Media Activities and Reflexivity: The Case of Czech Sports Actors

NUMERATO, Dino. Media Activities and Reflexivity: The Case of Czech Sports Actors. Media Studies. 2008, vol. 3, No 3, p. 257-277. ISSN 1801-9978.

Basic information

• Original name: Media Activities and Reflexivity: The Case of Czech Sports Actors
• Authors: NUMERATO, Dino.
• Edition: Media Studies, 2008, 1801-9978.

Other information

• Type of outcome: Article in a journal
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• Organization unit: Faculty of Social Studies
• Keywords in English: activity; ethnographic study; mass media; reflexivity; sport; sports actor
• Tags: activity, ethnographic study, Mass Media, reflexivity, sport, sports actor
• Tags: Reviewed

Abstract

Contemporary scholarship dealing with the relationship between the media and sports has focused mainly on a critical analysis of media messages relating to sport, on the political economy of the media and on the transformation of sporting cultures as a consequence of the processes of globalisation, commercialisation and spectacularisation. Nonetheless attention has been paid to the ways in which sports actors actively approach or reflect upon the media. This paper addresses this gap as it analyzes different forms of the sports actors’ active use and reflexivity about the media. Therefore, sports (and the term does not refer only to elite and high-level sports, but also to recreational and competitive ones) are not understood as solely subordinated to the hegemony of the media system. On the contrary, drawing on ethnographic research on three Czech sports associations (football, handball and sailing), the analysis explores different modes of active and reflexive approaches to the media that appear in the sphere of sport. This analysis thus enriches the research agenda of sports media studies developed within the sociology of sport. Moreover, it provides empirical data that inform research on sports within the field of media studies.