The French public opinion takes for granted that televised sports have played a great part in the expansion of sport practice. This opinion is shared by sport economists, television top experts and leaders of sports organizations. The statistical data analysis of recent surveys proves that televised sports have only a small influence on the practice and development of sport in France.The question dealt with in this paper is &dquo;When the viewer watches sport on television does he feel the need to do sport himself, or to do more than he already does?&dquo; More generally we will question the role of televised sports events in the spread of athletic activities.In France, asking such questions seems ridiculous because it seems obvious that televised sports events motivate the viewer to practise more sports. To prove this we cite the waves of young people who go to volleyball clubs after a cartoon like &dquo;Jeanne et Serge&dquo;' has been broadcast, similarly in Germany the increase in the number of people playing tennis is explained by the impact of seeing Boris Becker and Steffi Graf on television. This certitude is held not only by the general French public, but also by some of its most famous academics. Vladimir Andreff, the sports economist, who is seen as an authority on the subject in France says &dquo;T.V. can condition non-active viewers to feel the need to practice sports, and because of this it contributes greatly to the promotion of sports activities&dquo; (Andreff, 1987, 34). Dominique Wolton, a French university lecturer specialising in the analysis of the influence of television, backs up this point of view in writing: &dquo;The viewers are not satisfied with being 'armchair players' ; in watching they are often motivated to go and take part&dquo; (Wolton 1990, 69). This certitude also seems to be held by the sports movements themselves: the French Basketball Association paid the fees (production costs) for several seasons (up to 1986/7) so that basketball would be seen on the small screen.From Ideological Certainties to an Objective Approach Such general agreement comes from the ideological conviction of the omnipotence of the television. What is ideological in nature is taken for granted Int Rev for Soc of Sport 29/2 (1994)
Le nombre d'activités pratiquées par la même personne est une variable généralement négligée dans l'étude des pratiques sportives ; ce texte lui est entièrement consacré. La multipratique, opposée à la monopratique, est étudiée dans ses modalités et leurs variations dans différents secteurs spatiotemporels de pratique (en vacances, durant le reste de l'année à l'intérieur et hors du domicile) en fonction des principales caractéristiques socio-démographiques (âge, sexe, catégorie socioprofessionnelle) et selon la nature institutionnelle de l'engagement sportif (pratique informelle, pratique dans le cadre des fédérations sportives et pratique de compétition). L'analyse de données d'enquête aboutit aux résultats suivants : (1) L'inégalité de la distribution sociale est encore plus accentuée pour la multipratique que pour la pratique sportive ; (2) La participation aux compétitions, même de haut niveau, ne se fait pas, comme on aurait pu le supposer, au détriment du nombre de sports pratiqués. Bien au contraire, ce sont les compétiteurs de haut niveau qui présentent la multipratique la plus riche.
Pratiques sportives des enfants et rôle socialisateur du sport.
The same sociological study was carried out in Hungary and in France (C. Louveau and M. Metoudi 1987). This concerned the practise of sports, in the large sense 1 , within the two populations and allowed us to measure the situations from the same theoretical point of view by using the same questionnaire and by analysing the data from the same hypotheses and statistical processes. This is the report of the first comparison of data; it shows some of the greatest similarities and differences noted and suggests some possible explanations. It presents the overall results in a rough ontline form to shed light on the specific characteristics of the two sports cultures, playing on the contrast between them. This report is no more than a rough sketch leading to curiosities and questions, inviting other analyses of the same data. This lack of pretension is even more justified given the circumstances: the French survey was carried out first (in 1985) and the results had already been analysed and published (P. Irlinger/C. Louveau and M. Metoudi 1987)) when we began to compare the sports habits of the two countries, and therefore when we had barely discovered the Hungarian data. The Hungarian survey was taken in 1988 and the first figure listings and initial analyses were released in 1989 (G. Földesi 1989). However, it was the French conclusions which, for the most part, shaped our questioning of the situation. There is nothing surprising in this: sociological work necessarily relies on given facts, and for this work the given facts were closely related and easily accessible; they inevitably guided our footsteps. 2 Also these guidelines can be modified in the future, when the careful analysis of the Hungarian data raises questions and suggest other lines of comparison.
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