FlowTV Special Issue
Sports Media: Tensions and Transitions
Submission Deadline Monday, October 5

Please distribute widely

As the NFL bans players from Tweeting on the sidelines and the NCAA bans fans’ unofficial Facebook recruitment pages, it is clear that players, fans, leagues, and media institutions are struggling to maintain control in changing mediated sports environments. Yet it is not just new media that is both enhancing and threatening the relationship between athletic institutions, media industries and fan communities. Major transitions have also occurred in traditional media like television and radio with the 30th anniversary of ESPN’s Sportscenter, and online audio and video available for seemingly every major sport worldwide. Although sports and mass media have a well-established symbiotic relationship, media studies has been slow to embrace sport as a legitimate or significant object of study; this is a negligence that Flow seeks to remedy. Questions to consider might include:

• How have fan experiences been transformed by transitions from radio to television, network to cable, and television to the internet?
• How have the games, players, fans, and leagues been transformed by these media developments?
• What of other technological developments such as screens in arenas, ballparks and stadiums?
• What is the social significance of fans’, players’, coaches’ and leagues’ use of social media technologies such as Twitter, Facebook, iPhones, and blogging?
• How do all of these developments change the fan experience and notions of fandom? And how do these developments contribute to athletes’ ability to construct and promote their own celebrity image?
• Should players be given a voice via personal blogs or Twitter and what does it mean when leagues regulate and silence these voices?
• What happens to traditional gatekeeping roles when fans become the experts and journalists are bypassed by amateur coverage and footage?
• How have discourses and representations of gender, race, class, sexuality, and ethnicity progressed (or not) over the decades?
• How do advertisers, journalists, and leagues reinforce rigid constructs and representations of “the athlete” and “the fan”?

We encourage submissions that highlight and critically analyze contemporary or historical tensions between sports leagues, media industries, technological developments, fans, athletes, representations, and/or significant case studies. We welcome submissions which address any sport, American or International, professional and amateur from tennis and golf, to rugby and hockey, to college football and professional basketball. Flow has a longstanding policy of encouraging non-jargony, highly readable pieces and ample incorporation of images and video. Please send submissions (attached as a Word doc) of between 1000-1500 words to Co-Coordinating Editors Alex Cho and Jacqueline Vickery no later than Monday, October 5, 2009.

Image Credits:

Collage by Jacqueline Vickery

Images used: Twitter/athletes , EA Sports Hockey, soccer fans, Stuart Scott on Sportscenter, Sooners Sam Bradford and Jermain Gresham, Professional tennis player Serena Williams, Becky Hammon of the WNBA, Olympic soccer players Heather Mitts and Melissa Wiik, Boston Red Sox pitcher, Olympic runner Liu Xiang, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps.

Flow has two panels up for consideration for the South by Southwest Interactive conference. Help us out by heading over there and voting for us at the South By panel picker site! Setting up an account is very quick and easy and public voting is an essential part of the selection process (learn more about the selection process). And of course please comment if you have any feedback or might like to be involved in either of the panels.

1) Privacy in Public: The Social Significance of Social Media : From citizen journalists, to celebrity Twitterers, social media is reconstructing the meanings of what is public and what is private. With the success of our recent special issue on social media , Flow TV wants to extend our discussion of new media communications technology to a wider audience. This panel will explore the meaning of social media to broader issues of identity, community, social change and more, with an emphasis on how public and private spheres are being constructed and reconstructed in social media sites.

2) Hacking the Ivory Tower: Who decides what to teach? Colleges and universities have long relied on print journals as annals of knowledge, but scholars are increasingly turning to web publishing as an alternative forum. Using the online journal FlowTV and digital scholarly network Media Commons as case studies, this panel explores how new media is changing the nature of institutionalized thought.

In keeping with Flow’s dedication to publish timely articles we are excited to welcome you to our most recent Special Issue on Social Media. We use the term social media in the loosest way possible in order to account for all the various technologies which have created new ways for individuals to communicate, network, and share information with one another. Social media can include blogs, Twitter, social networking sites, wikis, Second Life, digg, Last.fm, FlickR, etc. and the technologies are being used by scholars, celebrities, journalists, and more. The editors of FlowTV sent out a call for submissions in which we asked the Flow community to address the ways social media are influencing politics, celebrity culture, journalism, public/private boundaries, distinctions between users and producers, and the ways in which social media are being gendered, racialized, classed, and policed.

