1. Sport and the Mass Media
Chapter 14
Sport and the Mass Media

2. Section 1 – Sport as a social institution

3. Defining Sport
Sport: competitive games that are won or lost on the basis of physical skills and played according to specific rules
For some sociologists, competition is the most important aspect.
Direct competition: Two or more individuals or teams compete against each other. (Examples: football, tennis, swimming)
Indirect competition: Athletes take turns at the same skill. (Examples: shot put, pole vault)
Competition against a standard: Individuals and/or teams compete against each other and against a preset standard. (Examples: figure skating, gymnastics)
Not all games that involve competition are sport. Dice and chess, for example, are not sport.
Childhood games (such as tag and leapfrog) are not sport. They are a form of play.

4. The Institutionalization of Sport
Physical games have been a part of human culture since the earliest times. Modern sport first emerged in England and followed the rise of industrialism. Guttmann claims that six characteristics define both sport and industrialism.
Secularization
In the past, many physical games were part of religious activities.
To become an institution in its own right, sport had to move from the realm of the sacred to that of the profane. This move is called secularization.

5. The Institutionalization of Sport
Equality
In the past only certain people were allowed to participate in physical games.
Two basic norms of modern sport are that competition is open to everyone and that the same rules apply to all contestants.
Specialization
Modern athletes specialize much more than athletes in the past.
Specialized aides such as coaches, trainers, managers, etc., also participate in sport.

6. The Institutionalization of Sport
Rationalization
The processes by which every feature of human behavior becomes subject to calculation, measurement, and control.
Sports are played with the same rules across the world.
Bureaucratization
Bureaucratization goes hand in hand with rationalization: with set rules, a formal organization must be charged with developing and enforcing those rules.
Quantification
Athletes want to know where they stand in relation to other athletes, both past and present.
The “win at any cost” mentality can lead to illegal drug use.

7. Stats on sports in the United States
High school sport participation numbers (2017)
Youth sports (under the high school level)
Men’s high school sports
Roughly 45 million kids are playing at least one organized sport
Baseball – 490,000+
Basketball – 550,000+
80% quit after the age of 15
Football – 1,000,000+
Soccer – 450,000+
Women’s high school sports
Basketball – 430,000+
Soccer – 388,000+
Softball – 367,000+
Volleyball – 444,000+

8. What are the odds of going pro?
Men's Basketball
High school senior players who go on to play NCAA men`s basketball: Less than one in 35, or 2.9 percent.
NCAA senior players drafted by an NBA team: Less than one in 75, or 1.3 percent.
High school senior players eventually drafted by an NBA team: About three in 10,000, or 0.03 percent.
Women`s Basketball
High school senior players who go on to play NCAA women's basketball: About three in 100, or 3.1 percent.
NCAA senior players drafted by a WNBA team: About one in 100, or 1.0 percent.
 High school senior players eventually drafted by a WNBA team: About one in 5,000, or 0.02 percent.

9. What are the odds of going pro?
Football
High school senior players who go on to play NCAA men's football: About one in 17, or 5.8 percent.
NCAA senior players drafted by an NFL team: About one in 50, or 2.0 percent.
High school senior players eventually drafted by an NFL team: About nine in 10,000, or 0.09 percent.
That's about the chance you have an IQ above 150, as measured by the Stanford-Binet test. The average IQ of Ph.D. students is 130.

10. What are the odds of going pro?
Baseball
High school senior players who go on to play NCAA men`s baseball: Less than three in 50, or 5.6 percent
 NCAA senior players drafted by a Major League Baseball (MLB) team: Less than eleven in 100, or 10.5 percent.
High school senior players eventually drafted by an MLB team: About one in 200, or 0.5 percent. Drafted baseball players almost always go to a minor league team. These teams abound; there are over 150 of them, compared to 30 in the majors. The big leagues have 750 players, yet the 2004 draft alone took 1,500. Hence some estimate that only one in 33 minor leaguers ever makes it to the pros. If that's correct, the chance of a high school player making the big leagues is one in 6,600, or percent. That's roughly the chance of a thief guessing your PIN number on the first try.

11. What are the odds of going pro?
Basically?
Have a backup plan, regardless of how talented you are or how many offers you have.
One injury could end it all
GET THAT DEGREE!

