Understanding sports culture / Tony Schirato.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schirato, Tony.

Series:

Understanding contemporary culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sports--Sociological aspects.

Sports.

Physical Description:

150 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Los Angeles : Sage, 2007.

Summary:

Understanding Sport Culture traces and analyzes the development of the modern field of sport from its ancient and medieval precursors (the festivals of Greece and Rome, and games such as folk football), through to its inception in the mid-nineteenth century as a set of activities designed to instill character and discipline in students in exclusive British public schools, up to its transformation into a global institution and popular spectacle. The narrative also focuses on and provides a detailed account of the gradual coming together of sport and the media. It explains how this relationship has accentuated sport's status as one of the most important sites in contemporary culture, while simultaneously threatening its existence. As part of the Understanding Contemporary Culture series this book is aimed at a broad range of students from undergraduate to graduate level, who want to know more and be fully informed on sport, its relationship to the media, and its cultural dynamics.

Contents:

1 Introduction: Playing Sport 1

2 Theories of Play, Games and Sport 5

3 Intimations of Sport 22

4 The Field of Sport 41

5 Global Sport 61

6 Sport, the Media and Spectarorship 82

7 From Sport to Spectacle 103

8 Contemporary Sport 118.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781412907385

1412907381

141290739X

9781412907392

OCLC:

70765437