Reading books can be fun

Reading books can be fun--by deb wallevand

This blog title reminds me of something from my Saturday morning cartoon days with an owl saying "Hey kids books are fun!" That statement and well this whole blog will just confirm how much of a nerd I am.

I would not say that reading is my most favorite thing to do in school, much less in my free time. I have always liked school though, but I prefer television and other visual forms of entertainment. I tend to laugh when people talk about reading for fun (sorry mom!). It just seemed like an oxymoron. However, these last two weeks I found a couple of centerpieces for my research. And yes, reading these two books was fun.

Media, Sports & Society, edited by Lawrence Wenner, provides a foundation for research on the communication of sports. Contributors of this book examined the theoretical, cultural and historical issues, as well as the production of media sports programming, its content and its audience. Individual chapters focus on the Super Bowl, sports violence and sex typing. I really enjoyed reading about how the symbiotic relationship between sports and the mass media in American society. One author wrote, "Media attention fans the flames of interest in sport and increased interest in sport warrants further media attention." This is the chicken or the egg argument that I'm sure I will face in my professional career.


Women, Media and Sport: Challenging Gender Values, edited by Pamela Creedon, adds to the breadth of my research both from a cultural and media perspective. I found this volume of work
incredibly interesting because I'm interested in the history of women's sports and particularly in gender issues as related to varying media will find this volume informative. My favorite chapter from this book provided a complete historical account of women in American sports journalism. I loved reading about women sportswriters during WWII and about the struggles and sexism these pioneers faced in locker rooms. I learned about the impressive careers of Mary Bostwick, Nellie Bly, Margaret Goss, Betty Cuniberti, and Melissa Ludtke. I loved reading about it, but it totally pissed me off too.

While reading these two books I thought a lot about how I could improve my own research about television coverage and women's sports. I think my biggest discovery was that I need to include a few different theories. More specifically I'm going to start combining, media effects, gatekeeping, and feminism. In past research papers I've talked about gatekeeping (framing theory) or some feminist theory, but I totally ignored media effects. In hindsight, I'm a bit of an idiot to completely leave out media effects. Often times I think I probably implied that the sports audience was passive.

This semester I learned not to shy away from books because they were books. In fact, by actually reading a couple books I found two essential centerpieces for my master's work. Furthermore, I think I'll actually purchase these books and read them more thoroughly this summer. Yeah, I'm a nerd and I guess I like to read.

My (Current) Research Topic

Taylor Newcomb

I mean current because like all other graduate students, everything is fluid at this moment. I was considering a research topic on crisis communications in sports, but changed my mind after learning some drawbacks to that certain profession (no family life, high blood pressure, alcoholism). I have decided to go in a different direction. I still would like to study Coombs' crisis communication theories and how it affects the way people communicate in crises. However, I would also like to see it would link to Bernays' "Propaganda," a seminal treatise on public relations. 

Basically, Bernays' work deals with how public relations officials (or propagandists) can affect the way people think and how they can be influenced by organizations and governments. Coombs' can fit into that by using Bernays' basic concept and using it's guidelines to influence the way people think about a certain crisis. As Bernays noted, "Modern propaganda is a consistent enduring effort to create or shape events to influence the relations of the public to an enterprise, idea or group." 

I have recently become interested in how organizations and individuals deal with crises. This is an off shoot of my intense interest in such (some may think) morbid interest in airplane crashes, boat sinkings, train derailments, and general engineering disasters. What drives my interests in these events is how those involved investigate the events and then relay what they have found to the public. If I could, I would love an internship with the communications department of the NTSB because it would give me a front line understanding of how they investigate the disasters and then communicate with the public. 

In the aftermath of a disaster, communicating with the public is very important and should be handled just right. For the ways to screw up such a communication, one just has to see how the local, state, and federal governments communicated with the public in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. That situation could have probably been handled much better. However, I would prefer a more specific view of situations and how organizations and the NTSB responded, such as after a plane crash. 

When the NTSB communicates with the public over the course of their investigation, how do they do it? Do they follow such guidelines as Coombs and express mortification at the event then explain what they have found? Or is it very dry and not very public friendly? 

That as it is, is my current research topic. The NTSB is not a specific aim of my research, it is just a great example and a government organization that interests me immensely. I could also look at the specific companies involved with the disasters. However, this all (as everything does) depends on where I get an internship and what possibilities it presents.