Beer, Babes, and Balls

David Nylund

Description

Beer, Babes, and Balls explores the increasingly popular genre of sports talk radio and how it relates to contemporary ideas of masculinity. Popular culture plays a significant role in fashioning identities, and sports talk radio both reflects and inspires cultural shifts in masculinity. Through analysis of the content of sports talk radio as well as interviews with radio production staff and audience members, scholar and avid sports talk radio listener David Nylund sheds light on certain aspects of contemporary masculinity and recent shifts in gender and sexual politics. He finds that although sports talk radio reproduces many aspects of traditional masculinity, sexism, racism, and heterosexism, there are exceptions in these discourses. For instance, the most popular national host, Jim Rome, is against homophobia and racism in sport, which indicates that the medium may be a place for male sports fans to discuss gender, race, and sexuality in consequential ways. Nylund concludes that sports talk radio creates a male bonding community that has genuine moments of intimacy and connection, signifying the potential for new forms of masculinity to emerge, while simultaneously reproducing traditional forms of masculinity.
Foreword by Eric Anderson
Acknowledgments

1. Opening Pitch: Thinking about Sports Talk Radio

Sports Talk Radio
Theorizing Masculinities
Development of Manhood in Twentieth-Century United States
Masculinity and the Sports Media
Media and Cultural Studies
Critical Radio Studies
Outline of the Book

Part I THE CLIMATE FOR SPORTS TALK RADIO

2. The Sports Talk Radio Industry: From Rush to Rome

Radio Deregulation and Talk Radio
Sports Talk Radio: An Extension of Political Talk Radio?

3. Inside the Sports Radio Industry: Ads and Lads

Influence of Advertising, Ratings, and Corporate Radio
Sports Radio and Public Discourse
Romantic Belief in Sports
Hanging Out at the Station

Part II READING SPORTS TALK RADIO

4. The Jim Rome Show: “Myspace.Com” For Men

Jim Rome: Hip Sports Talk Radio Host
Speech Codes and Themes: Learning How to Survive in the Jungle
The “Jungle”: A Site for the Performance of Masculinity
Male Rite of Passage on The Jim Rome Show
In-Group Humor on The Jim Rome Show
The Contradictions of Masculinity

5. Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Jungle

Gender: Competing Masculinities
Gender: Women in the Jungle
Queer Eye for the Sports Guy
The Race Card
Rome Has No Class
Jungle Nationalism
Hegemony or Hope? Sports Talk Radio’s Potential

Part III THE AUDIENCE OF SPORTS TALK RADIO

6. In the Jungle with the “Clones”

Interviewing the “Clones”
The Entertainment Value
Homosociality
The Audience Does Social Issues

7. Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Cheers to Monday Night Football
Lou From Lodi
A Community of Callers
Among the Clones Hooligans

8. A Sports Radio Intruder

My Take on the Audience of Sports Talk Radio

9. My Final Take

Sports Talk and Civic Discourse
Sports and Sexuality
Masculinity and Sports

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Electronique & télécommunications
• Gender studies
• Popular culture

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791479421
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Masculinity and Sports Talk Radio

David Nylund Foreword by Eric Anderson

SUNY series on Sport, Culture, and Social Relations

CL Cole and Michael A. Messner, editors

Alan M. Klein,Little Big Men: Bodybuilding Subculture and Gender Construction

Todd W. Crosset,Outsiders in the Clubhouse: The World of Women’s Professional Golf(Winner, North American Society for the Sociology of Sport (NASSS) Book Award)

Wanda Ellen Wakefield,Playing to Win: Sports and the American Military, 1898–1945

Laurel R. Davis,The Swimsuit Issue and Sport: Hegemonic Masculinity in Sports Illustrated

Jim McKay,Managing Gender: Affirmative Action and Organizational Power in Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand Sport

Juan-Miguel Fernandez-Balboa (ed.),Critical Postmodernism in Human Movement, Physical Education, and Sport

Genevieve Rail (ed.),Sport and Postmodern Times

Shona M. Thompson,Mother’s Taxi: Sport and Women’s Labor

Nancy Theberge,Higher Goals: Women’s Ice Hockey and the Politics of Gender(Winner, North American Society for the Sociology of Sport (NASSS) Book Award)

Helen Jefferson Lenskyj,Inside the Olympic Industry: Power, Politics, and Activism

C. Richard King and Charles Fruehling Springwood,Beyond the Cheers: Race as Spectacle in College Sport

David L. Andrews (ed.),Michael Jordan, Inc.: Corporate Sport, Media Culture, and Late Modern America

