We are witnessing a sea change regarding mental health in sports media. led in part by professional athletes such as Michael Phelps, Kevin Love, Naomi Osaka, and Simone Biles, who are sharing their own experiences with mental illness, bucking stereotypes in which people experiencing mental health issues are condemned to unfulfilling lives. From quarterbacks to pitchers, power forwards to Olympic swimmers, athletes are increasingly using the mass media-including social media-to share their experiences with depression, anxiety, and other disorders. Head Game: Mental Health in Sports Media uses interviews with key athletes, leading journalists and sportscasters, and organizational and league leaders to show how media has been used-and could be used in the future-to advance greater understanding of mental health. Professional athletes describe their own experiences with mental illness, including the challenges and opportunities they encountered in the locker room, field of play, and mass media. The athletes, who represent a spectrum of professional sports, describe their decisions to disclose as well as their recommendations for current and future generations of athletes. Head Game highlights the crucial importance of such disclosures in challenging the context of professional sport where athletes are trained to be "tough" from a young age and any mental illness could translate into reduced playing time and even harassment. "Head Game represents the first book of its kind to tackle one of today's most pressing public health crises, one that has been forced into the shadows for far too long, through the lens of sport. Billings and Parrott explore the key media moments in this movement, the storytellers who shaped them, the institutional response from leagues and teams, and the first-hand accounts of elite athletes who have struggled to bring mental health awareness to the forefront-all of which has come to shape how we talk about mental health today. This timely, well-researched and expansive volume offers a powerful compilation of perspectives from prominent athletes like Olympians Michael Phelps and Gracie Gold, to the NFL's Brandon Bostick, to the NHL's Corey Hirsch. In combating the silence, stigma, stereotypes and prejudice that have often plagued discussions of mental health, Head Game tracks the modern movement for mental health advocacy within the world of sport and beyond. I highly recommend this book to anyone teaching courses in communication, sport and society, as students will undoubtedly find the material engaging and relatable, as well as to any reader interested in mental health portrayals in the media. I suspect everyone who reads Head Game will find a story within it that they can connect to." -Leigh Moscowitz, Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of South Carolina "For too long the discourse of 'mental toughness' has dominated sports culture, from the way we coach and train athletes to how athletes are covered in the media. Through interviews with elite/professional athletes who have publicly disclosed mental health issues, the sports journalists who cover their stories, and sports organizations' own efforts to address mental health, Head Game dissects how dangerous this discourse has been, and creates much-needed awareness on an issue that has been stigmatized in our culture. Head Game humanizes athletes, reminding readers that gold medals, championships, million-dollar salaries, corporate endorsements, or super star celebrity do not immunize athletes against mental health struggles. Sadly, what is at stake is a matter of life or death. Head Game is required reading for all athletes, coaches, journalists, sports fans, or anyone who cares about the mental health and well-being of athletes." -Cheryl Cooky, Professor of American Studies and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Purdue University

Warren Buffett once opined that "only when the tide rolls out do you discover who's been swimming naked." In a similar vein, American Sport in the Shadow of a Pandemic focuses on how communication practices, structures, and principles change when a key locus-sport-has much of its cultural and political-economic power disrupted. How intertwined is the economic viability of an American collegiate institution to the communicative enactment of the regular staging of collegiate sports? What proportion of a sports media contract is for the competition itself, as opposed to the documentation of fans being "fanatic" as they witness contests live and in-person? Who and what is deemed most disposable, and how do such decisions play out for athletes of different genders, races, and abilities? Questions such as these form the core foci of this volume. As many have observed, out of crisis comes opportunity. In this instance, this volume provides an opportunity for leading scholars of communication and sport to consider which principles should be rethought or reconceptualized based on the effects of the pandemic on our culture, politics, and economy.

Understanding Esports: An Introduction to the Global Phenomenon places professional Esports, a rapidly growing industry, in both the cultural and athletic landscape. This book explores how the rise of professional gaming has shaped-and been shaped by-media trends, interpersonal communication, and what it means to be classified as an athlete. Ryan Rogers has assembled contributors from a variety of backgrounds and experiences in order to provide a broad view of the history, experience, and impact of professional gaming. Scholars of media studies, communication, sports, and cultural studies will find this book especially useful.

Revolution of the Modern Sports Fan explores the elements of the sports fan that have markedly changed in the past few years. Inherent within these investigations is the role of communication in a multitude of forms (mediated, relational, etc.) as the prototypical sports fan has most heavily shifted within this domain. From the advent of social media to the rise of fantasy sport to the increased media platforms in which to consume sport, the sports fan has never had more options for consumption-and for the rendering of one's opinions. As such, Revolution of the Modern Sports Fan offers an opportunity to advance what we now know about American sports fandom as well as the ability to debunk what scholars thought they knew about sports fandom that has now shifted.

