Sports Culture

Due 3/2/14 Task: take a sport that is popular in a culture and (1) suggest its cultural meanings in terms of a) money b) class c) gender d) the body. (2) What does this sport reflect about its culture? You will need to investigate the culture in terms of cultural characteristics, of course.This is a good time to look at nonverbal communication in sport culture. Write a 3-5 page paper with references.

SPORT CULTURE

'Sport is not a matter of life and death. It is much more important than that'. Bill Shankly's words emphasize that many aspects of our social being cannot be fulfilled in private life or in rituals of consumption. At the same time, sport is a version of 'real life':

Semiotics A game is a formal system based on arbitrary rules that give you no information about the world, and you verify questions by referring to the system itself. However, the game is part of a larger system with wide social signification. Firstly, in its control over the body, its visual mastery (the slow motion shot) and its emphasis on rules and results, it is deeply masculine. Joining a golf club is not an innocent activity: it activates (and requires) a whole network of social contacts and badges of status. It involves a stylized version of landscape both 'raw' (the rough) and 'cooked' (the greens). Hills and water parody Romantic scenery. Being a football fan, on the other hand, has subcultural elements of ritual (territorial divisions, chanting), brilliance of dress and resistance to authority.

Class 'Sport allows the middle-class body the recognition of physical prowess that labor allows the working class' (John Fiske). Elites like the public schools took over popular games and changed their meaning and (often ceremonial) function. They became events for the amateur (= 'lover'), an aristocratic concept related to disinterestedness and economic independence. In Britain, this is seen in the continuing presence of class divisions in different sports. Rugby, for...