12. Stats on sports in the United States
Sports viewership projections in the US by 2021
NFL – 141M
Esports – 84M
MLB – 79M
NBA – 63M
NHL – 32M
MLS – 16M

13. “The Super Bowl is the biggest sporting event in the world” – Some guy on TV
FALSE
Super Bowl in 2015 was the peak – 114.4M viewers
Compare this to the 2014 World Cup final between Germany and Argentina – 913M global viewers
The European Champions League final in 2018 between Real Madrid and Athletico Madrid drew a European audience of 165M and a global audience of 380M.

14. Section 2 – Perspectives and issues in American sport

15. Sociological perspectives in sport
Sport is a huge part of life in the United States.
More than 120 million people attend professional sporting events each year.
With advent of sport stations on cable, fans can enjoy sports anytime they want.
Sociologists have various perspectives on sport’s role.

16. Sociological perspectives in sport
Functionalist Perspective
Sport helps maintain the stability of society by providing social integration, reinforcing social norms, provides athletes and spectators with socially acceptable aggression.
Conflict Perspective
Sport helps social inequality in society but can provide a distraction from people’s unhappiness. Some also believe that certain sports legitimate violence and make it more acceptable in society.
Interactionist Perspective
Sport influences society through its symbols, norms, and values. For example, it helps shape how people live by providing role models in the form of athletes. Coach- player relationships and being part of a sports team also affect how people live.

17. Issues in American sport
Race and Sport
Studies tend to focus on examples of racial discrimination in sport.
Stacking: the practice of assigning people to central or noncentral athletic positions on the basis of race or ethnicity.
Stacking was common during the 1970s and 1980s, but less common now.
Some think coaches believe minority players did not have the decision-making skills needed for central positions.
Sociologists also wonder whether fans’ racial attitudes affect sport.

18. Issues in American sport
Women in Sport
Title IX of the Education Amendment Act of required equal funding for men’s and women’s sports. This has expanded over the decades to influence far more areas than sports.
Certain sports are considered more appropriate for women.

19. Issues in American sport
Deviance in Sport
Drug use is the most common deviant behavior among athletes. Many use substances to enhance performance.
Some sociologists consider the violence in sports as deviant, while others claim it is an expression of established cultural patterns.

20. Section 3 – Mass media as a social institution

21. The institutionalization of mass media
Writing and Paper
With the development of agriculture, trade became more complex.
Writing made records of trades easier to remember and calculate.
Paper made writing more portable.
The Printing Press
Hand copying of books was a long, laborious, and costly process.
During the 1450s Gutenberg developed a movable-type printing press that made books, and hence the skill of reading, more common.

22. The institutionalization of mass media
The Industrial Age
With industrialization, the forces of advertising, urbanization, and rising literacy led to the newspaper.
The development of electronic media such as movies, radio, and television brought entertainment into people’s homes.
The Information Society
The computer and the Internet revolutionized communication and information storage.
Information society: A community in which the exchange of information is the main social and economic activity

23. Mass media in the United States
Americans obtain information from a wide variety of media. These media can be grouped into four categories, but some scholars claim this division is artificial.
Print Media
Newspapers, magazines, and books
Large but declining audience
48 percent read a newspaper daily; 85 percent read a magazine regularly; 25 percent read more than 10 books a year
Audio Media
Sound recordings (CDs, vinyl records, music videos and MP3s) and radio
Wide variety of radio formats: news, talk, classic rock, religion, etc.
99 percent have radio at home

24. Mass media in the United States
Visual Media
Movies, television, videocassettes, DVDs
Television reaches one of the largest audiences, with 98 percent having television at home
Internet streaming sites have started to cut heavily into this market.
Netflix has 60.5 million subscribers in the US as of 2018
The number of people “cord cutting”, as in canceling traditional cable services, rose to 33 million people in 2018.
Online Media
Internet services such as , online chat groups, social-networking sites, and online shopping
65 percent have Internet access at home. This number has increased to 75% by 2017
There are million social network users in the US, roughly 77% of the population
Instagram has reached 62.8% of the US as of July 2018