When we think about the "pictures in our heads" that media create and perpetuate, what images are we truly referencing? Issues of media stereotypes and representation (both past and present) are crucial to advancing media literacy. Media Stereotypes: From Ageism to Xenophobia becomes one-stop shopping for synthesizing what we know within the composite of stereotyping research in the United States. Utilizing a cast of top American scholars with deep roots in asking stereotype-based questions, this book is essential reading for those wishing to understand what we know about past and present media representations as well as those wishing to take the baton and continue to advance media stereotyping research in the future. Winner of the 2021 BEA Textbook Award!

When we think about the "pictures in our heads" that media create and perpetuate, what images are we truly referencing? Issues of media stereotypes and representation (both past and present) are crucial to advancing media literacy. Media Stereotypes: From Ageism to Xenophobia becomes one-stop shopping for synthesizing what we know within the composite of stereotyping research in the United States. Utilizing a cast of top American scholars with deep roots in asking stereotype-based questions, this book is essential reading for those wishing to understand what we know about past and present media representations as well as those wishing to take the baton and continue to advance media stereotyping research in the future. Winner of the 2021 BEA Textbook Award!

The concept of "fandom" has been revolutionized over the past 20 years because of various technological, cultural, and communicative advancements. Evolution of the Modern Sports Fan: Communicative Approaches explores the elements of the sports fan that have markedly changed since the turn of the century. Inherent within these investigations is the role of communication in a multitude of forms (mediated, relational, etc.) as the prototypical sports fan has most heavily shifted within this domain. From the advent of social media to the rise of fantasy sport to the increased media platforms in which to consume sport, the sports fan has never had more options for consumption-and for the rendering of his/her opinions. This edited volume offers an opportunity to advance what we now know about American sports fandom as well as the ability to debunk what scholars thought they knew about sports fandom that has now shifted.

The concept of "fandom" has been revolutionized over the past 20 years because of various technological, cultural, and communicative advancements. Evolution of the Modern Sports Fan: Communicative Approaches explores the elements of the sports fan that have markedly changed since the turn of the century. Inherent within these investigations is the role of communication in a multitude of forms (mediated, relational, etc.) as the prototypical sports fan has most heavily shifted within this domain. From the advent of social media to the rise of fantasy sport to the increased media platforms in which to consume sport, the sports fan has never had more options for consumption-and for the rendering of his/her opinions. This edited volume offers an opportunity to advance what we now know about American sports fandom as well as the ability to debunk what scholars thought they knew about sports fandom that has now shifted.

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.

Including the work of top sports communication researchers, Examining Identity in Sports Media explores identity issues, including gender, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, and (dis)ability, as well as the intersections within these various identity issues. This co-edited, twelve-chapter book investigates how various identity groups are framed, treated, affected, and shaped by a ubiquitous sports media, including television, magazines, film, the Internet, and newspapers. While other books may devote a chapter or section to issues of identity in sports media, this book offers a complete examination of identity from cover to cover, allowing identity variables to be both isolated and intermingled to capture how identity is negotiated within sports media platforms. Far more than a series of case studies, this book surveys the current state of the field while providing insight on future directions for identity scholarship in sports communication. Key FeaturesDraws on both quantitative and qualitative approaches, including surveys, content analyses, and rhetorical approaches.Investigates the numerous ways print, electronic, and digital media present issues of identity in sports coverage Addresses media portrayals and/or cultural representations of one or more forms of identity (ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation, ability/disability, etc.) as they relate to sport Includes examples and illustrations of both explicit and implicit discriminatory practices appearing in the mediaIncludes articles by a wide range of interdisciplinary contributors both seasoned and up-and-coming scholars of sport representing a diverse balance of intellectual ideologiesHelps students understand how identity can be addressed through quantitative or qualitative approaches, critical/cultural scholarship, and rhetorical analyses

Examining Identity in Sports Media is ideal for undergraduate or graduate-level courses in Sports Communication, Sports Media, Media Criticism, Sports Sociology, Gender Communication, and Identity Politics.

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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.

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.

