Sport Media

Anna Kournikova arguably has offered the ‘model’ template for female sport stardom since the 1990s. Blonde, lithe and athletic, her tennis performances were re-orientated to excessive mediatised and commercialised processes that overwhelmingly centered on appearance across her entire career. Such excesses were a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Kournikova’s limited tennis success (doubles’ victories but no coveted singles’ titles) subjected her to ridicule by being lavished with ‘star’ qualities but failing sport’s assumed inherent criteria of talent, achievement and meritocracy. On the other hand, the incessant media vortex exacerbated Kournikova’s fame as media object, sex object and commodity-spectacle.

Historically, notable antecedents from women’s sport were framed with an emphasis on beauty over athletic performance. However, the pronounced shift for Kournikova projected more overt and explicit representations of sexualisation, ‘glamour’, and idealisations of her beauty and body than had accompanied her predecessors. In contradistinction, Kournikova was complicit with the exploitative and sexualised framework, arguably knowingly and willingly reproducing sexualised commodity-object performances in return for lucrative media exposure and financial gain on and off the court.

Kournikova operates as a forerunner for the strategic and agential alignment of female appearance with sport, media and commercial personas. Post-Kournikova, stars were expected to blend sporting prowess and achievement alongside beauty (Maria Sharapova, Danica Patrick) to counter traditional media anti-talent narratives. Current self-presentational social media strategies seemingly showcase appearance over sporting achievements (Eugenie Bouchard, Paige Spiranac), proffering self-objectifying and self-sexualising ‘athlete-as-model’ personas that provide playful contemporary exemplars of the ‘Anna Kournikova effect’.

W logikę sportu wpisana jest dążenie do permanentnej transgresji, a więc przekraczania kolejnych granic biologiczno-kulturowych. Rywalizujący ze sobą zawodnicy nastawieni są na pokonywanie barier w postaci ograniczeń własnego ciała, konkurującego ciała przeciwnika, abstrakcyjnych rekordów czy nawet utrwalonych sposobów realizowania określonych działań. Sens rywalizacji stanowi więc wykroczenie poza to, co już doświadczone przez samego sportowca i osiąganie nowej jakości.
W tym sensie sport to zjawisko niezwykle „żarłoczne”, starające się cały czas rozszerzać granice swojego funkcjonowania i przyłączać do swojego pola coraz to nowe przyczółki. Realizuje więc on jeden z głównych fetyszy nowoczesności – ciągłe dążenie do postępu, modyfikowania i ulepszania swojej działalności. Taka sytuacja czyni z niego obszar testowania innowacyjnych rozwiązań - związanych z ciałem, mediami, wytworami materialnymi, know-how, czy ekonomią.
Głównym celem proponowanego tutaj tekstu jest zaprezentowanie pola sportu jako obszaru medialnej transgresji. Obszar ten pozostaje bowiem polem szczególnym. Z jednej bowiem strony, relacja sportu i mediów pozostaje bowiem niezwykle złożona. Z drugiej natomiast, złożoność ta prowadzi właśnie do licznych transgresji kulturowo-medialnych.

Sport is not only popular and fun way to spend free time. It is also representative of the ideological values of the country, while its interpretation can be seen in totalitarian and democratic state apparatus in a way identical. The analysis deals with the relationship of
political representation and appropriation of the achievements of athletes as a form of media manipulation with the audience and creating a positive image of politicians in the eyes of the public.

The 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games, held in Rio de Janeiro, reignited public interest and discussion around Paralympic athletes attempting to qualify for, and compete at, the Olympic Games. That Paralympians have sought to compete at the Olympic Games is, however, not new. This paper looks at the largely unrecognised and often underreported history of Paralympians competing at the Olympic Games and addresses why it is that Paralympians may wish to compete at the Olympic Games. To do this we use historical examples, but also look at the contemporary cases of 3 such athletes: Jason Smyth, Alan Fonteles Cardoso and Markus Rehm. The paper also explores whether or not with advances in medical and prosthetic technologies, as well as potentially increased income and funding, we can expect to see more Paralympians attempting to crossover and compete in the Olympic Games in the future. The methodology used is one of qualitative case studies. The research question was: "What can be le...

