Although the American obsession with mediated sports has grown tremendously in the past few years, there is little scholarly inquiry focused on how the mediated sports culture has developed and how we respond to it. Framed by a seminal article outlining the parameters of the communication of sports and pointing to major issues that need to be addressed in the relationship between sports and media, "Media, Sports and Society" provides a foundation for research on the communication of sports. Contributors examine the theoretical, cultural and historical issues, the production of mediated sports programming, its content and its audience. Individual chapters include a discussion of the spectacle of mediated sports, a comparison of Super Bowl Football and the World Cup Soccer, a consideration of the spectators' enjoyment of sports violence, the rhetoric of winning and the American dream, and a fascinating examination of gender harmony and sports interests.
Written in a clear and engaging style, Super Media introduces and examines the newly emerging cultural studies approach to understanding media. Michael Real begins by providing a critical review of previous traditions of media research and theory -- illustrated with tables and comparative charts -- and re-integrates media study around cultural studies. He argues that issues of personal identity and consciousness, of conflict and bias, of politics and policy, are more effectively articulated and understood through cultural studies. Drawing from both humanities and the social sciences, he centers his analyses in text, meaning, representation, interpretation, conflict, ideology, hegemony and culture. Extensive case studies flesh out these theories and concepts by exploring lively and familiar examples of media, including the Olympics, Hollywood films, superpower politics and transnational television programs.
In Demographic Vistas, David Marc shows how we can take television seriously within the humanist tradition while enjoying it on its own terms. To deal with the barrage of messages from television's chaotic history, Marc adapts tools of theatrical and literary criticism to focus on key personalities and genres in ways that reward serious students ......
In this pioneering study, the authors deal with the nature and theory of meaning and present a new, objective method for it's measurement which they call the semantic differential. This instrument is not a specific test, but rather a general technique of measurement that can be adapted to a wide variety of problems in such areas as clinical ......
The Authoritarian, Libertarian, Social Responsibility, and Soviet Communist Concepts of What the Press Should Be and Do
Presented here are four major theories behind the functioning of the world's presses: (1) the Authoritarian theory, which developed in the late Renaissance and was based on the idea that truth is the product of a few wise men; (2) the Libertarian theory, which arose from the works of men like Milton, Locke, Mill, and Jefferson and avowed that the ......
