Sports Event Reaction Paper

Sports Event Reaction Paper Instructions Sports events are made up of the story being told by the organization and the one being told by the media. Often, these stories are one and the same (especially when a sports organization hires its own broadcasters). This paper gives you the opportunity to write a critical analysis of the stories you are being told through the broadcasting of a sports event. You are to choose a major sports event to view, one that will be broadcast on either radio or television. You are to write a two-page reaction paper that critically assesses the ways in which a sports organization promotes its goals through its sports venue and through the broadcasting of its event. During this sports event, you are to study all the ways in which the sports organization sells its product(s), from the advertising on scoreboards to promotional announcements to advertising throughout the stadium to the structure of the venue and how it guides your actions and eyes. You should take notes on all these acts of sport communication as they appear throughout your viewing. You are to choose several representative acts and write a brief analysis that discusses each of the ways in which these acts give meaning to what occurs on the field, promote organizational goals, and use and sustain social values. As you listen to or watch the event, you are to look (and listen) for ways in which the broadcasters also create you as an audience (and fans) for the game (and team). Look and listen for ways in which the broadcasters identify the home team as “your” team. As we will discuss in class, broadcasters often do this by giving the home team “agency” (identifying the home team as the “actors” and the visiting team as opponents or the challenge to be overcome). You are to note illustrations of actual comments that create the home team as your team and, consequently, create you as fans. Note, in particular, when broadcasters use language commonly identified as “homer” language. This paper is observational. You do not need to draw on class theory beyond the use of basic concepts in narrative construction and broadcasting that we have covered. Your primary goal is to create a clear, insightful, and illuminating examination of how fans are created through the visual and aural rhetoric of sports organizations. Papers will be graded on completing the assignment, quality of writing, clarity of analysis, and value of insights into the persuasive use of symbols.