This article provides a critical discourse analysis of Scottish newspaper reports relating to football and ‘sectarianism’ in Scotland. It claims that there is a powerful and longstanding ideological ‘framing’ of sectarianism in sections of the Scottish press that is latently power-laden. This discourse attempts to construct and reaffirm a unified non-sectarian core identity that ‘real’ and ‘authentic’ Scots (should) share in opposition to a set of sectarian ‘others’. The various connotations attached to sectarian and sectarianism, together with their use in particular ways that reflect an ideological hegemony, are illustrated. Much of the press treatment of sectarianism is shown to lack sensitivity to the historical, hierarchical and relational aspects of religious, political and ethnic identities in Scotland.

This volume presents a wide-reaching overview of contemporary research and scholarship on women's engagement in a range of combat sports across the world. Including chapters on boxing, wrestling, mixed martial arts, and various other fighting disciplines, the collection provides readers with a comprehensive analysis of the current significance of women's involvement in these sports, as well as charting many of the problems and opportunities they face in establishing and developing careers within them.

With contributions drawing from anthropology, phenomenology, philosophy, sociology, and sport psychology, this book will appeal to readers interested in the development of women's sport; the relationship between sport and gender; and the wider, contemporary social significance of combat sports around the world.

To view the table of contents and read a sample chapter online, please click here: http://www.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9781137439352_sample.pdf

This volume presents a wide-reaching overview of contemporary research and scholarship on women's engagement in a range of combat sports across the world. Including chapters on boxing, wrestling, mixed martial arts, and various other fighting disciplines, the collection provides readers with a comprehensive analysis of the current significance of women's involvement in these sports, as well as charting many of the problems and opportunities they face in establishing and developing careers within them. With contributions drawing from anthropology, phenomenology, philosophy, sociology, and sport psychology, this book will appeal to readers interested in the development of women's sport; the relationship between sport and gender; and the wider, contemporary social significance of combat sports around the world.

MyFootballClub (MFC) is a popular computer game, Web site, online networking experiment, business model, and an actual soccer club. This article uses MFC to address the question of how networked media sport is reshaping the media sports cultural complex (Rowe, 2004). Our aim is to show how the professionalization and mediatization of sport has created a longing to reconstruct a kind of communitas around supporter participation in the ownership and running of their team. We conclude by suggesting that it is now time to think less in terms of the longstanding relationship between sport and media, and more about sport as media given the increasing interpenetration of digital media content, sport, and networked information and communications technologies.

Malaysia’s bid to host the 1998 Commonwealth Games on one level represented a highly visible component of the Malaysian government’s publicly articulated attempts to unify a nation, but meanwhile, a very different macro-political game was underway: one to give voice to those nations in the Commonwealth from the developing world, and to revitalise the Commonwealth itself. This study maps a journey that culminated in Kuala Lumpur being chosen to host the XVI Commonwealth Games, a decision not coincidentally predated by the failure of New Delhi to win the rights to the 1994 Commonwealth Games.

Kitle iletigim araglan(medya), geni$ kitlelere ulagabilmesi ve bu kitleleri kolayhkla etkileyebilmesi agrsrndan yasantlmzda gok onemli yeri olan araglardr. Kitle iletigimi kavramt yakrn donemde ortaya grkan bir kawamdr. Basrn-yayrn sanayiindeki geligim, radyo, televizyon gibi gorsel ve i$itsel araglarm yaygrnlaqmasr, teknolojideki hrzh geliqmelerin klasik basn kavramryla ifade edilemeyecek hale gelmesi bunlann hepsini ifade edecek bir kavrama ihtiyag gostermigtir. Kitle iletiqimi biitilr bunlafl igeren bir kawam olarak kullanrlmaktadrr. Kitle iletigimini sa[layan gazete, radyo, televizyon gibi araglara da kitle iletigim araqlan adt verilmektedir-Birgok kaynakta buna kitle haberlegmesi de denmektedir. Fakat "haberlegme; dilimizde "iletiqim" kavramtna denk geldipi igin kitle iletigimi geklinde de kullanrlmaktadr. Son zamanlarda iilkemizde "medya" deyimi de aynr kawamt ifade etmek igin kullanrlmaktadu(l).

