Journal of Sport & Social Issues current issue

Swimming and the Will to Improve

Cole, C. — 2008-07-14

Broadcasting Major League Baseball as a Governmental Instrument in South Korea

Cho, Y. — 2008-07-14

This study investigates governmentality in the relationships between local governments and global sports by examining the contexts of broadcasting Major League Baseball (MLB) in South Korea. Compared to how the Korean Baseball League (KBO) was used in the 1980s to divert public interest from political issues and encourage state nationalism, the sensational popularity of MLB in the 1990s helped construct alternative governmentality during the International Monetary Fund intervention. This new governmentality not only legitimated global competition but also emphasized responsible individuals and a new kind of citizen. Rather than arguing either total failure or success of the governmentality of the 1990s, this study suggests that individuated nationalism was its consequence, meaning that most Koreans remained deeply involved with nationalistic discourse but responded to it in different and diverse ways.

Contested Masculinities: The New Jew and the Construction of Black and Palestinian Athletes in Israeli Media

Shor, E. — 2008-07-14

This study examines how Israeli media present the masculinity of two non-Jewish groups, foreign Black players and Israeli Palestinian players. A systematic qualitative content analysis during the years 2002-2003 revealed very similar media images of these two groups. In both cases, the players are often portrayed as tough and physically superior (i.e., more masculine) but also as cognitively inferior and childish (i.e., less masculine). These findings shed light not only on Israeli views of the other, but also on the way the media perceives Jewish masculinity. The tension between the hypermasculine and the hypomasculine perception of non-Jews serves as an inverse mirror. On one hand, it allows the cultivation of a cognitively superior and mature Jewish image. On the other hand, it corresponds with the historic image of the weak and frail Jewish man and serves as a constant reminder of the failure to achieve the demands of masculine physical ideals.

Drug Use in Sport: Implications for Public Policy

Stewart, B., Smith, A. C.T. — 2008-07-14

Many of the models and theories that aim to explain drug use in sport are limited by a focus on individual athlete decision-making that centers on the socioeconomic costs and benefits of using drugs. However, this limitation narrows the debate to how various penalties and sanctions might curb use. The authors suggest that to broaden the debate the investigation should include an exploration of the context in which drug use occurs and a situational diagnosis of the assumptions, values, and beliefs that underpin drug use in sport. To this end, the authors have developed a model of drug use in sport that combines the micro orientation of individual athlete and interpersonal behavior with the macro orientation of sporting context, structure, and culture. They use this contextualized model to contrast a use-reduction policy with a harm-minimization policy that allows sport organizations and athletes to manage their drug use in a safe and secure environment.

The Rebirth of the Football Fanzine: Using E-zines as Data Source

Millward, P. — 2008-07-14

This article presents e-zines as both a legitimate data source and a basis of investigation for sociologists of popular culture. To do this, the article describes and evaluates the rise of the "fanzine" in the 1970s and 1980s along with its decline in the final years of the 20th century and parallels this with the emergence of the Internet as an "everyday" commodity. The unfolding argument is that e-zines provide a site for both the construction of (collective and individual) identities and "information age" sports fan democracy.

For the Love of Football: Australian Rules Football and Heterosexual Desire

Wedgwood, N. — 2008-07-14

The sexual attraction of some women specifically to sportsmen is such a taken-for-granted and commonplace phenomenon in Western society it receives little academic attention. This article first examines the handful of studies that have considered the relationship between heterosexual desire and Australian Rules footballers. Second, it reviews the few sociological studies of the groupies and wives of elite sportsmen. The article concludes that the social construction of sexual desire is an important but neglected element of the reproduction of the gender order. It is suggested that the concept cathexis may provide a useful conceptual framework for illuminating the ways in which women's heterosexual desires affect the maintenance, reproduction, and/or subversion of the existing gender order.

Fox Sports, Super Bowl XLII, and the Affirmation of American Civil Religion

Butterworth, M. — 2008-07-14