I decided to post a review/analysis of covering sports and a very unique situation. This review seems relevant because, as I have been saying, I believe Journalism is constantly changing and we need to keep up with it. Sports media is one aspect of Journalism that has remained strong and it seems people will always have a desire for.
The reading begins:
In an era of news media cutbacks, layoffs, and closures, the sports mass media segment of the industry is booming. Ratings for programming on sports cable channels are on the rise, and sports-oriented social media sites are expanding. Experts tout increased sports coverage and team-centered, subscriber-based Web sites as ways for newspapers to “rejuvenate themselves,” as veteran journalist Tim McGuire put it recently.
At colleges and universities, professors are putting sports communication front and center in research programs, and students are clamoring to get into sports writing and sports promotions classes. Here at the 
University of Alabama, the single largest specialty interest among journalism and broadcast news students – men and women alike – is sports reporting. My colleagues across the country report that we’re not alone in this trend.
Into this environment comes Examining Identity in Sports Media, edited by Heather L. Hundley and Andrew C. Billings. Although many books on the market cover sports reporting, writing, broadcasting, and public relations, few look at the intersection of sport, media, and society. This book does just that. The focus on identity, which is often just a chapter or a small section in other texts, makes the book ideal for students in sports communication and sports media courses. The overlapping dimensions examined in the book also make it appropriate for a broader range of classes, including those in diversity, gender, identity politics, sociology, American studies, and media criticism.
Hundley and Billings, two scholars widely published in this area, have assembled twelve chapters from some of the leading researchers in a variety of disciplines. From mass communication, contributors include Kim Bissell, Bryan Denham, and Marie Hardin. Other contributors include communication studies scholar Kelby Halone, management professors Benjamin Goss and Andrew Tyler, and kinesiology and health professor Mary McDonald. The interdisciplinary nature of the contributors is one of the book’s strengths.
All chapters blend a broad overview of the literature, a great resource for undergraduate students, with original empirical research, which will pique the interest of budding researchers in graduate programs. Many books of this type simply include a series of case studies, which can be interesting to read but may present only one approach for investigating issues. Examining Identity in Sports Media, in contrast, includes studies from a variety of methods – content analysis, survey research, rhetorical analysis, and critical/cultural approaches.
“We contend that identity is an extensive negotiation that is always changing, always being interpreted and reinterpreted, and always contested by various entities,” Billings and Hundley write in the introductory chapter (p. 5). “Whether the context of the mediated situation is a movie, television program, series of newspaper commentaries, or other mass media formats, the negotiation of identity can be addressed using different epistemologica! approaches.”
The chapters that follow examine key areas of identity research, including gender, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, and (dis)ability. Further, studies look at all forms of sport media: television, magazines, film, the Internet, and newspapers.
One of the first chapters, written by Hardin and Erin Whiteside, provides a vivid example of how these studies richly examine several dimensions of identity in sport and how these areas intersect. The chapter examines newspaper and wire service coverage of Rene Portland, the Penn State women’s basketball coach who openly proclaimed a “no lesbians” policy on her team for more than two decades. In addition to examining issues related to sexual orientation, the chapter looks at the constructs of femininity and masculinity of female athletes. Further, the authors discuss how race became a main focus of the coverage, although it was a secondary issue in a lawsuit brought by a former player against Portland and the university’s athletic department.
The book’s last two chapters go beyond news media representations of identity in sport to examine the effects on the audience and the characteristics of those consuming sports media. Jennings Bryant and Glenn Cummins, for example, use social identity theory and disposition theory to interpret survey results of avid fans following the annual Auburn-Alabama game (the Iron Bowl). The researchers looked at how the fans felt about their teams and about other aspects of their lives following a loss. They write: “it is of little surprise that the ebb and flow of team wins and losses is reflected not only in how we view ourselves, but also in our day-to-day lives” (p. 234).
The editors have worked to make the writing across the chapters accessible for students at all levels, from freshmen through doctoral candidates. While the book is easy to read, each chapter contains enough depth to spur class discussions and prompt further investigation of the topics. The range of methods and approaches used in the studies will allow graduate students to identify paths for their own original work, as they look to add to the growing body of research in sports identity and media.
Examining Identity in Sports Media fills a gap in the sports communication literature and should provide ample inspiration for the next generation of researchers looking for new directions in this burgeoning field.
Greer, J.. “Examining Identity in Sports Media. ” Rev. of: Examining Identity in Sports Media. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 65.1 (2010): 77-79. Education Module, ProQuest. Web. 20 Apr. 2011.
| [Author Affiliation] |
| JENNIFER D. GREER |
| JDGREER@UA.EDU |
| University of Alabama |