Since its creation in 1903, the Tour de France has remained the biggest of all professional cycling events. This chapter aims to present three aspects of the economic history of the Tour de France and what they tell us about the economic history of sport. First, the Tour has always been owned by private newspaper and media companies. This is why I analyze the level and composition of these companies’ turnover, their business strategies and the reasons for their overall success. Second, Tour riders have always been professionals. This is why I analyze riders’ incomes and prize money and their distribution, which shows clear “winner-takes-all” aspects. Third, the demand for sport shows by Tour spectators reveals broad trends in Europe’s economic history since the early 20th century: the diffusion of bicycles, newspapers and mass consumption, the increase in leisure time, and the advent of the mass media.

Scholars have long kept a close watch on the Olympic Games in terms of gender equality. Olympic media coverage has been a popular topic of inquiry, as media portrayals can have powerful impacts on society. While much research exists on the portrayals of male and female athletes, few studies have examined coverage of both genders in a sport deemed female appropriate. Based on framing theory, this study sought to qualitatively examine portrayals of male and female gymnasts in US newspapers during the 2012 Olympic Games to determine what differences existed between the media frames of each gender and whether traditional gender stereotypes were depicted. The findings illustrated three common themes in coverage of both males and females, but the frames used to convey these themes were markedly different based on gender. The implications of this research and ideas for future scholarly inquiry are included in the discussion and conclusion.

Major League Baseball (MLB) is the most racially diverse professional sport league in the United States out of the three largest leagues . The U.S. Census Bureau (2008) reports that the racial makeup of the U.S. is also becoming increasingly diverse, and according toFahmy , minorities continue to show increased buying power. Therefore, it is important to understand the extent to which sport media outlets are marketing to minority groups through their coverage of diverse athletes. This study employed a content analysis methodology and examined MLB coverage in Sports Illustrated and ESPN The Magazine over an eight-year time period. The findings revealed no statistically significant differences between the percentage of coverage given to White, Black, Latino, and Asian MLB players and the percentages of players from each race in the league, nor between the percentages of each race in the U.S. population. Both magazines exhibited a trend of focusing coverage on mostly White and Black MLB players over the last few years, however, and implications from the findings, limitations of the study, and ideas for future researchare explained in the discussion and conclusion sections.

This study examined effects of the sex of sports writers on the framing of athletes in print-media coverage of intercollegiate men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. The number of articles by female and male authors and the frames used were ana­lyzed. Descriptors of players, coaches, and both tournaments in articles from CBS SportsLine, ESPN Internet, The New York Times, and USA Today were coded with the authors’ names initially hidden. Results showed that female journalists were more apt to cover women’s basketball, and men predominantly wrote about men’s basketball. The sex of writers also influenced the ways female and male athletes were presented. Male writers were more likely to reinforce gender stereotypes by praising the athleti­cism of male athletes. In contrast, female writers more often framed female athletes for their athletic prowess. The results suggest that female sports writers can make some difference in framing, but institutional structures minimize their impact.

