Suchergebnisse

This article analyzes how a fundamentalist Christian movement, the Promise Keepers, uses sport in its literature as a means of promoting a specific style of masculinity and male leadership, which is referred to as "Christlike" masculinity. Two books foundational to the Promise Keepers' ideology, What Makes a Man and Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper, serve as the basis for this research. A critical feminist analysis is used to examine the ways in which sport is used to construct a masculinity that encourages a patriarchal ideology. Highlighted are three ways in which sport is employed to support a patriarchal ideology. These include using sport as a demonstration of masculine qualities that are linked with superior leadership, using sport as a means to rally men around male superiority, and using sport images and metaphors to conjure mental images of male superiority.

This article examines the consumption of alternative sport's subcultural media. Our research is situated in the context of `post' CCCS subcultural research which has explored how the media and the market are central to the authentication of popular cultural practices. Qualitative audience research was conducted with windsurfers from the UK and skateboarders from the US, examining the meanings that the niche magazines have for the participants of those alternative sports in the construction of their sporting identities. We focused on participants' readings of magazine advertising images, exploring their discourses about `authentic' identity and status in their subcultures, particularly through their complex and `creative' readings of the meanings of images and brands. Our empirical research suggests that the magazines played an important role in providing and circulating cultural knowledges, but also were an avenue for the participants to display their subcultural capital. We map the interpretive frameworks used by both groups to discuss `authentic' discourses of their sports. These centred on action photos of people `doing it' and their associated lifestyles and social worlds. Inauthentic images included those that portrayed equipment simply as commodities, or brands that could not demonstrate long-term commitment to the sports and lifestyles, or were targeting outsiders/beginners. Additionally authentic status was based on assumptions of maleness and whiteness, making full inclusion complicated for females and non-white participants.

MTV's popular television series "Cribs" displays the homes of famous athletes and entertainers. "Cribs" presents these male athletes and their households as exemplars of "making it." This article examines the representation of male athletes and how various types of "successful" masculinity are conflated with race and class. We found two dominant models of successful masculinity, James Bond and Cool Pose. "Cribs" clearly demarcates between Black and White athletes, which essentializes race. Simultaneously, "Cribs" presents race as performative styles providing the audience with opportunities to consume "the other." We argue that this paradoxical dynamic is utilized to sell the cool lifestyle and has multiple implications, including depoliticizing race, class, and gender.

"Now in its twelfth edition, Sociology of Sport offers a compact yet comprehensive and integrated perspective on sport in North American society. Bringing a unique viewpoint to the subject, George H. Sage, D. Stanley Eitzen, Becky Beal, and Matthew Atencio analyze and, in turn, demythologize sport. This method promotes an understanding of how a sociological perspective differs from commonsense perceptions about sport and society, helping students to understand sport in a new way"--