We received an impressively high number of quality submissions and are excited to present this Special Issue. Based on the reoccurring themes found within the submissions, Twitter emerged as a hot topic at the moment – both within academia and mainstream media – and this issue offers several different perspectives concerning the uses of Twitter. Additionally, in this issue you will find articles about scholars and blogs, journalism and YouTube, cell phones and the classroom, race and FlickR, and much more.

As always, Flow aims to facilitate dialog among our readers and it is our hope that these articles provide jumping off points for further conversation and debate. Our intent is to present critical examinations which encourage our readers to continue to think critically about our current media landscapes.

Image Credits:
1. Social Media Logos

1. (Tie for first) Mad Men and 30 Rock

   Mad Men
   It’s all about patience. Mad Men takes its sweet time building character arcs and turning points, spreading plot lines over multiple episodes in a tele-visual exercise in calm restraint and quiet revelation. And yet, for a show rooted in the oft-rehearsed ’50s and ’60s, Mad Men ’s second season has proven anything but predictable. No less than a two dozen remarkable performances anchor the show; the female characters challenge, conform to, and defy expectations as they negotiate the crescendo towards Second Wave Feminism. Peggy’s season finale refusal, Joan pinned to the office floor, Betty still in her party dress, collapsing into herself on the bed in the fading light, the list of searing moments could fill the entire column. After Mad Men swept the Emmy’s, “heads rolled” at HBO, which had failed to option the pitch by show runner (and former Soprano’s writer) Matthew Weiner. Here’s hoping they’ve learned their lesson.

   
   Mad Men and 30 Rock

   30 Rock
   It should come as no surprise that 30 Rock appears at the top of this list. After all, it’s a veritable treasure trove for media scholars. We write about it because Tina Fey and her character, Liz Lemon, have become intertwined to form a complex feminist icon. We investigate the series’ tendency to bite the hand that feeds through its flaunting and evisceration of GE/NBC/Universal/Sheinhardt Wig Company product integortion (integortion? No, that’s not right.) and synergy. And of course, we love 30 Rock because it is exhiliratingly and devastatingly hilarious. Sure, while it was gratifying to witness Tina Fey shoot to superstardom due to her Sarah Palin impression, it was simultaneously distressing to see 30 Rock resort to awkward guest spots in a bid for ratings. Still, a million somnambulistic appearances by a million bored Steve Martins wouldn’t be enough to suppress the boundless comic invention, screwball genius, and caustic wit of Fey and company (Evan Elkins).

2. The Wire

   The critical refrain on Season 5 is simple: it was too outlandish, too vitriolic, and took the tremendous satirical turn of McNulty’s serial killer too far. It failed to live up to the full-court poignancy press that defined Season 4; it became too much of a mouthpiece for David Simon’s indictment of conglomerate journalism and city government. And while these complaints are well-heeded, Season 5 continued to offer the sort of complex storytelling and difficult characterization that have defined the series from its beginning. Several key story lines went out with a whimper instead of a narrative bang, further emphasizing Simon and Co.’s commitment to social realism and their defiance of the conventions of serial plotting. There are few more beautiful moments in the series than Snoop’s ultimate look in the mirror or a full-suited Marlo proclaiming his presence into the frigid night air. With its telegraphing of fates and neatly-placed doubles, some might consider the final episode too trim a conclusion for a series typified by open-ended ambivalence. But I left the series with a distinct sense of place, possibility, despair and doubt — in large part due to the suggestiveness of the finale. At this fall’s Flow Conference, we debated a consideration of The Wire as melodrama in the Peter Brooks’ conception of the term: a narrative that bestows characters with greater societal meanings in an attempt to render our world, in some fleeting way, morally legible. While The Wire doesn’t offer moral legibility as much as moral and social ambiguity, it does enact equally important tasks of classic melodrama: it portrays a harsh, unforgiving world, tackles social institutions, and sides with the disenfranchised. Ultimately, The Wire is melodrama for a post-urban America: in its extended look to the streets, docks, schools, and social chasms of one of America’s oldest and most troubled cities, it, at the very least, brought an formerly illegible world to light (Annie Petersen).