Margaret Gatz, Michael A. Messner, and Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach (eds.),Paradoxes of Youth and Sport

Helen Jefferson Lenskyj,The Best Olympics Ever? Social Impacts of Sydney 2000

Anne Bolin and Jane Granskog (eds.), Athletic Intruders; Ethnographic Research on Women, Culture, and Exercise

Ralph C. Wilcox, David L. Andrews, Robert Pitter, and Richard L. Irwin (eds.),Sporting Dystopias: The Making and Meanings of Urban Sport Cultures

Robert E. Rinehart and Synthia Sydnor (eds.),To the Extreme: Alternative Sports, Inside and Out

Eric Anderson,In the Game: Gay Athletes and the Cult of Masculinity

Pirkko Markula (ed.),Feminist Sport Studies: Sharing Experiences of Joy and Pain

Murray G. Phillips (ed.),Deconstructing Sport History: A Postmodern Analysis

Alan Tomlinson and Christopher Young (eds.),National Identity and Global Sports Events: Culture, Politics, and Spectacle in the Olympics and the Football World Cup

Caroline Joan S. Picart,From Ballroom to DanceSport

Michael A. Messner,Out of Play: Critical Essays on Gender and Sport

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

Some material in chapters 5 and 6 was originally published in David Nylund,The Journal of Sport and Social Issues28(2), pp. 136–140 and 166. Copyright ©2004 by Sage Publications. Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications.

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2007 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever

without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval

system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic,

electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise

without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu

Production by Marilyn P. Semerad

Marketing by Michael Campochiaro

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Nylund, David. Beer, babes, and balls : masculinity and sports talk radio / David Nylund ; foreword by Eric Anderson. p. cm. — (Suny series on sport, culture, and social relations) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn978–0-7914–7237–8 (hardcover : alk. paper) — isbn978–0-7914–7238–5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Radio broadcasting of sports—United States. 2. Radio talk shows—United States. 3. Radio and baseball. 4. Men—United States—Attitudes. 5. Masculinity—United States. I. Title. gv742.3.n952007 070.4'497960973—dc22 2006037455

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Debora Bubb for all her incredible sacrifice and love while I focused on this book

This page intentionally left blank.

c o n t e n t s

Foreword by Eric Anderson

Acknowledgments

1. Opening Pitch: Thinking about Sports Talk Radio Sports Talk Radio 2 Theorizing Masculinities 5 Development of Manhood in Twentieth-Century United States 8 Masculinity and the Sports Media 10 Media and Cultural Studies 14 Critical Radio Studies 15 Outline of the Book 17

PART I

THE CLIMATE FOR SPORTS TALK RADIO

2. The Sports Talk Radio Industry: From Rush to Rome Radio Deregulation and Talk Radio 22 Sports Talk Radio: An Extension of Political Talk Radio? 26

3. Inside the Sports Radio Industry: Ads and Lads Influence of Advertising, Ratings, and Corporate Radio 29 Sports Radio and Public Discourse 33 Romantic Belief in Sports 37 Hanging Out at the Station 43

xi xv

1

21

28

120

53

Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Jungle

59

READING SPORTS TALK RADIO

Beer, Babes, and Balls

A Sports Radio Intruder

Where Everybody Knows Your Name CheerstoMonday Night Football125 Lou From Lodi 130 A Community of Callers 136 Among the Clones Hooligans 141

My Take on the Audience of Sports Talk Radio

THE AUDIENCE OF SPORTS TALK RADIO

Interviewing the “Clones” 112 The Entertainment Value 117 Homosociality 118 The Audience Does Social Issues

In the Jungle with the “Clones”

106

68

The Jim Rome Show:“Myspace.com” For Men Jim Rome: Hip Sports Talk Radio Host 54 Speech Codes and Themes: Learning How to Survive in the Jungle 58 The “Jungle”: A Site for the Performance of Masculinity Male Rite of Passage onThe Jim Rome Show61 In-Group Humor onThe Jim Rome Show64 The Contradictions of Masculinity 66

Gender: Competing Masculinities 69 Gender: Women in the Jungle 72 Queer Eye for the Sports Guy 75 The Race Card 90 Rome Has No Class 99 Jungle Nationalism 102 Hegemony or Hope? Sports Talk Radio’s Potential

5.

PART III

6.

148

151

4.

PART II

7.

8.

111

124

viii

9.

My Final Take

Sports Talk and Civic Discourse Sports and Sexuality 159 Masculinity and Sports 161

Notes Bibliography Index

156

contents

ix

155

165 173 185