Kian, Edward M., et al. “‘I Am Happy to Start the Conversation’: Examining Sport Media Framing of Jason Collins’ Coming out and Playing in the NBA.” Sexualities, vol. 18, no. 5/6, Sept. 2015, pp. 618-640. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/1363460714550915.
This article written by Edward Kian is an in depth look at the handling of Jason Collins, the first athlete from any of the four major male sports to come out as openly homosexual. Dr. Kian teaches at Oklahoma State University in their school of Media and Strategic Communications. Dr. Kian has devoted most of his professional life to tackling the idea of gender, LGBTQ and similar issues when it comes to sports media. This article looks at the four days following his announcement. What is interesting about this article and what makes it important for my research on the group synthesis project is the fact that the study debunks prior research that claimed that an openly gay athlete in such testosterone filled locker rooms would be treated differently or poorly once he came out as openly gay by his teammates. What happened in the NBA and the New Jersey Nets at the time was completely to the contrary. Teammates of Jason Collins on his return to the game following his opening up about his sexual preferences equated homophobia to racism many of them have felt throughout there life and thus they judged him as the individual that he is being much more accepting and caring than prior studies on homosexuality in professional sports perhaps might have shown. This is important for our class synthesis project because it proves that four years ago there was an example of an openly homosexual athlete who came out and was accepted by his peers and coaches and treated like the individual he is. Given this example it shows that there is a template for openly homosexual athletes receiving fair treatment from their colleagues after coming out which might contradict other research.
Kian, Edward M., et al. “Sport Journalists’ Views on Gay Men in Sport, Society and within Sport Media.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport, vol. 50, no. 8, Dec. 2015, pp. 895-911. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/1012690213504101.
This article was written by Edward Kian, who, in conducting my research seems to be one of the foremost authorities on LGBTQ people in athletics and their representation in the media. This article goes hand in hand with the above article about Jason Collins. The Jason Collins article gives an example of an athlete coming out as openly homosexual and being elcomed back into his locker room with open arms. This article asks ten prominent sports journalists their individual experiences and feelings about how openly homosexual athletes have been and will be viewed by the media and the general public within the scope of media representation as well as society in general. What is interesting about this article is that they found that many sports journalists are hesitant to report about athletes that aren’t straight even if it is a big story and another reporter or journalist might break the story before them. The interesting part of this article is that most journalist feel that openly homosexual athletes will be accepted by the public before being accepted by their teammates, coaches and trainers behind the scenes. Kian and others also looked into homosexuality in the sports journalism community and found that of the ten people he surveyed none of them had ever worked with an openly gay sports journalist. This is extremely important to the class synthesis project because it shows that the problem in media representation of homosexual athletes does not lie in the athlete’s teammates, coaches or even ownership but in the journalists who cover them. All of the journalists surveyed also stated that they believed it would be extremely difficult not only for openly homosexual athletes but the they couldn’t see an openly gay journalist becoming successful in sports media unless they conformed to the extremely masculine façade that, to them, reporting on sports requires.
Cooky, Cheryl, Messner A. Michael, Hextrum H. Robin. “Women Play Sport but Not on TV: A Longitudinal Study of Televised News Media”. Sage journals. April 4, 2013. Web. August 1, 2017.
This research report published by authors Cheryl Cooky, Michael A. Messner and Robin H. Hextrum investigates the media coverage or lack thereof, of women’s athletics. The article analyzes the history of women’s sports coverage by the media and offers valuable insight to the inequality between the media coverage of men and women’s sports. Their research provides information on the TV ratings of televised women’s sporting events and the media coverage of those events such as; TV coverage and published written articles. The authors introduce explanations as why the media coverage of women’s sports is so low in our society. The findings revealed that “over the past 20 years, coverage has declined and there is no reason to believe the trend will reverse in the next 20 years unless the network producers decide it’s in their best interest to do so (225)”. So when coverage is high, there is a connection between women’s sports being aired during a primetime slot and their bodies. An example was during the Olympics, of all the women’s events, the primetime event the network wants is beach volleyball. This event involves 4 women in essentially swimsuits playing volleyball on a beach. This source helps me with my class synthesis project because it provides me with valuable research regarding tv coverage of women’s sports and can be used to examine the representation of women in sports.
