of so much social discourse, ranging from bar-room
banter to the measured tones of the academic conference paper.
Clearly, all that the media sports cultural complex has at its disposal is a power
that cannot be dismissed lightly with the old catchcry ‘that’s entertainment’.
Where is the point of entry for probing the media sport behemoth with the
social scientific scalpel? It is as well to remember (in order not to ‘fetishize’ and
reify them) that media sports texts, as the product of human activity, have to be
manufactured by human subjects according to accepted and imposed pro-
cedures and values. The personnel traditionally charged with supplying and/or
interpreting these texts are quite commonly regarded as the ‘least cuddly’ of
their profession, ‘notorious for going sour with drink and age’ (McGuane 1992:
xv). They are known by the professional title ‘sports journalist’.

Further reading

Boyle, R. and Haynes, R. (2000) Power Play: Sport, the Media & Popular Culture.
Harlow: Pearson Education.
Chandler, J.M. (1988) Television and National Sport: The United States and Britain.
Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Elias, N. and Dunning, E. (1986) Quest for Excitement: Sport and Leisure in the
Civilising Process. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Goldlust, J. (1987) Playing for Keeps: Sport, the Media and Society. Melbourne, VIC:
Longman Cheshire.
Guttmann, A. (1978) From Ritual to Record: The Nature of Modern Sports. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Wenner, L.A. (ed.) (1998) MediaSport. London: Routledge.