The 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games, held in Rio de Janeiro, reignited public interest and discussion around Paralympic athletes attempting to qualify for, and compete at, the Olympic Games. That Paralympians have sought to compete at the Olympic Games is, however, not new. This paper looks at the largely unrecognised and often underreported history of Paralympians competing at the Olympic Games and addresses why it is that Paralympians may wish to compete at the Olympic Games. To do this we use historical examples, but also look at the contemporary cases of 3 such athletes: Jason Smyth, Alan Fonteles Cardoso and Markus Rehm. The paper also explores whether or not with advances in medical and prosthetic technologies, as well as potentially increased income and funding, we can expect to see more Paralympians attempting to crossover and compete in the Olympic Games in the future. The methodology used is one of qualitative case studies. The research question was: "What can be learned from the media coverage of Smyth, Oliveira and Rehm's attempts to qualify for the Olympic Games? " We identify the type of editorial (political, social, cultural, sportive, educational, economic or gossip column); whether or not pictures were used (type of approach-sportive, personal or disability) and the narrative interpretations. We argue that how newspapers choose to report on the aims of Paralympians wishing to compete in the Olympics and the level of coverage that they receive it important. This level of depth of coverage suggests both positive and negative implications for the Paralympic Games, should this trend of athletes wishing to crossover continue. Resumo. Os Jogos Olímpicos e Paralímpicos de 2016 realizados no Rio de Janeiro, reencararam o interesse público e levaram a tona a discussão em torno dos atletas paralímpicos que buscam se qualificar e competir para os Jogos Olímpicos. O assunto não é novidade no que se trata do interesse de atletas paralímpicos em competir nos Jogos Olímpicos. Este artigo olha com profundidade na discussão e evidências históricas com base em reportagens jornalísticas dos atletas paralímpicos que queriam competir nos Jogos Olímpicos Rio 2016 e apresenta outros casos de paralímpicos ao longo da história que fizeram parte dos Jogos Olímpicos. Foram avaliados os casos dos atletas Paralímpicos: Jason Smyth, Alan Fonteles Cardoso e Markus Rehm. A metodologia utilizada neste artigo é uma análise qualitativa dos casos tratados pela mídia brasileira a respeito dos atletas. A questão da pesquisa foi: "o que pode ser aprendido com a cobertura da mídia nas tentativas de Smyth, Oliveira e Rehm para se qualificar para os Jogos Olímpicos?". Identificamos o tipo de coluna editorial (política, social, cultural, esportiva, educacional, econômica e fofoca). Foram observadas também as imagens usadas e o tipo de abordagem sobre a fotografia apresentada, qualificando-as como foco: esportivo, pessoal ou sobre a deficiência-e, realizou-se uma leitura das interpretações narrativas de acordo com a importância dada. Como conclusão, entedeu-se que esse nível de profundidade de cobertura, sugere implicações tanto positivas quanto negativas para os Jogos paraolímpicos, quando tende-se a colocar os Jogos Olímpicos em evidência mediante aos atletas. Palavras-chave: jogos paraolímpicos; pessoas com deficiências; jogos olímpicos.

The primary purpose of this exploratory study was to determine if gender-specific descriptors regularly found in television and newspaper sport coverage were present in two popular online sites from the emerging medium of Internet sport journalism. Descriptors given to players and coaches during the 2006 NCAA Division I women’s and men’s basketball tournaments by ESPN Internet and CBS SportsLine were examined. Results contradicted gender-specific descriptors found in previous studies on sport media coverage that scholars have argued help uphold hegemonic masculinity in sport.

Arema 'Agama Kedua", begitu judul sebuah film dokumenter tentang klub Arema yang berasal dari Kota Malang. Judul film ini mengartikulasikan tentang bagaimana sepak bola dimaknai sebagai budaya bersama oleh para penggemarnya. Dalam konteks Malang, atribut Arema seperti syal, kaos dan pernak-pernik lainnya telah menjadi souvenir khas yang mulai menggeser apel yang sebelumnya dikenal sebagai brand kota Malang. Tidak hanya di Malang, demam sepak bola melanda hampir seluruh kota besar di Indonesia. Di Surabaya, toko-toko merchandise bonek bertebaran di berbagai pelosok kota. Demikian juga di Bandung, Jakarta, Semarang dan Solo. Kegairahan penduduk kota untuk menjadi pendukung tim dari kota mereka telah melahirkan potensi baru dalam city branding, yaitu city branding dengan memanfaatkan identitas sepak bola klub lokal. Tulisan ini berusaha mengangkat tentang bagaimana identitas sepak bola lokal dimanfaatkan sebagai city branding, dengan melihat dari pendekatan sosiologi dan kultural suporter, seperti dengan melihat peluang city branding melalui politik identitas dari komunitas suporter. Fenomena yang menarik adalah diangkatnya local wisdom dalam politik identitas komunitas suporter sepak bola.