Annotation for Influence of Sports Media
Bush, Alan J., Martin, Craig A., and Bush, Victoria D. “Sports Celebrity Influence on the Behavioral Intentions of Generation Y.” Journal of Advertising Research, vol. 44, no. 1, 2004, pp. 108–118.
The authors focuse on how athlete role models affect teenagers to follow the “trend”, which also proven by the research of that teenagers are spending $153 billion a year from computers, car, and clothes which are effected by the athletes. The point that the author is trying to make is how influential and powerful these athletes are, and how their actions could simply influence our society in different ways.
The authors of the article are business professor from different universities, and I believe the article is targeting to business students. Although I can’t say that it’s influential, but I think the coverage of the topic is decent, and it could really connect to the topic of how sports media could effect the society since media is the biggest source that the athletes are sending their messages through. The article was published in 2004.
Although the article isn’t directly related to the topic in the influence of sports media, but the information it provides does really relates to the topic. There are information such as: “Trend conscious teens are very active in utilizing the media and advertising in seeking out the latest products, services, and fashions” (Zollo, 1995) shows that one of the source of these kind of effects are athletes through different forms of media which could really prove our topic. In conclusion, it really use a different way for us to see the influence of athletes through media (sports media).
Racism in Sports Media
Brennen, B., & Brown, R. (2016). Persecuting Alex Rodriguez. Journalism Studies, 17(1), 21-38. doi:10.1080/1461670X.2014.959817
The citation above is about a qualitative textual analysis that the press reporting of Alex Rodriguez for his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs. This analysis assesses many different media outlets such as newspapers, magazine and broadcasts from the year 2007 to 2014. This was used to find many issues surrounding these outlets such as racism, profiling and scandals in regard to money. Throughout the article the authors Bonnie Brennen and Rick Brown gives us some background on the Major League Baseball (MLB) about how the sport back then was mainly composed of wealthy white protestants, even working class and minorities weren’t allowed to participate in the sport. Even though the MLB has culturally accepted many races into its organization the owners of the team are still predominantly white in the year of 2013.
This article was published in January 2016, the author Dr. Bonnie Brennen is a professor at Marquette University. Dr. Brennen has taught many forms of communication such as ethical problems in Mass Communication, Mass Media and Society, Communication Theory and many more. Dr. Brennen received her Ph.D. at the University of Iowa and has produced many books and research in regard to cultural history of media, media studies and popular culture, and social and cultural communication theory. The other author Enrique (Rick) Brown was a little difficult to search all I can find was that he was a graduate student assistant and produced a handful of research a handful of research paper at Marquette University.
I believe this article is scholarly since it follows the framework of a scholarly article. Both authors provided many references to other studies and other articles pertaining to the subject in hand. I believe that this article will provide the necessary arguments and in the topic of racism mainly inferential racism that is being used in general and sports media today.
Sciullo, N. J. (2015). Richard sherman, rhetoric, and racial animus in the rebirth of the bogeyman myth. Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal 37(2), 201-230.
The citation above has an interesting perspective in terms of media communication by introducing law into the conversation. The article was about an National Football League athlete, Richard Sherman and his thirty second postgame interview after beating the 49niners on January 19, 2014. This article was broken into four sections focusing on the interview with Richard Sherman, Rhetoric of Black Danger, Racial Animus in Sports Media and the Rebirth of the Bogeyman Myth. The author Nick Sciullo believes that this approach is fitting due to understanding the multimodal of racism and able to best critique it. Sciullo goes more in depth in the section of Rhetoric of Black Danger by stating that “to be black, it to be evil”. Towards the end of the article Sciullo argues for a better understanding of racism through understanding the myths that inform the present.
The author Nick Sciullo currently teaches at the University of Central Florida in Human Communications. He works at the intersections of rhetoric, race and law. Sciullo is trained in critical rhetoric critical race theory, continental philosophy and psychoanalysis. Sciullo is currently interested in black radicalism, mass incarceration, French theory and social movements. This particular article was from the Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal was published in 2015. Nick Sciullo introduces media communication from a different point of view by introducing law into this topic.
I believe this article is a scholarly article as it follows the contextual framework of a scholarly article. This article was published in well-known journal that is recognized in many databases also this particular article was cited 257 times. I believe that the author has a great background in presenting ideas pertaining to racism in sports media and will give me essential needed arguments to support my claims in my project.
BISMCS 333 SUMMER 2017 