Page 42 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

Analysing Media Sport • 31

• logos
• signs
• describe the people you see in the space, including
• what they are doing
• how they interact with objects, images and texts in the space
• how they interact with other people
• points of surveillance or control (e.g. security checks)
• describe what you can hear, smell and feel, including
• ambient sounds
• music
• textures
• scents specific to the site (e.g. food, grass, petrol).

Step 3: Make Links to Cultural Associations
• Complete the second stage of your analysis by describing the connotations of the

signs identified at the denotational level.
• Trace all the intertextual associations of the images, words and objects you have
described.
• Find evidence to support your interpretations by referencing previous research. For
example, histories of sport or representation might support arguments for the asso-
ciation of class or gender with clothing, body type, muscularity, gesture or pose.

Step 4: Consider How a Subject Position Is Constructed for the User,
Viewer, Reader or Listener

• Reflect on the ways the connotations and associations you have identifi ed con-
struct a way of knowing sport for the consumer of mediated sport. What as-
sumptions about sport are implicit in the way it is presented to media audiences?
Consider
• truth claims (statements)
• references to so-called common sense understandings (discourses)
• patterns of representation (discursive formations).
• On the basis of the results of stages 2 and 3, think about the way mediated sport
forms communicate with spectators and users. Ask questions such as
• who is being addressed?
• how is he or she being addressed?
• what are the presumed characteristics of the addressee?
• Consider both indirect and direct forms of address and take account of the way
that mediated sport might play on the anxieties and desires of its consumers.
• You may find it helpful to use the subsequent table to record the stages of your

analysis.