If sport is a universal language, advertising surrounding the FIFA World Cup in the twenty-first century speaks volumes. Through careful expression of social and sport values these narratives reflect gender hierarchies, international sporting histories, and football custom. Themes of individual exhibition and personal choice contrast with sporting tradition; these advertising concepts leap off the pages and screen, enamoring and educating audiences.

As a structured series of values represented in story form, narratives of sport are rooted in shared meanings. Advertising narratives revolving around football from 2002 through 2007 are vital to the commodification and distribution of the sport. Through patterned presentations these narrative sets reveal values that allow the audience to quickly evaluate unfamiliar teams and players.

This study explores adidas and Nike advertising campaigns for the 2002 and 2006 FIFA World Cups, as well as the 2003 and 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cups, in order to derive subcultural values of passion, choice, skill, and individuality. These campaigns feature contrasting themes of inclusion and modernity, as well as universality. The values that string the narratives together reflect hybridity and, an increasingly accessible, ‘imagined’ global football culture.

Phillies Jackpot Bowling, a television series broadcast on NBC in 1959 and 1960, played a historic role in transforming the image of bowling and precipitating an era of unprecedented popularity for the game. Professional bowlers competed to roll six consecutive strikes in nine throws and hit a jackpot that reached tens of thousands of dollars. Winning contestants made more money in just a few minutes on the lanes than many baseball and football stars earned over an entire season. In an era when bowling was dismissed as the dull hobby of gamblers and drinkers, Phillies Jackpot Bowling cast the game as exciting and wholesome. The show also marked little-known chapters in the careers of its three famous hosts, Leo Durocher, Mel Allen, and Bud Palmer.

Modern Olympic Games are a global sporting, media and commercial event that brings together top athletes
and attracts millions of viewers. It can be said that their planetary dimension was obtained thanks to high‐quality
communication devices. Rapid social change and increasingly complex social life in the last hundred years, thanks
to scientific and technological revolutions, have brought to light Communication in a multitude of new scientific
disciplines. Consequently, the need for research that links the communication and the Olympic Movement arose.
The subject of this paper refers to the impact of the media on the development of the Olympic Movement. The aim
of this study is to determine the importance of applying new communication technologies in the development of
the Olympic Movement. The historical method was applied in the paper. Study results indicate a causal
relationship between the media and the Olympic Movement.

Many recent studies on Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) have addressed the question of orality and literacy. This paper examines a relatively recent subgenre of CMC, that of written on-line sports commentary, which provides us with written CMC that is clearly based on firmly established oral genres, those of radio and television sports commentary. The examples analysed are from two English, two French and two Spanish on-line football (soccer) commentaries. The purpose of the study is to examine oral traits and genre-mixing in on-line football commentaries in the three languages as well as carryover from the spoken genres of radio and television commentaries to this developing genre, following Ferguson (1983). Special attention is paid to webpage design. The study reveals that form and content of on-line football commentaries are strongly affected by the style of the on-line newspaper.

Ce travail a pour objet d'etudier les discours sportifs et leurs rapports avec la notion d'identite a partir d'un corpus mediatique reuni autour de deux evenements : les derniers Jeux olympiques en France (Albertville 1992) et la derniere coupe du monde du XXe siecle (France 1998 et la victoire de l'equipe nationale). L'analyse est semantique, syntaxique et argumentative puisque nous etudierons les phenomenes de constructions identitaires dans deux dimensions du dis- cours, le niveau syntagmatique et le niveau dialogique. L'etude des productions de noms de sportifs, associees a leurs potentielles appartenances multiples (clubs, ville, nation, etc.), revele une forte application du schema dialectique du Meme et de l'Autre. Dans son "ecriture", le sport est proche du genre aristotelicien de l'epidictique, mais ses glissements vers le deliberatif sont frequents dans les medias. La politique s'empare de plus en plus de ses specificites (term...

