Page 40 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

Analysing Media Sport • 29

help direct readers in their own analyses of the sport media. Each of the remain-
ing chapters in the book builds on the approaches presented in this one. The fol-

lowing chapters explore the specific characteristics of mediated sport in its many
forms: fi lm, television, newspapers, magazines, advertisements, objects, spaces and
new media. Case studies in each chapter demonstrate the analysis in action, and the
reader is provided with practical information detailing how a case study has been
researched. The step-by-step guide in this chapter should be supplemented with tech-

niques specific to a chosen media form found in the subsequent chapters. In this
way, the book supports readers in conducting independent, critical analyses of sport,
media and society.

CHAPTER SUMMARY
• Media sport can be analysed as signs, discourses or affects
• Semiotic analysis decodes meaning in media sport by isolating aspects that
signify and corresponding concepts that are signifi ed
• Myth and ideology in media sport can be illuminated by mapping the cul-
tural connotations evoked by the denotative, literal meanings of signs
• Discourse analysis explores how the media asks us to ‘know’ sport, view-
ing it from particular perspectives or ‘subject positions’
• Autoethnography offers the potential of recording our affective responses
or embodied reactions to media sport events

Step-by-Step Guide to Analysing Media Sport

Step 1: Select your case study
• Choose an example of mediated sport such as the opening sequence of a sport
broadcast, half an hour of live televised sport action, a sport magazine cover,
an article in the sport section of a newspaper, an advertisement featuring a sport
celebrity, a scene in a film with a sport theme or an environment such as a sports

bar or a sports museum.
• Define the limits of your case study: decide where it begins and ends, for example,

you might want to include the advertisement break in your analysis of televised
sport, or you might want to focus on the advertisements alone. Your analysis
of a newspaper article might be limited to one story, or you might want to take
account of an entire page to consider how the story is positioned in relation to
other items.
• Locate the original form of mediation. When mediated sport is presented again in
a different format, it may accumulate new sets of meanings and lose some of its