   
   The Wire

3. Lost

   As flawed as it may be, the show should be praised for not having one single formula that it follows for each episode (a practice that is endemic on network TV, with the proliferation of procedurals that are basically weekly riffs on a central conceit). As each season expands the show’s diegetic world in both time and space, it is increasingly difficult to remember that the show started relatively simply with a bunch of people crash-landed on an island having flashbacks. Last season’s expansion practically requires that the creators constantly assure us that they have a master plan that will tie every bizarre tangent and conspiracy together, though one can’t help suspect that the show itself is one big socio-narrative experiment with Lindelof as the lead scientist and us as the subjects. I don’t think it would be too aggrandizing to refer to Lost as the best Experimental Television on television. (Elliot Panek)

4. Pushing Daisies

   Unlike almost anything else out there, the show is festooned with quirk and whimsy, offering a storybook tale of magical realism and romance. It looks more stylish than anything else I’ve seen recently, and the cast is utterly charming, with extra praise for Anna Friel, who completely owns the screen whenever she’s on. It started strong in the ratings, dwindling a bit throughout the fall but still maintaining a healthy viewership. And then the writer’s strike hit, grounding the series in the midst of a cliff-hanger. ABC mismanaged the show post-strike, putting it on hiatus until the fall, then underpromoting it. With arguably the best production design in the history of television, it seems Pushing Daisies was too expensive – and too beautiful – to live (Jason Mittell).


Pushing Daisies
5. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

   Rather than search for “The Truth” behind media spin, Jon Stewart (and talented cast) continually call attention the fact that “The News” is not reality, but rather a representation of reality — a series of narratives spun from symbolic and material phenomena. The Daily Show’s biting yet goofy critiques of the world of mediated politics asks us not to choose between “reality” and narrative, instead asking us which narratives we’d prefer: those that are humane, inclusive, and hopeful, or those that are xenophobic, exclusive, and hateful (David Uskovich).

6. Battlestar Galactica

   Battlestar fans have taken an exciting, emotional ride over the last several years and, as the series wraps up its final season, creator Ronald D. Moore has given fans a reason to get excited again. While BSG seemed to be crawling towards a series finale involving the discovery of Earth, Moore apparently has other plans. Smack-dab in the middle of the season, Earth is found and not quite what it was cracked up to be. Fleet-wide morale is at an all time low and political dissention is in the works. Recent episodes have harkened back to an urgency and exhilaration found in early episodes such as “33” and “The Hand of God”. Other reasons why season 4 has rocked: Starbuck’s back bitches, Adama and Tigh are BFFs again, and Rosalind’s getting back into the ring to take down Zarek (Allen Lindig).

7. Dexter

   Though in many ways a standard procedural drama, Dexter creates thrilling suspense via viewer identification with its morally contingent hero. Smartly written and often funny, this “quality” Showtime drama combines serious and sometimes graphic violence with a quick wit and the humor of everyday life. As we follow Dexter on his journey of self-discovery, our hopes that he might discover the endearing friend, brother, and lover within him conflict with the seriously disturbing idea of seeing glimpses of ourselves in a serial killer and the desire for the series to go on (Laura Jacquelyn Simmons).


Dexter
8. Friday Night Lights

   A small Texas town, a football team, a bunch of high school kids, a marriage. Sounds by turns quotidian and dreadfully cliche. Wrong. While many complained of Season Two’s melodramatic flourishes and flips, Friday Night Lights continues to offer poignant, nuanced, and understated portraits of life in working-class America. Nevermind that it’s filmed in Flow’s beloved home of Austin, Texas – FNL gets at the heart of human existence. Sure, that’s a cliche in and of itself. But it’s the best way to describe this “Little Show That Could” — destined, it seems, to become another victim of NBC’s inability to appropriately market or program the quiet televisual gem

9. The Rachel Maddow Show

   The Daily Show and The Colbert Report might be funnier. Countdown with Keith Olbermann might be more polemical. Yet Maddow, whose show debuted this year just in time to deliver intellectual, insightful, and inspired commentary on the Presidential election, manages to combine elements of all of them and still maintain a sense that this is the news, without resorting to outright parody or bombast. Furthermore, Maddow is an out lesbian and holds a doctorate, making her presence on the nightly news a genuine change from the old, straight, white men who have so long delivered America’s “essential” information (Peter Alilunas).