The film industry during the 50´s took advantage of the huge impact of football in the Spanish society to produce a large number of films about this sport. One of the main attractions for the audience was the performance of the greatest football idols in several films: Ladislao Kubala and Alfredo Di Stéfano. Both footballers changed the history of their clubs, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, and were tempted to starring some films. This paper aims to analyze the two films that have these football players like
main actors (Los ases buscan la paz y Saeta rubia), to insist how the films show the image of the new sports hero. At the same time, the text try to discover what were the elements that shape the masculine model of success during the francoism.

Given the increased popularity of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) in the United States and
abroad, the purpose of this study was to investigate newspaper coverage of the most profitable
MMA organization in the U.S., the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), from
1993– 2006. To better understand how the print media framed this controversial sport, a
critically informed content analysis of 320 newspaper articles was conducted. Drawing
from critical sport studies and media theory (Lowes, 1999; Rowe, 2007; Trend, 2007), the
researchers analyzed how various categories of newsprint coverage have shifted over the
13- year period. One clear conclusion was the ability of the mainstream print media to effectively
contour the popular discourse of this sporting practice, often playing a key role in
the public’s appraisal of the UFC during various points in its brief history. Moreover, the
mainstream press often served to unwittingly promote the UFC through a lack of critical
journalistic practices.

In this episode, Derek and Nathan speak with Andrew Stoeten, Toronto Blue Jays (Major League Baseball) columnist at The Athletic and co-host of the Birds All Day podcast (and formerly of Drunk Jays Fans (DJF) and Blue Jays Nation).

Andrew explains how he got into baseball writing and then the three delve into the tensions of having personal investments in fandom while working in a profession connected to sport and examine the difficulties of having political inclinations when "Republicans buy sneakers too." In the latter half of the episode, they turn to a discussion of how advanced analytics and fantasy sports can have a dehumanizing impact on the way players are viewed and then consider the future of baseball in the pandemic.

This study examined content differences in the framing of men’s and women’s tennis coverage based on the sex of sports writers. Articles on the 2007 U.S. Open in six popular Internet sites and newspapers were examined. Results showed both female and male writers wrote a higher percentage of articles exclusively on men’s tennis than on women’s tennis. Female journalists accounted for more overall newspapers articles than male reporters, whereas online articles were mostly writ¬ten by male authors. Framing results showed female journalists largely reinforced hegemonic masculinity through the use of sexist and stereotypical descriptors that de-valued the athleticism and accomplishment of female athletes. In contrast, male journalists were more likely to challenge the traditional gendering of sport media content by praising the athleticism of female athletes. The contrasts suggest the potential presence of subtle shifts in traditional, masculine framing of sports by male reporters, who dominate the ranks of sportswriters.

Ce programme de recherche s'inscrit dans un travail plus général sur les transformations du champ journalistique depuis le début des années Quatre-vingt et les relations que ce dernier entretient avec d'autres espaces sociaux. Ce projet vise notamment à comparer les changements qui ont affecté différents types de journalismes spécialisés. S'il existe des travaux français sur les journalistes politiques, sociaux, scientifiques et médicaux, les recherches sur le journalisme sportif sont rares. Seuls quelques essais journalistiques ou certaines monographies portant sur des rédactions ou des rubriques sportives apportent des éléments d'information. À partir de l'étude de la médiatisation de deux sports professionnels -le football et, de manière plus secondaire, le basket -il s'agit, d'une part, de prendre la mesure des transformations qui ont affecté le sous-champ du journalisme sportif 1 depuis les années Quatre-vingt, du fait notamment de l'arrivée des télévisions privées, d'autre part, d'analyser comment les médias sont devenus un enjeu stratégique dans la production des « événements sportifs », ce qui a des effets sur le fonctionnement des espaces nationaux et internationaux des sports professionnels.

