A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
Using the Chicago Bull’s Mascot, Benny the Bull, as a case study, James Bingaman considers how TikTok is used in NBA branding to create parasocial bonds with fans.
Read moreBrett Siegel examines the NFL’s developing response to the Coronavirus and the George Floyd protests as an extension, and in many ways a culmination, of Trump era anxieties and tensions.
Read moreKathy Cacace considers where and how women’s voices are used within Major League Baseball broadcasts.
Read moreBrett Siegel analyzes some of the more recent White House ceremonies that have been held to honor championship-winning sports teams, investigating the ways in which a mundane public relations ritual has been disrupted by Trump-era politics and a corresponding surge of athlete activism.
Read moreExamining the recent US Women’s Soccer team World Cup win, Elizabeth Nathanson draws attention to the tensions between the media’s emphasis on the team’s impact on future generations vs. the team’s embracing of past accomplishments.
Read moreDrawing from her own experiences working for ESPN and applying Sara Ahmed’s concept of “complaint as diversity work,” Courtney M. Cox interrogates the lack of diversity in sports media and offers a multi-pronged approach to improving inclusivity in a notoriously white male industry.
Read moreCourtney M. Cox discusses the opportunities and limitations of recent shifts in power relations in professional basketball and the sports media landscape by examining Steven Soderbergh’s Netflix film High Flying Bird.
Read moreBrett Siegel investigates the NFL’s response to declining ratings at a crucial moment in which the league’s status as both an entertainment property and cultural force is under intense scrutiny.
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