Communication and Sport: Surveying the Field, Third Edition examines a wide array of topics necessary to understand sports media, rhetoric, culture, and organizations from micro- to macro-level issues. All levels of sports are addressed through varied lenses such as mythology, community, and identity. The Third Edition is newly expanded to incorporate the latest topics and perspectives in the field such as fan cultures; racial identity and gender in sports media; politics and nationality in sports; crisis communication in sports organizations and more.
Defining Sport Communication is a comprehensive resource addressing core topics and issues, including humanistic, organizational, relational, and mediated approaches to the study of sport communication. It provides foundational work in sport communication for students and scholars, reflecting the abundance of research published in recent years and the ever-increasing interest in this area of study. Bringing together scholars from various epistemological viewpoints within communication, this volume provides a unique opportunity for defining the breadth and depth of sport communication research. It will serve as a seminal reference for existing scholarship while also providing an agenda for future research.
Fantasy sport has become big business. Recent estimates suggest that there as many as 33 million fantasy sport participants in the US alone, spending $3bn annually, with many millions more around the world. This is the first in-depth study of fantasy sport as a cultural and social phenomenon and a significant and growing component of the contemporary sports economy. This book presents an overview of the history of fantasy sport and its close connection to innovations in sports media. Drawing on extensive empirical research, it offers an analysis of the demographics of fantasy sport, the motivations of fantasy sport players and their significance as heavy consumers of sport media and as ultra-fans. It also draws cross-cultural comparisons between fantasy sport players in the US, UK, Europe and beyond. The Fantasy Sport Industry examines the key commercial and media stakeholders in the production and development of fantasy sport, and points to new directions for the fantasy sport industry within modern sport business. It is therefore, fascinating reading for any student, scholar or professional with an interest in sports media, sports business, fandom, the relationship between sport and society, or cultural studies.
Located in the United States, NBC (National Broadcasting Company) is the biggest and most powerful Olympic network in the world, having won the rights to televise both the Summer and the Winter Olympic Games. By way of attracting more viewers of both sexes and all ages and ethnicities than any other sporting event, and through the production of breathtaking spectacles and absorbing stories, NBC’s Olympic telecasts have huge power and potential to shape viewer perceptions. Billings’s unique text examines the production, content, and potential effects of NBC’s Olympic telecasts. Interviews with key NBC Olympic producers and sportscasters (including NBC Universal Sports and Olympics President Dick Ebersol and primetime anchor Bob Costas) outline the inner workings of the NBC Olympic machine; content analyses from ten years of Olympic telecasts (1996-2006) examine the portrayal of nationality, gender, and ethnicity within NBC’s telecast; and survey analyses interrogate the extent to which NBC’s storytelling process affects viewer beliefs about identity issues. This mixed-method approach offers valuable insights into what Billings portrays as "the biggest show on television".
One of Seattle's most respected businesswomen, Lauren Bowman, is a formidable animal rights advocate. But her convictions cannot stop her closest friends from falling prey to a sadistic killer. Their tortured last moments are caught on videotape and sent to Lauren, terrifying portents of her own fate. And there is no one who can help her escape the shocking truth: from the days she never waned to remember a madman has emerged who cannot forget...
Moving to the lumber town of Buckthorn after the death of his wife, Peter Cochran learns that the town and his family have been terrorized for years by an elusive murderer who is targeting young men. Original.
The issue of Native American mascots in sports raises passions but also a raft of often-unasked questions. Which voices get a hearing in an argument? What meanings do we ascribe to mascots? Who do these Indians and warriors really represent? Andrew C. Billings and Jason Edward Black go beyond the media bluster to reassess the mascot controversy. Their multi-dimensional study delves into the textual, visual, and ritualistic and performative aspects of sports mascots. Their original research, meanwhile, surveys sports fans themselves on their thoughts when a specific mascot faces censure. The result is a book that merges critical-cultural analysis with qualitative data to offer an innovative approach to understanding the camps and fault lines on each side of the issue, the stakes in mascot debates, whether common ground can exist and, if so, how we might find it.
This edited collection examines how fantasy sports play has established a prominent and promising foothold in the larger sports ecology. Often considered an isolated activity for the hardcore sports fan, fantasy sports play have since been incorporated into sports broadcasting and editorial coverage, sports marketing and promotions, and even into the very sports themselves with athletes and teams using the activities to draw fans further into the sports experience. This edited collection invites leading scholars and sports professionals from several different fields to share historical and emerging perspectives on the importance of fantasy sports as an artifact of theoretical and empirical importance to larger issues of sport and society.