25. Mass media in the United States
Online Media
YouTube is a LARGE force in the media and a lot of “traditional media” is slow to catch up.
312 million internet users in the US.
155 million unique monthly visitors use the Facebook app.
Pewdiepie’s YouTube channel averages 11.7 million views a day
US smartphone app hours per user aged – 85.6 hours a month
NBC Nightly News averages only 7.7 million per broadcast
When it comes to pornography, 4% of all internet websites are considered to be pornography. 13% of all web searches are related to porn. 20% of all mobile internet searches are related to porn. Porn addiction has been repeatedly shown to have long-term negative effects on personal relationships and other areas.
Online-based subscription media has risen in the dying of cable
About million people in the U.S. watch Netflix at least once a month. That’s followed by Amazon Prime Video (88.7 million), Hulu (55 million), HBO Now (17.1 million) and Dish’s Sling TV (6.8 million).

26. Mass media in the United States
Convergence
Media convergence: The idea that the media are merging and are no longer separate entities
Examples: newspapers available online, Internet radio, e-books
Media Consumption
On average, each American spends nearly 3,600 hours a year using media
American adults spend over 11 hours per day listening to, watching, reading, or generally interacting with media.
Adults spend 43% of their time in a day consuming media on digital platforms
Individual usage rates are affected by age, education, and income

27. Section 4 – Perspectives and issues in mass media

28. Sociological perspectives on mass media
Functionalist Perspective
Media keep track of what is happening, interpret information, transmit cultural values, and entertain people. These functions support the stability and smooth operation of society.
People need to know what is going on around them to be productive in society.
Media can consciously or inadvertently help pass on society’s basic values and beliefs.

29. Sociological perspectives on mass media
Conflict Perspective
Media convinces people to accept the existing power structure.
Knowledge-gap hypothesis: the wealthy and better-educated acquire new information more quickly, creating a divide. This is where the common conceptions of “East/West Coast Elitism” and “Flyover states”. “People who live in Manhattan,” one reporter has stated, “consider anything west of the Hudson River to be the wasteland.”
Digital divide: gap between those with access to new technology and others
Representation of certain groups in the media might reinforce social inequality.

30. Sociological perspectives on mass media
Interactionist Perspective
Mass media shape everyday social interactions. Many people plan events around media.
Some consider gatherings to watch television and the like to be social events. Others think watching television is essentially a solitary event.
Some see the Internet as a new method of social interaction, while others view the Internet as a threat to social interaction.

31. Contemporary mass-media issues
Mass Media and Children
In 1983, advertisers spent $100M in advertising to kids. By 2016, companies spent around $17B
Watching television is the primary after-school activity for most students.
Children between the ages of see more than 25,000 advertisements a year on TV. This does not include internet ad, video games, cell phones, apps.
Children between 8-10 spend around 8 hours a day exposed to media.
Many worry that seeing violence on television encourages actual violence.
Teens between have around 145 conversations about brands per week.
Links have been found between large amounts of television viewing and low test scores.
Children are targeted by advertisers.
For example, there are over 40,000 Disney Princess branded items on the market today.

32. Contemporary mass-media issues
Mass Media and Civic and Social Life
Some argue that people have become less socially active as television has become more common.
Social capital: Everything that makes up a community
The Internet may also lead to withdrawal from community life, although some argue that online communities are taking the place of face-to-face interaction.

33. Contemporary mass-media issues
The Power of the Media
Many feel that the new media wield too much power.
Spiral of silence: As news media offer repeated opinions, more people accept these opinions, and people who disagree are less likely to voice their views.
Agenda setting: The media do not tell people what to think, but what to think about.
Gatekeepers: Media figures decide what the agenda is in a particular story.
Opinion leaders: Respected individuals are the first to evaluate messages and their importance.

34. Contemporary mass-media issues
Media Bias – To think there isn’t a bias and agenda in the media is to be ignorant to the facts. Some examples:
News media spent 54 times the amount of news coverage on the death of Harambe the gorilla than the 69 people killed over a Memorial Day weekend in Chicago gang violence.

35. Contemporary mass-media issues – media bias
The Washington Post published a piece comparing Trump’s use of declaring national emergency powers to enact policy related to border security as similar to “Hitler’s rise to power in Germany”. Trump so far in his presidency has used this power 4 times. Obama declared emergencies to push policy 12 times, and 10 of his declarations are still in effect. The Post published no single instance of criticism against Obama’s declarations of power during his entire time in office.