   
   Rachel Maddow

Honorable Mentions:
• Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

  Whatever is said about Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! misses the point. Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim have created an alternative “sketch”-”comedy” program, one so weird it will never be good even if it is the best, and most creative, show on television. It features the twisted half-ideas of un-charismatic anti-stars, men too ugly and too smart to be on TV. Its comedy is so uncomfortable that it would make Andy Kauffman nervous. The show’s best feature, however, is the haphazard mode of production; in mimicking the aesthetic of public access television, Heidecker and Wareheim have inserted a truly unique look into the cable-tv formula. Each episode lasts a mere eleven minutes, allowing the two friends to be concise and prolific; but be warned, watching more than one episode at a time may be dangerous to your health (Daniel Metz).

• NCAA Football: University of Texas Longhorns vs. Texas Tech Red Raiders

  Televised sports garners huge ratings, has enormous fanbases, and is the very definition of unscripted entertainment—yet it receives virtually no critical praise for its frequent electrifying drama. This game, which featured the #1 ranked Longhorns versus the #5 ranked Red Raiders, was decided in literally the last second as the Red Raiders scored a touchdown on an improbable pass, catch, and run into the end zone. It was the most thrilling moment in all of televised sports this year—and yes, that includes anything by Michael Phelps (Peter Alilunas).


Crabtree’s winning catch
• Breaking Bad:

  I’ll admit this show was off my radar screen until Bryan Cranston walked away with a well-deserved 2008 Emmy Award for best actor in a drama series. Indeed, the series – about a terminally ill chemistry teacher (Cranston) who starts cooking crystal meth for the sake of his family’s financial future – is an acting powerhouse. But the show’s most powerful draw is its innovative mix of dark comedy, melodrama, and morality play. Few other shows are willing to put all three modes into action simultaneously. Watching our protagonist and his druggie sidekick react to what happens after they mix a little acid with a dead body in an upstairs bathtub, for example, is, in equal parts, hilarious, disgusting, and, ultimately, sad. Weeds may have done it first, but Breaking Bad does it better (Kevin Sanson).

Image Credits:
1. 30 Rock and Mad Men
2. The Wire
3. Pushing Daisies
4. Dexter
5. Rachel Maddow
6. Crabtree’s winning catch

Please feel free to comment.

1. Sarah Palin

   The handling of Sarah Palin’s media image has proved a rich subject for Flow contributors and so we’ll forgo a lengthy discussion here. Instead, see our Sarah Palin Special Feature and Top 10 under 10: Election Edition.

2. HD DVD

   In an echo of the Betamax/VHS rivalry, Blu Ray vanquished HD DVD early last year. In a February 19th press release, Toshiba, the company responsible for HD DVD, declared to discontinue the failing format:
   

   We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop. While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality. Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation.

3. The Broadcast Networks

   CW is less than the sum of its parts and fading fast. NBC has gone from must-see-TV to flailing Heroes, reruns of Friday Night Lights, and Ford’s Knight Rider Hour. Of all its new shows this season, only Kath & Kim is really still going and soon, Jay Leno in his new spot will be five nights a week. (Shawn Shimpach)

4. The Writers’ Strike

   While not a total failure, the strike was far from a complete success. In return for payment on downloaded and streaming materials, the WGA took losses in areas of DVD residuals, animation, and reality television. (Plus, now all of our current TV DVD box sets look awkward due to a skinny season.) Variety revisits the strike six months after negotiations ended. Flow also dedicated a special issue to the topic back in May 2008.

