Globalization and Sport: Playing the World / Edition 1

by Toby Miller, Geoffrey A Lawrence, Jim McKay, David Rowe

Overview

Sport is the most universal feature of popular culture. It crosses language barriers and slices through national boundaries, attracting both spectators and participants, to a common lingua franca of passions, obsessions and desires.

This book brings to light the connections between sport and culture. It argues that although sport is obviously a source of pleasure, it is also part of the government of everyday life. The creation of a sporting calendar, movements of rational recreation and the development of physical education in the public sector, are read as ways of disciplining and shaping urban-industrial populations.

In addition, sport is examined as a principal front of globalization. The sports process draws together dispersed communities and generates economic wealth. The book demonstrates how commodification, bureaucratization and ideology are fundamental to the organization of sporting cultures.

Although the book utilizes methods and traditions from sociology, political science and communication studies, it is the first text to argue that culture is the focal point for understanding sport. Authoritative and accessible, it will be required reading for students of sport studies, sociology and cultural studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761959694
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	07/12/2001
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	168
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.37(d)

About the Author

Toby Miller is a British-Australian-US interdisciplinary social scientist. He is the author and editor of over 30 books, has published essays in more than 100 journals and edited collections, and is a frequent guest commentator on television and radio programs. His teaching and research cover the media, sports, labor, gender, race, citizenship, politics, and cultural policy, as well as the success of Hollywood overseas and the adverse effects of electronic waste. Miller's work has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Swedish, German, Turkish, Spanish and Portuguese. He has been Media Scholar in Residence at Sarai, the Centrefor the Study of Developing Societies in India, Becker Lecturer at the University of Iowa, a Queensland Smart Returns Fellow in Australia, Honorary Professor at the Center for Critical and Cultural Studies, University of Queensland, Can West Visiting Fellow at the Alberta Global Forum in Canada, and an International Research collaborator at the Centre for Cultural Research in Australia.

David Rowe is Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at the Universty of Newcastle in Australia. He is the co-editor of Power Play (1986) and Sport and Leisure (1990), and co-author of Contemporary Australian Television (1994). He has published on cultural studies, popular culture, sport and leisure studies in a wide range of journals including Media, Culture and Society, Cultural Studies, Leisure Studies and the Journal of Sport and Social Issues.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Why This Book?
The ‘G-Word' Meets the ‘S-Word'
National Symbolism and the Global Exchange of Sporting Bodies
Sports Media sans Fronti[gr]eres
Citizens of the World
The Governance of Sport
Conclusion
Global Sport and Cultural Labour

Editorial Reviews

"...Globalization and Sport is soundly researched and well-written. I found this book as gripping as a best-selling novel. I would recommend this book as essential reading for both undergraduates and postgraduates as well as for researchers in sociology of sport."

Sport, Education and Society - Elizabeth Rose