As the Olympic spectacle grows, broadcast coverage becomes bigger, more complex, and more sophisticated. Part sporting event, part reality show, and part global festival, the Olympics can be seen as both intensely nationalistic and a celebration of a shared sense of international community. This book sheds new light on how the Olympic experience has been shaped by television and expanded across multiple platforms and formats. Combining a multitude of approaches ranging from interviews to content analyses to audience surveys, the book explores the production, influence, and significance of Olympic media in contemporary society. Built on a central case study of NBC’s coverage of the Rio Games in 2016, which is then placed within 20 years of content analyses, the book focuses on the entire Olympic television process from production to content to effects. Touching on key themes such as race, gender, history, consumerism, identity, nationalism, and storytelling, Olympic Television: Broadcasting the Biggest Show on Earth is fascinating reading for any student or scholar with an interest in sport, media, and the global impact of mega-events.
Defining Sport: Conceptions and Borderlines is not about the variations of usage of the term “sport.” It is about the concept, the range of activities in the world that we unite into one idea—sport. It is through the project of defining sport that we can come to understand these activities better, how they are similar or different, and how they relate to other human endeavors. This definitional inquiry, and the deeper appreciation and apprehension of sport that follows, is the core of this volume. Part I examines several of the standard and influential approaches to defining sport. Part II uses these approaches to examine various challenging borderline cases. These chapters examine the interplay of the borderline cases with the definition and provide a more thorough and clearer understanding of both the definition and the given cases. This work is not meant to be the definitive or exhaustive account of sport. It is meant to inspire further thought and debate on just what sport is; how it relates to other activities and human endeavors; and what we can learn about ourselves through the study of sport. This book will be of interest to scholars in philosophy of sport, history, communications, sociology, psychology, sports management, cultural studies, and physical education.
Once deemed an unworthy research endeavor, the study of sports fandom has garnered the attention of seasoned scholars from a variety of academic disciplines. Identity and socialization among sports fans are particular burgeoning areas of study among a growing cadre of specialists in the social sciences. Sports Fans, Identity, and Socialization, edited by Adam C. Earnheardt, Paul Haridakis, and Barbara Hugenberg, captures an eclectic collection of new studies from accomplished scholars in the fields such as communication, business, geography, kinesiology, media, and sports management and administration, using a wide range of methodologies including quantitative, qualitative, and critical analyses. In the communication revolution of the twenty-first century, the study of mediated sports is critical. As fans use all media at their disposal to consume sports and carry their sports-viewing experience online, they are seizing the initiative and asserting themselves into the mediated sports-dissemination process. They are occupying traditional roles of consumers/receivers of sports, but also as sharers and sports content creators. Fans are becoming pseudo sports journalists. They are interpreting mediated sports content for other fans. They are making their voice heard by sports organizations and athletes. Mediated sports, in essence, provide a context for studying and understanding where and how the communication revolution of the twenty-first century is being waged. With their collection of studies by scholars from North America and Europe, Earnheardt, Haridakis, and Hugenberg illuminate the symbiotic relationship among and between sports organizations, the media, and their audiences. Sports Fans, Identity, and Socialization spurs both the researcher and the interested fan to consider what the study of sports tells us about ourselves and the society in which we live.
James Billings is a West End art dealer struggling to make ends meet, when out of the blue Holly Lester, wife of the Labour Party leader, steps into his gallery. As they embark on an illicit affair, Billings soon finds himself drawn into the ruthless world of power politics that sweeps Holly's husband into Number Ten – and threatens to destroy Billings' own reputation and career. In the late 1990s rumours circulated of a provocative new work of fiction scrutinizing Britain's politics from the inside. Here at last is the satirical romp, dubbed 'the British Primary Colors,' that had publications from the Observer to the Sunday Times racing to find out who wrote it. For those who remember the early halcyon days of New Labour, this novel will bring back memories; for those too young to know better, it will provide an intriguing education.
The many and varied threads of Canada’s national life come together in its capital region. Where the Rideau River flows into the Ottawa River, an Algonquin community was visited by French explorers and settled by British colonists. The town grew into a city, spilled over a provincial border, and now represents Canada to the world. Ottawa is a seat of government and has all the official edifices to show for it. But as Andrew Waldron shows you in Exploring the Capital, it’s a lot more than that. Follow the twelve guided-tours covering all corners of the region in Ontario and Quebec and you’ll encounter homes and schools, cultural sites and green spaces, houses of worship and shrines to commerce. Early houses, humble or magnificent, from the era of the lumber barons can be found steps away from the latest in sleek condominiums and office towers built for sustainability. Waldron takes you behind the doors of more than 390 diverse structures to learn who made them, how, and why. Exploring the Capital is for architectural experts and amateurs, and for residents and visitors alike. Visit Ottawa’s landmarks and neighbourhoods through its stories, maps, and photographs, and learn how great design and engineering turn landscapes into cityscapes.
James Billings is a West End art dealer struggling to make ends meet, when out of the blue Holly Lester, wife of the Labour Party leader, steps into his gallery. As they embark on an illicit affair, Billings soon finds himself drawn into the ruthless world of power politics that sweeps Holly's husband into Number Ten – and threatens to destroy Billings' own reputation and career. In the late 1990s rumours circulated of a provocative new work of fiction scrutinizing Britain's politics from the inside. Here at last is the satirical romp, dubbed 'the British Primary Colors,' that had publications from the Observer to the Sunday Times racing to find out who wrote it. For those who remember the early halcyon days of New Labour, this novel will bring back memories; for those too young to know better, it will provide an intriguing education.
