Yearning for a Past that Never Was: Baseball, Steroids, and the Anxiety of the American Dream

Burg, Ron Von; Johnson, Paul E.

doi:10.1080/15295030903176641

Cited by 23 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 16 publications

(17 reference statements)

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“…(40 year old, male, Player, Coach, Official/Referee, Club volunteer, Parent, Spectator)Other comments made reference to the lack of an earlier understanding of concussion in rugby union and the need for greater education on the risks involved in playing. However, while these comments can be seen as indicative of a shift away from a hegemonic masculinity-influenced acceptance of pain and injury in sport (Cranmer & Sanderson, 2018), they also created a nostalgic view of rugby union that participants saw as more idyllic than the “modern game.” Nostalgic sentiments are significant as they can serve as unifying narratives that mask tensions that arise from crises, as Von Burg and Johnson (2009) detail in their analysis of discourses associated with steroids scandals in American baseball. In this context, nostalgia serves to defend the shift from hegemonic masculinity and “protects” rugby union by scapegoating processes of modernisation in the sport.…”

Section: Discussion Of Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Masculinities, Media and the Rugby Mind: An Analysis of Stakeholder Views on the Relationship Between Rugby Union, the Media, Masculine-Influenced Views on Injury, and Concussion

Parry

White

Cleland

et al. 2021

Communication & Sport

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Rugby union, alongside other collision and contact sports, faces ever mounting pressure from increased recognition of concussive injuries and the risks they present to athletes, both in the short-term and long-term. Here, the media is a central component of increasing pressure for cultural change. This research analysed data from 524 self-selected survey respondents to examine rugby union fans’ and stakeholders’ perceptions of media portrayal of concussion and how it might influence their own perceptions. We found evidence of a complex and heterogenous relationship between perceptions of masculinity, views and attitudes toward mass media, and degree of involvement in rugby union. Specifically, partisans of the sport generally saw mass media as hostile, with coverage biased against rugby, allowing them to manufacture doubt regarding risk information, as well as maintaining involvement in the sport. We conclude that critical commentaries from the media have the ability to challenge masculinities around concussion.

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Section: Discussion Of Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Masculinities, Media and the Rugby Mind: An Analysis of Stakeholder Views on the Relationship Between Rugby Union, the Media, Masculine-Influenced Views on Injury, and Concussion

Parry

White

Cleland

et al. 2021

Communication & Sport

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“…In recent years, studies of public memory have become a dynamic area for scholars in a variety of disciplines from communication studies to history, political science, and sociology (Dickinson, Blair, & Ott, ; Kitch, ; Nora, ; Phillips, ; Schudson, ; Von Burg & Johnson, ). More recently, scholars from sport and media studies have extended examinations of public memory to the realm of sport and culture (Butterworth, ; Gong, ).…”

Section: Theory and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sixteen Days of Glory: A Critical-Cultural Analysis of Bud Greenspan's Official Olympic Documentaries

Roessner

2014

Communication, Culture & Critique

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Filmmaker Jonah J. “Bud” Greenspan wrote, directed, and produced 43 films about the Olympics over the last four decades. Drawing on public memory literature and hegemony theory, the manuscript offers a textual analysis of Greenspan's official Olympic films and his representation of Olympism. Overall, the study involved the analysis of seven of Greenspan's official Olympic films, along with more than 50 video and print interviews with the American‐born documentarian housed at the George Foster Peabody Archives.

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“…Steroids have, over time, become viewed as illegitimate in policymaking and media spheres regardless of the conditions of their ingestion, even if the extent of use among players remains unclear and even if public concern about steroids in football is less intense than it is about the place of these substances in professional baseball. Within and across contexts, legitimacy and illegitimacy are always subject to racialization, an observation most clearly illustrated in the treatment of racialized baseball players such as Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa whose use has been viewed far more critically than that of white players such as Roger Clemens or Mark McGwire (Butterworth, 2007;Von Burg and Johnson, 2009;and Ventresca, 2011).…”

Section: Racial Materializations: Nfl Policy Media Panic and The Wamentioning

confidence: 97%

When is a Drug Not a Drug? Troubling Silences and Unsettling Painkillers in the National Football League

King

Carey

Jinnah

et al. 2014

Sociology of Sport Journal

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This paper uses a genealogical approach to explore the conjuncture at which the longstanding but partial and uneasy silence surrounding painkiller use in the National Football League seems increasingly under threat. We historicize and problematize apparently self-evident narratives about painkiller use in contemporary football by interrogating the gendered, racialized and labor-related discourses surrounding Brett Favre's 1996 admission of a dependency on Vicodin, as well as the latest rash of confessions of misuse by now retired athletes. We argue that these coconstructed and coconstructing moments of noise and silence are part of the same discursive system. This system serves to structure the emerging preoccupation with painkillers in the NFL, with Favre's admission still working to placate anxieties surrounding the broader drug problems endemic to the league, and failing to disrupt our implicit knowingness about painkiller use, thus reinforcing ongoing cultures of silence and toughness in professional football.Cet article adopte une approche généalogique pour explorer la conjoncture par laquelle le silence persistent, bien que partiel et inconfortable, au sujet de l'utilisation de médicaments analgésiques dans la National Football League semble de plus en plus menacé. Nous faisons l'historique et problématisons les récits en apparence évidents en soi à propos des analgésiques dans le football contemporain en interrogeant les discours genrés, racialisés et sur le travail qui entourent l'aveu en 1996 par Brett Favre d'une dépendance au Vicodin, ainsi que la récente série de confessions d'abus par des athlètes désormais à la retraite. Nous suggérons que ces moments de bruit et de silence qui se construisent ensemble font partie du même système discursif. Ce système sert à structurer la préoccupation de plus en plus grande par rapport aux analgésiques dans la NFL, l'aveu de Favre permettant de calmer les anxiétés entourant les problèmes plus vastes de drogue qui sont prévalents dans la ligue, et ne réussissant pas à déranger notre connaissance de l'utilisation de médicaments antidouleur, renforçant ainsi les cultures persistantes du silence et de la robustesse dans le football professionnel.

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Yearning for a Past that Never Was: Baseball, Steroids, and the Anxiety of the American Dream

Cited by 23 publications

References 16 publications

Masculinities, Media and the Rugby Mind: An Analysis of Stakeholder Views on the Relationship Between Rugby Union, the Media, Masculine-Influenced Views on Injury, and Concussion

Masculinities, Media and the Rugby Mind: An Analysis of Stakeholder Views on the Relationship Between Rugby Union, the Media, Masculine-Influenced Views on Injury, and Concussion

Sixteen Days of Glory: A Critical-Cultural Analysis of Bud Greenspan's Official Olympic Documentaries

When is a Drug Not a Drug? Troubling Silences and Unsettling Painkillers in the National Football League

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