36. Contemporary mass-media issues – media bias
News media devoted over 157 minutes of airtime discussing the Jussie Smollett hate crime as a fact before any verified evidence came to light. It has recently been found to be a hoax. Smollett recently surrendered to authorities after he was charged with one count of felony disorderly conduct for filing a false police report. If found guilty he could face up to 3 years in prison.
2017, two black teens kidnapped and tortured a mentally disabled white man for two days while shouting racial slurs. This was broadcast on Facebook Live to thousands of viewers. There was literal video evidence proving what happened. News media spent a grand total of 24 minutes of airtime covering it. One reporter went so far to say that “I don’t think it’s evil. I think these are young people and I think they have bad home training.” Other reporters said they would not consider it a “hate crime”. The FBI defines hate crime as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.”
This same reporter also said on the air a year later: “We have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men.” He received no reprimand for any of his statements.

37. Contemporary mass-media issues – media bias
Research on the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency in terms of media coverage:
CNN – 93% negative, 7% positive
NBC and CBS – 91% negative, 9% positive
This is the biggest disparity in media history

38. Contemporary mass-media issues – media bias
Some two-thirds of the Trump coverage in 2018 came from five topics, including the Russia investigation, immigration, the Brett Kavanaugh nomination, North Korea, and U.S.-Russia relations.
The economy? 0.7% of news coverage was dedicated to it. Why is this bias?
The third quarter of 2018 saw 4.2% GDP. Wages are rising, and real median household incomes are now at their highest level ever. As for September 2018, the overall unemployment rate of 3.7%, it was the lowest in nearly half a century. Meanwhile, unemployment rates for African Americans, Hispanics and Asians are at or near all-time lows, largely based on Trumps tax breaks, deregulation policies, and economic job creation policies.

39. Contemporary mass-media issues – media bias
66% of American’s believe the news media has a hard time separating fact from opinion in their reporting.
92% of Republicans according to a June 2018 poll believe that the media intentionally pushes false narratives
A recent study showed that over 58% of those in the journalism profession admit to being “Liberal” politically. 37% claim to be “moderate left”. Only 4.4% in the media claim to be Conservative.
Current estimates show that 85% of those in journalism are registered Democrats.

40. Lara Logan’s comments on media bias in journalism
Who is Lara Logan?
CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent from
Spent time on the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq with Afghani anti-Taliban fighters and with US Armed Forces. Survived numerous attacks, car bombings, mine explosions, etc. Hospitalized multiple times .
Was beaten and sexually assaulted by a mob during her coverage of the Egyptian revolution in Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo in 2011.
Her recent comments on the media should be taken seriously.

41. Logan’s comments on media bias
Logan was being interviewed on the Mike Drop Podcast with former Navy SEAL Mike Ritland. He and Logan had met previously while he was fighting overseas.
Video

42. What is my point?
Like Logan, I am not trying to endorse any one political party. Both have policies that I believe could be considered positive and negative. I’m concerned about balance of perspectives and opinions. Like Logan, I would feel the same way if the bias were reversed.
If you only have one voice telling you things how can you know you’re not being manipulated? How can you know you’re not being lied to? How can you know you’re NOT being told things you should be told?
My point is you need to understand there are two sides to every story that is being reported, and often only one is. BE OPEN MINDED AND READ UP ON THINGS FOR YOURSELF. DO NOT JUST ACCEPT THINGS. IT’S POSSIBLE I’VE GOTTEN THINGS WRONG TOO FROM TIME TO TIME (MISQUOTE A STAT, ETC). DO YOUR RESEARCH IF YOU’RE INTERESTED IN LEARNING ALL SIDES.

43. Sociology in today’s world
Video Games and Violence
A series of school shootings in the 1990s led many to believe real-life violence was encouraged by violence encountered in video games and on television.
First-person shooter game players use an assortment of weapons to fight off enemies.
Newspapers put blame of school shootings on these games.
Sociologist Karen Sternheimer began a study to test the link between games and violence.
Sternheimer’s study found no correlation between video games and the rate of violence among teens.
Studies that seem to support the correlation do not take into account important factors such as poverty, neighborhood stability, or family relationships, according to Sternheimer.