A sweeping history of American psychiatry--from the mental hospital to the brain lab--that reveals the devastating treatments doctors have inflicted on their patients (especially women) in the name of science and questions our massive reliance on meds. For more than two hundred years, disturbances of the mind--the sorts of things that were once called "madness"--have been studied and treated by the medical profession. Mental illness, some insist, is a disease like any other, whose origins can be identified and from which one can be cured. But is this true? In this masterful account of America's quest to understand and treat everything from anxiety to psychosis, one of the most provocative thinkers writing about psychiatry today sheds light on its tumultuous past. Desperate Remedies brings together a galaxy of mind doctors working in and out of institutional settings: psychologists and psychoanalysts, neuroscientists, and cognitive behavioral therapists, social reformers and advocates of mental hygiene, as well as patients and their families desperate for relief. Andrew Scull begins with the birth of the asylum in the reformist zeal of the 1830s and carries us through to the latest drug trials and genetic studies. He carefully reconstructs the rise and fall of state-run mental hospitals to explain why so many of the mentally ill are now on the street and why so many of those whose bodies were experimented on were women. In his compelling closing chapters, he reveals how drug companies expanded their reach to treat a growing catalog of ills, leading to an epidemic of over-prescribing while deliberately concealing debilitating side effects. Carefully researched and compulsively readable, Desperate Remedies is a definitive account of America's long battle with mental illness that challenges us to rethink our deepest assumptions about who we are and how we think and feel.
Practical Business Statistics, Seventh Edition, provides a conceptual, realistic, and matter-of-fact approach to managerial statistics that carefully maintains, but does not overemphasize mathematical correctness. The book provides deep understanding of how to learn from data and how to deal with uncertainty while promoting the use of practical computer applications. This valuable, accessible approach teaches present and future managers how to use and understand statistics without an overdose of technical detail, enabling them to better understand the concepts at hand and to interpret results. The text uses excellent examples with real world data relating to business sector functional areas such as finance, accounting, and marketing. Written in an engaging style, this timely revision is class-tested and designed to help students gain a solid understanding of fundamental statistical principles without bogging them down with excess mathematical details. Provides users with a conceptual, realistic, and matter-of-fact approach to managerial statistics Offers an accessible approach to teach present and future managers how to use and understand statistics without an overdose of technical detail, enabling them to better understand concepts and to interpret results Features updated examples and graphics (200+ figures) to illustrate important applied uses and current business trends Includes robust ancillary instructional materials such as an instructor’s manual, lecture slides, and data files to save you time when preparing for class
The Standoff picks up with the McCullough girls at their ranch after their first successful cattle drive. Happy with how their lives are turning out, the girls look toward the future of the ranch and make sure everything will be ready for the next few years. While on a short fishing trip, Angela notices that the creek, which runs through their ranch and is the water supply for their cattle, isnt as high as it should be for that time of year. During their investigation, they find that a mining company has built a dam on the river, cutting off a needed lifeline for the ranchers. The McCulloughs tell the other ranchers in the area about what they have found, and everyone tries to figure out what to do about their predicament. The girls go up to the mine to talk with the manager; however, the big mining company refuses to release any water. The McCulloughs and the neighboring ranches vow to get their water by any means necessary. What will come next? Will one side break first? Will there be a range war in a fight for water in the desert? Only time will tell.
Mass communication theories were largely built when we had mass media audiences. The number of television, print, film or other forms of media audiences were largely finite, concentrating people on many of the same core content offerings, whether that be the nightly news or a popular television show. What happens when those audiences splinter? The Rise and Fall of Mass Communication surveys the aftermath of exactly that, noting that very few modern media products have audiences above 1-2% of the population at any one time. Advancing a new media balkanization theory, Benoit and Billings neither lament nor embrace the new media landscape, opting instead to pinpoint how we must consider mass communication theories and applications in an era of ubiquitous choice.
As an explorer, John Charles Frémont led five expeditions into the American West--two of them disastrous. He was also one of California’s first two senators (1850), America’s first Republican candidate for president (1856), a Civil War general, and the territorial governor of Arizona (1878-83). But his life was one of rash and rebellious conduct against authority. During the Mexican War he claimed to be the military governor of California, which resulted in a court-martial in 1848. At the outbreak of the Civil War he reentered the army as one of four major generals, outranking even Ulysses S. Grant. However, when he antagonized President Abraham Lincoln by issuing his own emancipation proclamation in advance of the president’s, Lincoln relieved him of command. In this comprehensive biography, Andrew Rolle carefully examines the historical record with a psychobiographical approach that explores and explains the many irrationalities of Frémont’s character.
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