Bringing together many of the most influential scholars in sport and media studies, this book examines the diverse ways that media influences our understanding of the world's most important sport events, dubbed sports mega-events. It sheds new light on how these events have been changed by the media, and have, in turn, adapted to media to further their brand's cultural influence. Focusing on the central concept of "mediatization" - the permeation of media into all spheres of contemporary life - the book presents original case studies of major events including the Olympics, FIFA, rugby and cricket World Cups, Tour de France, Super Bowl, World Series, Monaco Grand Prix, Wimbledon, and many more. Written from a truly international perspective, this is a seminal work in sport and media studies that reveals the growing political, economic, and cultural influences of sport mega-events in contemporary society. Sport, Media and Mega-Events is an essential text for any course on the sociology of sport, event management, sport marketing, or featuring a cultural, communication or media studies approach to sport.

This book explores the biggest sporting event in the world through the lens in which most people witness it: the media. Traversing nations and media formats, contributors offer insights into the manner in which the Olympics is conveyed to the masses and the impact arising from the mass consumption of Olympic media in its plethora of dimensions. The book gleans insight from past Olympic media analyses, but focuses on the role media played within the 2012 London Summer Olympics. Using a variety of methodologies, the book underscores how the Olympic Games are more than just a sporting event but should be understood a vast mosaic of images and events that shape public understandings of nations, society, and the values that undergird such renderings. This book was published as a special section in Mass Communication & Society.

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.

Communication and Sport: Surveying the Field provides students with an understanding of sports media, rhetoric, culture, and organizations through an examination of a wide range of topics. Authors Andrew C. Billings and Michael L. Butterworth address everything from youth to amateur to professional sports through varied lenses, including mythology, community, and identity. A comprehensive focus on communication scholarship gives attention to the ways that sports produce, maintain, or resist cultural attitudes about race, gender, sexuality, class, and politics. The Fourth Edition includes new interviews with prominent figures in the field and new discussions on current events like the Black Lives Matter movement and the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

Understanding Esports: An Introduction to the Global Phenomenon places professional Esports, a rapidly growing industry, in both the cultural and athletic landscape. This book explores how the rise of professional gaming has shaped—and been shaped by—media trends, interpersonal communication, and what it means to be classified as an athlete. Ryan Rogers has assembled contributors from a variety of backgrounds and experiences in order to provide a broad view of the history, experience, and impact of professional gaming. Scholars of media studies, communication, sports, and cultural studies will find this book especially useful.

Issues of reputation management are negotiated in a wide array of contexts, yet arguably one of the most visible of these areas involves how such stories unfold within the sporting arena. Whether involving individual athletes, teams, organizations, leagues, or global entities, the process of navigating issues of image repair and/or restoration and crisis-based communication has never been more byzantine with a plethora of communicative media outlets functioning in myriad manners. Reputational Challenges in Sport explores the intersection of reputation, sport, and society. In doing so, the book advances theory and then explores individual, team, and organizational applications from varied methodological perspectives as they relate to reputation and identity management and crisis orientations. The book provides a synthesis of previous works while offering a contemporary advancement of these subjects from a variety of epistemological approaches. It gives voice to variety of perspectives that offer a robust advancement of issues relating to reputation, sport, and modern 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.

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.

Bringing together many of the most influential scholars in sport and media studies, this book examines the diverse ways that media influences our understanding of the world's most important sport events, dubbed sports mega-events. It sheds new light on how these events have been changed by the media, and have, in turn, adapted to media to further their brand's cultural influence. Focusing on the central concept of "mediatization" - the permeation of media into all spheres of contemporary life - the book presents original case studies of major events including the Olympics, FIFA, rugby and cricket World Cups, Tour de France, Super Bowl, World Series, Monaco Grand Prix, Wimbledon, and many more. Written from a truly international perspective, this is a seminal work in sport and media studies that reveals the growing political, economic, and cultural influences of sport mega-events in contemporary society. Sport, Media and Mega-Events is an essential text for any course on the sociology of sport, event management, sport marketing, or featuring a cultural, communication or media studies approach to sport.

Issues of reputation management are negotiated in a wide array of contexts, yet arguably one of the most visible of these areas involves how such stories unfold within the sporting arena. Whether involving individual athletes, teams, organizations, leagues, or global entities, the process of navigating issues of image repair and/or restoration and crisis-based communication has never been more byzantine with a plethora of communicative media outlets functioning in myriad manners. Reputational Challenges in Sport explores the intersection of reputation, sport, and society. In doing so, the book advances theory and then explores individual, team, and organizational applications from varied methodological perspectives as they relate to reputation and identity management and crisis orientations. The book provides a synthesis of previous works while offering a contemporary advancement of these subjects from a variety of epistemological approaches. It gives voice to variety of perspectives that offer a robust advancement of issues relating to reputation, sport, and modern society.

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.

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.