PERLS304 Lecture Notes - Commodification, Product Placement

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Physical Education, Recreation and Leisure Studies
• Course: PERLS304
• Professor: Sean Ryan

Document Summary

Football developed in parallel with mass media in england in the second half of the 1800s. Endless paper rolls: also symbiosis: sport fed off mass meda and vice versa, and both were situated within larger sociological patterns: capitalism, industrialism, commodification, mass consumption, nationalism, etc. Corporate influence on sport broadcasting: commercials are now inserted into games not just when action slows, commercials come to dictate the pace of the action in games. If broadcasters think a commercial is necessary, they will work to insert one. Broadcasters have many requirements related to commodification: where interviews will happen, how they must speak about leagues and cups, how many infomericals they must produce and air, how many special interest shows they must air. Has undermined many of the public service ideals of broadcastings: editorial freedom, delivering products for public consumption vs. delivering products to earn revenue, turns broadcasters into propagandists for the sports rights purveyors (ex. Ioc: switch in organizing logic: what matters changes.