This book with the title „Sports in Journalism and Fiction in the United States Today” by Karsten Senkbeil analyzes the imagery and rhetoric in the public representation of the two most popular American sports, namely Baseball and American Football.
The research is twofold: on the one hand, a corpus consisting of journalistic texts which appeared on the internet and dealt with one of these sports was assembled and quantitative and qualitative analyses of the rhetoric in these texts was executed with software tools from Corpus Linguistics. Central concern was the analysis in respect of national ideology and myth, commercialization and imagery if heroism. On the other hand, a hermeneutic literary analysis of works by contemporary American authors (DeLillo, Coover, Roth and others), which had sport as a central topic, examined whether and how the imagery and rhetoric found in the corpus analysis was mirrored and critically dealt with on a literary level.
Results are manifold. Both sports, the modern and aggressive American Football and the pastoral, conservative baseball, turn out to by recognized as emblematic expressions of typical American values. As 'national pastimes' they are more than distractive spectacles but inherit and re-enact parts of American national ideology.
Militaristic and imperialistic undertones are often found in the corpus and these attitudes are critically and ironically reflected by literary authors. An examination of religious metaphors showed how mass media spectator sport has acquired a status of quasi-religious myth-making, its values and belief systems intermixing with and superimposing on classic religious and national myths. Commercialization in sports and economic globalization is greeted with suspicion by both sports journalists and authors. Instead, American professional sport turns out to be a spectacle built around folk heroes, whose status and media representation shows how the American public cherishes individual success. As ‘Apollonian’ and ‘Dionysian’ heroes athletes succeed by embodying genius and creativity, at the same time orderliness and conservatism.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1 Literature – Sources and Methods
1.2 Journalism – Sources and Methods
2. Why Football? Why Baseball?
2.1 Why Baseball?
2.2 Why Football?
3. Play vs. Fight
3.1 Defining a scale
3.2 Journalism
3.3 Literature
4. Militarism and Imperialism
5. Commercialization and Automation
6. Folk Heroes and Team Spirit
7. Ritual and Myth
8. Conclusion
Objectives and Topics
The objective of this paper is to analyze how sports are perceived in the United States today by examining contemporary journalistic articles and a selection of literary works from the last four decades, specifically focusing on American football and baseball as central cultural phenomena. By integrating corpus linguistic methods with literary analysis, the work explores the intersection of sports with themes of national identity, ideology, and social critique.
- The cultural and sociological significance of baseball and football in the US.
- The representation of "play" versus "fight" in professional sports and literature.
- The prevalence of militaristic and imperialistic rhetoric in sports journalism.
- The impact of commercialization and automation on the athlete's role and game character.
- The construction and deconstruction of hero myths and team spirit in sports culture.
- The role of sports as a quasi-religious ritual in modern American society.
Excerpt from the Book
The Fan (1995)
The Fan is a modern suspense novel which depicts the downfall of a baseball fan, Gil Renard, whose enthusiasm for a baseball team and his player idol, Bobby Rayburn, turns into obsession. Unsuccessful in his job and isolated from friends and family, Gil’s only anchor in life is his passion for baseball. When even this anchor fails and Bobby plays badly, obsession turns into aggression. Gil attacks and kills one of Bobby’s rivals. Wanted for murder, Gil loses every handhold in his life. He intrudes into the life of Bobby’s family. When Bobby rejects Gil, it comes to a dramatic showdown. In a full stadium, Gil tries to kill his former god-like icon, but is stopped. Abrahams thriller is an interesting portrayal of how exaggerated fanaticism for a sport and its stars turn into madness and violence.
Summary of Chapters
1. Introduction: This chapter introduces the study's scope, aiming to analyze the perception of American football and baseball through both literary and journalistic lenses.
1.1 Literature – Sources and Methods: Describes the selection of sports novels and the dual approaches (naturalistic vs. myth-focused) used by authors to depict these sports.
1.2 Journalism – Sources and Methods: Outlines the creation of a text corpus from sports websites and the application of corpus linguistic tools to examine modern sports rhetoric.
2. Why Football? Why Baseball?: Explores the unique status of these sports in the US, utilizing Guttmann's characteristics of modern sport to interpret their societal resonance.
2.1 Why Baseball?: Examines baseball's connection to American exceptionalism, pastoral myths, and its role as a ritual of order and harmony.
2.2 Why Football?: Discusses the inherent roughness of football and its interpretation by sociologists as a mirror for American militarism, hierarchy, and aggressive foreign policy.
3. Play vs. Fight: Defines the conceptual scale between "pure play" and "pure contest," analyzing how professional sports function within this gray area.
3.1 Defining a scale: Establishes theoretical definitions for "play," "game," and "contest" to serve as a measurement tool for sports representation.
3.2 Journalism: Analyzes the corpus for linguistic markers of emotion and conflict, revealing a prevalence of negative states like frustration and "fight" over "fun."
3.3 Literature: Investigates how authors such as DeLillo and Gent explore the tension between the joy of playing and the dehumanizing pressures of professional football.
4. Militarism and Imperialism: Quantifies the usage of martial vocabulary in the journalistic corpus, concluding that militaristic language is positively connoted in sports discourse.
5. Commercialization and Automation: Discusses the impact of big business and rationalization on sports, analyzing how writers portray the "industrialization" of the athlete.
6. Folk Heroes and Team Spirit: Explores the tension between the American cult of individual stardom and the traditional value of collective team effort.
7. Ritual and Myth: Analyzes the quasi-religious status of baseball and football, examining how sports serve as a substitute for traditional religion and national folklore.
8. Conclusion: Summarizes the findings, confirming that while sports may offer moments of "pure play," they are predominantly represented as agonic contests deeply embedded in conservative and individualistic American ideology.
Keywords
American football, baseball, sports literature, journalism, corpus linguistics, militarism, imperialism, commercialization, heroism, individualism, ritual, myth, American exceptionalism, pastoralism, social critique
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the primary objective of this paper?
The paper aims to analyze the perception of American football and baseball in contemporary US society by comparing journalistic discourse with literary depictions from the last forty years.
What are the central thematic fields covered?
The analysis centers on the intersection of sports with militarism, the influence of commercialization, the myth-making of "folk heroes," and the function of sports as a quasi-religious ritual.
What is the core research question of the work?
The work investigates whether professional sports are viewed as "pure play" or "agonic contest" (fight) and how this perception reflects larger American cultural and political world views.
Which methodology is employed in this study?
The author uses a dual methodology: a corpus linguistic analysis of internet-based sports journalism (2004–2005) and a qualitative literary analysis of selected novels covering the last forty years.
What key aspects are examined in the main part?
The main sections evaluate the "Play vs. Fight" dichotomy, the presence of martial and imperialist rhetoric, the impact of money and rationalization on team culture, and the role of the individual hero versus the team.
Which keywords define this work?
Core concepts include American football, baseball, militarism, commercialization, heroism, individualism, and ritual/myth within the context of American sports culture.
How does the author define the "hero" in the context of American sports?
The author identifies that American sports culture prioritizes the individual "star" over collective effort, and that these stars are often constructed through media narratives that elevate them into near-mythic figures regardless of their actual character.
What conclusion does the author reach regarding the role of money in modern sports?
The author concludes that by the 1990s and 2000s, the "reign of money" became widely accepted as the basis for spectator sport, with journalism and literature shifting from overt critique in the 1960s/70s to a stance of resignation or indifference.
- Citation du texte
- Magister Artium Karsten Senkbeil (Auteur), 2005, Sport in Journalism and Fiction in the United States Today, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/72931
