Please distribute widely.



FlowTV Special Issue

Sports Media: Tensions and Transitions



As the NFL bans players from Tweeting on the sidelines and the NCAA  

bans fans' unofficial Facebook recruitment pages, it is clear that  

players, fans, leagues, and media institutions are struggling to  

maintain control in changing mediated sports environments. Yet it is  

not just new media that is both enhancing and threatening the  

relationship between athletic institutions, media industries and fan  

communities. Major transitions have also occurred in traditional media  

like television and radio with the 30th anniversary of ESPN's  

Sportscenter, and online audio and video available for seemingly every  

major sport worldwide. Although sports and mass media have a  

well-established symbiotic relationship, media studies has been slow  

to embrace sport as a legitimate or significant object of study; this  

is a negligence that Flow seeks to remedy. Questions to consider might  

include:



     * How have fan experiences been transformed by transitions from  

radio to television, network to cable, and television to the internet?

     * How have the games, players, fans, and leagues been transformed  

by these media developments?

     * What of other technological developments such as screens in  

arenas, ballparks and stadiums?

     * What is the social significance of fans', players', coaches'  

and leagues' use of social media technologies such as Twitter,  

Facebook, iPhones, and blogging?

     * How do these all of these developments change the fan  

experience and notions of fandom?

     * How do these developments contribute to athletes' ability to  

construct and promote their own celebrity image?

     * Should players be given a voice via personal blogs or Twitter  

and what does it mean when leagues regulate and silence these voices?

     * What happens to traditional gatekeeping roles when fans become  

the experts and journalists are bypassed by amateur coverage and  

footage?

     * How have discourses and representations of gender, race, class,  

sexuality, and ethnicity progressed (or not) over the decades?

     * How do advertisers, journalists, and leagues reinforce rigid  

constructs and representations of "the athlete" and "the fan"?





We encourage submissions that highlight and critically analyze  

contemporary or historical tensions between sports leagues, media  

industries, technological developments, fans, athletes,  

representations, and/or significant case studies. We welcome  

submissions which address any sport, American or International,  

professional and amateur from tennis and golf, to rugby and hockey, to  

college football and professional basketball. Flow has a longstanding  

policy of encouraging non-jargony, highly readable pieces and ample  

incorporation of images and video. Please send submissions (attached  

as a Word doc) of between 1000-1500 words to Co-Coordinating Editors   

Alex Cho ([log in to unmask]) and Jacqueline Vickery  

([log in to unmask]) no later than  Monday, October 5, 2009.



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