5. RIAA

   The Recording Industry Association of America’s late-December announcement of its decision to abandon its practice of issuing mass lawsuits to illegal downloaders wasn’t so much a new failure as it was an acknowledgment of a practice that had been failing for a number of years. As the Wall Street Journal noted in a recent article, the RIAA has sued upwards of 35,000 people for downloading music since 2003, resulting in few visible results apart from a “public-relations disaster for the industry, whose lawsuits targeted, among others, several single mothers, a dead person and a 13-year-old girl“. The RIAA’s newest plan is supposedly based on cooperation with local Internet service providers in which the ISP will notify costumers in the event of an RIAA complaint and eventually lessen or deny their internet service if the file-sharing persists. To be sure, this is not without its own practical and moral issues, and it has been suggested all along (with ample evidence) that this announcement may not entail much more than lip service. However, if the RIAA continues its ineffectuality vis-a-vis piracy and its alienation of the common consumer through the recession, we might see the entire American music industry at the top of this list of failures in a few years. (Evan Elkins)

6. The New England Patriots

   The 16-0 team remained largely undefeated in the 2008 playoffs to become the first 18-0 team in NFL history. Unfortunately for the Patriots, the one game they lost all year was the Super Bowl. Down 4 points with close to a minute left on the clock in the fourth quarter, Giant’s quarterback Eli Manning threw a 32-yard pass caught by David Tyree between his hands and his helmet. The yardage gain set up the Giant’s for the game-winning touchdown, forcing the Patriots to play an all-too-proud Goliath to the ultimate underdog. This caught the mainstream sports media (and everyone else) off guard, as ESPN et. al. assumed an undefeated Patriots run to the championship was inevitable. One week you bring Mercury Morris onto Sportscenter to compare New England to the undefeated 1972 Dolphins, the next week you have to completely reevaluate prevailing opinions about Eli Manning. C’est la NFL.
   No less remarkable than the Patriot’s last-minute failure to make good on boasts of invincibility was the Lion’s season-long inability to succeed. The first team in history to go 0-16, the Lion’s lost their last game of the season on December 28th against the Packers. (At least they will get first draft pick come April 25th.)

7. The Seinfeld/Gates Ads for Microsoft

   There’s a lot of shoe flexing and jokes about how Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld (who got paid $10 million per spot) are richer than you, but very little about the products they’re supposed to promote. The $300 million dollar ad campaign designed to combat Apple’s marketing juggernaut and plug Vista after sluggish sales left many people bored and confused. Microsoft’s decision to pull the ads after a short time in order to enter what it mysteriously termed “phase 2” of its advertising strategy only fueled the media frenzy ridiculing the ads and sparked off rumors about Microsoft’s relevancy to contemporary consumers.
   

   Click here to view the embedded video.

8. Circuit City

   While the major electronics company officially announced its bankruptcy on January 16th of this year, it floundered dramatically in the last months of 2008. November alone saw the closing of over 150 stores across the nation. Later in December, the retail giant was granted permission to begin spending a $1.1 billion loan that ultimately proved insufficient to save dropping sales numbers and mounting debt.

9. The Rosie Variety Hour

   Yet another attempt at revamping the 70s variety hour format (Hello, Nick and Jessica Variety Hour), The Rosie Variety Show failed to profit either from 70s nostalgia or Rosie’s appeal to daytime television audiences. The show unsuccessfully presented watered down stand-up (it’s okay to talk about how cute kids are during a daytime talk show, but an evening special is a time to put the kids to bed early). Furthermore, the onslaught of NBC guest stars turned the show into a marathon network infomercial. If I only wanted to watch the stars of 30 Rock, I would watch the series. And I will leave on the same note that The Rosie Variety Show did: Gloria Estefan singing as Rachel Ray dances across the set with a giant turkey (enough said). (Tiff Henning)

10. Satellite Radio merger between Sirius and XM

    As one of our contributors puts it, “Never mind monopoly, this was too little, too late, too expensive, and too restrictive–why not avoid the hassle and stream internet radio over your iPhone? Plus XMU went considerably lame as a result.” (Shawn Shimpach)

Image Credits:g>
1. Front Page Image