The alleged “golden age” of the then World Wrestling Federation (WWF)  was or still remains an important moment in the lives of many professional wrestling fans. Indeed, ardent fans will most likely still have some of the wrestling remnants from this period, with an assortment of personal artefacts, memorabilia and subsequent purchases sustaining their collective affective attachments to the larger-than-life wrestlers, events, and matches of the time. This golden age witnessed the emergence of Hulkamania and Wrestlemania as dominant forces that would shape the WWF scene, usher in other major tournaments and attract large American (and increasingly globally diffuse) audiences to professional wrestling. Moreover, a stellar cast of heroes and villains (“faces” and “heels”) provided entertainment and diverse talking points for fans enamored with these hyper-muscular men and the characters they portrayed. Pertinently, while overly reliant on television and pay-per-view telecasts during this era, in contemporary times different media forms are enhancing fans’ lived memories of the WWF. In a traditional consumptive framework, pre-packaged WWF box sets have become more pervasive, with an abundance of major tournaments (e.g., Wrestlemania, Survivor Series) or career sketches and best matches of prominent wrestlers (e.g., Hulk Hogan, Macho Man Randy Savage) readily available for purchase.

Moreover, new media and digital platforms afford the viewing and uploading of footage, interviews, and other rare archival materials, while social media networks furnish new forms of fan participation, sustain nostalgic manifestations, and provide an impetus to the memories and dialogue surrounding this era of the WWF. In fact, if anything, social and digital media refashions the halcyon days of the WWF as a durable and also permeable record that takes on its own form. That is, through the tireless, affective labor carried out by fans and administrators across these platforms, this historical era in WWF history is reconstructed and re-energized as a living, contested, and constantly updated archival record that is fueled by the memories, intensive engagements, and investments of the fans. These complementary processes of recording, reporting and reinvigorating the golden age of the WWF through an array of mediatized forms and fan practices will be the prime focus of this chapter.

Sports discourses a prey to nationalisms and ethnicization

ABSTRACT

This present research aims at studying sport discourses and their links with the notion of identity by the act of naming in the discursive construction of a sportman or sportwomen referent. Two major events are considered, the last two big events organized in France : the olympic Games of Albertville 1992 and the soccer world Cup 1998 (won by the French national team). It is par- ticularly focused on the national and ethnic dimensions. Nationality and ethnicity are strongly linked in the imaginery representations of our official grouping. This study is syntactic, seman- tic and argumentative by analyzing both at syntagmatic and dialogical levels. Sports writings are usually close to the Aristotelician genre of epideictic but they tend to be more and more deliberative with some interests from the politics. They borrow some of its elements (termino- logy, syntax, prosody, etc.). Categorization is the link between the studies, confronting most of the time the dialectic of the Same and the Other by constent ingrouping ou outgrouping. This research leads to the conclusion that naming in sports discourses has a lot to tell about the confusions of identities but also about the complexity of social representations.

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Les discours sportifs en proie aux nationalismes et à l’ethnicisation

RÉSUMÉ

Ce travail a pour objet d’étudier les discours sportifs et leurs rapports avec la notion d’identité à partir d’un corpus médiatique réuni autour de deux événements : les derniers Jeux olympiques en France (Albertville 1992) et la dernière coupe du monde du XXe siècle (France 1998 et la victoire de l’équipe nationale). L’analyse est sémantique, syntaxique et argumentative puisque nous étudierons les phénomènes de constructions identitaires dans deux dimensions du dis- cours, le niveau syntagmatique et le niveau dialogique. L’étude des productions de noms de sportifs, associées à leurs potentielles appartenances multiples (clubs, ville, nation, etc.), révèle une forte application du schéma dialectique du Même et de l’Autre. Dans son "écriture", le sport est proche du genre aristotélicien de l’épidictique, mais ses glissements vers le délibératif sont fréquents dans les médias. La politique s’empare de plus en plus de ses spécificités (termino- logiques, syntaxiques, prosodiques, etc.). Nous mettrons en avant des problèmes de confusions entre des critères de catégorisations, en particulier : confusion entre ethnicité et nation. A l’is- sue de cette recherche, la nomination des sportifs nous fait apparaître combien les confusions identitaires existent, mais se jouent à seulement quelques détails du discours.