You may have been wondering why my banner picture was of a camera with small thumbnail photos hanging from it. Well, the reason for this is because of my research.
My research interests are in the field of sport media. In particular, I look at the sport/media complex (Jhally, 2006); that is, the symbiotic relationship wherein sport and the media have a co-dependency for their content and financial viability. Put another way, neither industry can survive without the other. The media need sport and sport needs the media.
The media serve to foster communication between a media organisation and the general public, which consumes it. Thus, a television networks’ main goal is to draw viewers to commercial messages of the broadcaster. This enables a broadcaster to sell advertising time to sponsors and advertising companies at a premium price. Thus, “programs are commercials for commercials” (Altheide & Snow, 1978, p. 190) as sport programmers integrate commercial messages in a variety of seditious ways into the actual program content.
Further, Whannel (1981) suggested that the media typically personalise sport, even in team settings, by creating several “hero” scripts that attempt to predict potential participants who will be the “hero”. During the game, these scripts are confirmed or refuted.
Much has also been written about discourse and its effects on everyday life. Allan (1998) noted that there should be an agreement between the images on television and the coinciding commentator discourse with the life experiences of the viewer, which are related to the scripting and framing of a broadcast (Goffman, 1986). Thus, what the viewer sees on television should also match the spoken word of the announcers or commentators.
Here is the image in full.
The reason for the choice of this photograph is because the camerawomen has thumbnail pictures of each player from both teams. The cameraperson wears headphones to hear what the on-air announcers are saying. That way, the cameraperson can focus the visual images on the player who is being described. Then, there is a symmetry between the spoken and visual discourse for the viewer watching at home.
Olan Scott 