Power Play Sport, the Media and Popular Culture free essay sample

Book Review Power Play: Sport, the Media and Popular Culture â€Å"Sport needs, attracts and must deal with money and power and the backers will always be looking to buy or take their share of the glory. How are we to police the line between the realms of power and play, economic space and social space? † (Goldblatt, 2007, as cited in Boyle Haynes, 2009). Power Play: Sport, the media and popular culture is written by Raymond Boyle and Richard Haynes (2009) and takes a deep look at the central role media plays in the life of sport. These â€Å"sports fans and media academics,† (pg. ix, Boyle Haynes, 2009) discuss how millions of fans around the world invest financially and emotionally into sport and its competitors and how the media play a central and crucial role in portraying and supplying information to the public. Different sports play an important role in the cultural life of countries and people and the media now, more than ever, has taken sport deep into the worlds of business and politics. We will write a custom essay sample on Power Play: Sport, the Media and Popular Culture or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page This book is broken down into three sections which look in particular at the political economy of media sport; the relationship between sport, media and identity formations of gender, race and nation; and the consumption of sport and the role of audiences in the communication process. Television, sport and sponsorship are what is referred to by these authors as ‘a sporting triangle. ’ The authors take a look at the complex relationship which has evolved at the centre of national and international sport and how now more than ever, this relationship drives the shape and development of sporting contests. Boyle and Haynes (2009), state that â€Å"professional sport today relies mostly on commercial sponsorship and money from the sale of television rights for its financial survival,† (pg. 45). They are supported by Polley (1998) and Holt (1989) how argue that sponsorship of sport and athletes has always been present, just not the scale that it is today. They mention even as far back as the first modern Tour de France using the race to promote a local newspaper L’Equipe (Holt, 1989). Companies choose to sponsor sports and athletes for different reasons. They could be looking to achieve an increase in public profile of that company as well as increasing public awareness of the product or services that the company offers. With this view Boyle and Haynes (2009), discuss Whitson (1998) who focuses on North American sport from the early 1980s and he demonstrates the links and the evolution between professional sport and the media industries from the 80s to the 90s. Whitson declares that during this time there was an increase in the media corporations not only providing the television channel to deliver the sport but also owning the sports clubs involved. â€Å"Through vertical integration media corporations can control both distribution and content,† (Boyle Haynes, 2009, pg. 48). The Olympics are arguably the world’s largest sporting events and the relationship between broadcasters, companies and sponsors has developed over time with the constant increase in satellite and video technology. Television networks fought to secure the rights to screen these events and this lead to excessive amounts of money being spent. Organisers soon realised that after the â€Å"spiral in television fees were levelling out,† (Boyle Haynes, 2009, pg 53), they would need to target alternative sources of revenue. This is where companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Visa began their sponsorship of the Olympics in LA, 1984. With this review of the sponsorship and the Olympics, Boyle and Haynes (2009) conclude that the LA games â€Å"were a celebration of corporate capitalism, an arena where human activity was transformed into an economic process that fuelled the consumption of corporate goods and services. Sport has become synonymous with corporate image, television entertainment and consumer capitalism and, for sponsors and marketers, global sporting events will never be the same again,† (pg. 53). Mediated sport is constantly saturated with ideas, images and values which often reflect, construct and challenge attitudes which filter through wider society. â€Å"The issues around media representations are fundamentally about power and status in society. A community’s or individual’s ability to feel themselves represented accurately in media discourse is in part related to assumptions about the power of the media to shape and change public opinion,† (Jarvie, 1991, as cited in Boyle Haynes, 2009, pg. 108). The authors here use particular examples of British athletes whose media portrayal has influenced the opinion of the public. After the bombings and the attempted bombings of London in 2005, British boxer Amir Khan of Pakistani background, was shown under a new light by the media, one which was very different to that when he was in the 2004 Olympics. He rose to fame in the Athens Olympics winning a silver medal at the age of 17 and received a warm welcome when he returned to his home town in England. A year later and two days after the London bombing, he fought his first professional bout. This came just after London police had announced that the four suspects of the bombings were British citizens of Pakistani origin. According to the authors and Burdsey, (2007), â€Å"the media coverage of his first professional fight was delivered in the context of the London bombings and the wider crisis in the ideology of multiculturalism that exists in the shadow cast by such horrific events,† (pg. 113). The reaction of Khan to this event and the media coverage of his comments and boxing display was one that the authors call a â€Å"public display of Britishness,†(pg. 13). Several public statements affirming his British Muslim identity were made and a Union Jack stitched together with the Pakistan flag were displayed. Burdsey (2007) agrees with the authors that â€Å"Khan’s emerging career in boxing had come at a critical conjuncture in identity politics in the UK and coming from the arena of sport opened up interesting vistas from which to analyse how the pl ay of historical events and the processes of inter-cultural exchange impact on debates of race, ethnicity and national identity,† (cited in Boyle Haynes, 2009, pg. 13). Race, ethnicity and national identities are connected deeper in the roles of media than other issues. Boyle and Haynes (2009) conclude this section of the book saying that more accurate and sensitive treatment by the media is needed around the issues of race and ethnicity but this â€Å"may remain difficult to achieve given the at time too cosy relationship between the media and sporting industries,† (pg. 120). Continuing on from race and ethnicity in sport, the next section looks at the differences of gender representation in sport and society by the media. The authors begin by mentioning that women’s participation in sport has been obstructed on many levels throughout the history of modern sport. Messner (2007) agree with the authors and states that while there are growing participation rates in sport by women, a change has not really been reflected in the media coverage of women in sport. Men and women and their stereotypes are looked at most frequently through sport than any other public domain and this differentiation of physical prowess is confirmed by the disproportionate media treatment of men’s sports over women’s sport (Boyle Haynes, 2009; Creedon, 1994; Bernstein, 2002). The authors looked at lots of research done looking at the amount of media coverage of women’s sport, in particular noting Smith’s (1995) research which indicated about 3% of the total sports news and images were those about female athletes and sports. Over a decade later, these statistics were found to be quite similar (King, 2007). Furthering on from this discussion and from a US perspective, Tuggle et al. 2007) looked at the coverage of female athletes at the 2004 Olympics and suggested that although the coverage overall of women was more than fair given their medal success and participation rates, â€Å"typically for female athletes to garner media coverage, even in the Olympics, they must be involved in socially acceptable individual sports rather than in team sports. Women who take part in sports involving either power or hard body contact are particularly unlikely to receive media coverage, (Tuggle et al. , 2007, as cited in Boyle and Haynes, 2009, pg. 127). The authors can see that there is slowly a change coming in the way female sports are represented in the media. They consider the differences between that success and power for both genders in sport and the stereotypes that have been created overtime can only be changed depending on the media portrayal. There are numerous amounts of books describing the relationship between sport and the media and this book provides a substantial summary to what I think to be some key ideas and issues relating to this topic. Starting by looking at the history between media and sport helped me to develop an opinion regarding the theme of the book. Being a British book, it was always going to look at things from mainly a British perspective but I believe that the authors should have contrasted issues regarding media and sport in England to similar issues in other countries, not just the USA. The authors referred to many other authors and researchers but I found that those they referenced were always backing up their original opinions. I would have liked to have read more opinions opposing their ideas and then seeing how Boyle and Haynes could further disprove the other theories. The final section of the book discusses that with the ever changing world we live in, it will always be difficult to predict future developments between the media and sporting industries. Boyle and Haynes conclude and summarise that â€Å"despite various trials and tribulations, sport’s historical relationship with the media has largely been one of mutual benefit,† (pg. 222). Simply, the broadcast media have helped create truly national and international sporting events and in the process given access to millions of people, consumers and citizens. By doing this the media has dictated what sports should be shown and how they should be presented. Professional Statement * The perceptions and attitudes toward female and male athletes from the public are very different depending on the way the media portray them. * Issues of race, ethnicity and national identities are present in every country and the different ways the media represents stories affect the opinions and views of the public and their cultural stance. * Money and sponsorship within the context of sport influences choices made by businesses, athletes, viewers and the public. After reading this book and thinking about the concepts and ideas raised, I believe that in my future profession as a teacher I will consider the role media plays in developing opinions in my students. As a PE, health and outdoor education teacher, I am aware of the issues that can be raised in my classes, particularly concerning gender and identity in sport. Everyone should have an equal opportunity and I will be sure to discuss the positives and negatives affecting the students’ opinions of media and sport in the community. References Berstein, A. (2002) Is it time for a victory lap? Changes in the media coverage of women in sport,’ International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 37 (3-4), 415-28. Burdsey, D. (2007) ‘Role with the punches: the construction and representation of Amir Khan as a role model for multiethnic Britain,’ Sociological Review, 55 (3), 611-31. Creedon, P. (1994) Women, Media and Sport: Challenging the Order. London: Sage. Goldblatt, D. (2007). ‘Taking sport seriously,’ Prospect, No. 141, December. Holt, R. (1989) Sport and the British. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jarvie, J. (1991) ‘Sport, racism and ethnicity,’ in G. Jarvie (ed. ), Sport, Race and Ethnicity. London: Falmer. King, C. (2007) ‘Media portrayals of male and female athletes: a text and picture analysis of British national newspaper coverage of the Olympic Games since 1948,’ International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 42 (2), 187-99. Messner, M. A. (2007) Out of Play: Critical Essays on Gender and Sport. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Polley, M. (1998) Moving the Goalposts: A history of Sport and Society since 1945. London: Routledge. Smith, S. J. (1995) ‘Women, Sport and the British Press: The Under-representation of Sporting Females. ’ Unpublished BA (Hons) Film and Media Studies dissertation, Stirling, University of Stirling. Tuggle, C. A. , Huffman, S. Rosengrad, D. (2007) ‘A descriptive analysis of NBC’s coverage of the 2004 Summer Olympics,’ Journal of Sports Media, 2 (1), 54-75. Whitson, D. (1998) ‘Circuits of promotion: media, marketing and the globalization of sport,’ in L. A. Wenner (ed. ), MediaSport. London: Routledge.