Sport And Politics Research Articles

Dynamique de publication dans les revues scientifiques internationales en management du sport : Vers un Agenda 21

I had the honour to be keynote speaker for the Sport Management Colloquium organised by the Université Rennes 2 in June 2018. The organisers asked me to present a communication on the international dynamics of sport management. To do so, I attempted to identify the themes currently tackled in scientific reviews in sport management from an international perspective. This article is based on the aforementioned keynote, updated since then until the 31st May 2020. Sport management is defined in a broad sense: it includes not only sport management stricto sensu (including sport strategy) but also sport analytics, business, communication / media, development, economics, finance, law, marketing, policy and sociology. My focus is on research in English. To tackle the topic, it is necessary to clarify three points: 1.Determine what is considered as current research: published since 2014. 2.Identify journals: 54 considered. 3.Define a strategy for theme identification: focus on special issues (SIs). Based on this approach, 240 SIs have been identified. I divided data into intellectual bins that ultimately reflect common themes between SIs. The methodology described here made me able to identify 21 recurring themes, justifying the idea of an Agenda 21. These 21 themes are grouped in 7 categories (3 per category): I.Reality of Sport in the 21st Century: 1. Globalization; 2. Impacts / Legacy of Mega Sports Events; 3. Austerity. II.Sport Policy and Politics: 4. Development and Peace; 5. Health and Wellbeing / Doping; 6. Sport Policy and Politics: Others / Broader. III.Need for Changes: 7. Governance / Corruption / Integrity / Reputation; 8. Corporate Social Responsibility / Sustainability; 9. New Media. IV.Adaptation, Creation and Optimisation: 10. Innovation / Knowledge Creation; 11. (Social) Entrepreneurship / Value Co-Creation; 12. Performance / Multiple Objectives / Key Success Factors. V.Overlooked and / or Specific Publics: 13. Youth; 14. Females / Gender; 15. Other Overlooked and / or Specific Publics. VI.Overlooked Sports, States and Events: 16. Overlooked Sports; 17. Overlooked States; 18. Overlooked Events. VII.Recognition: 19. Research, Education, Practice and Impact; 20. Uniqueness of Sport; 21. External Recognition / Sport and Other Sectors. For each of the 21 themes, the findings provide the number of SIs, journals, colleagues considered as key editors based on the number of SIs edited, and further details about the SIs edited by key editors / internationally recognised colleagues / published by selected journals / on a specific aspect of the broader theme under investigation. The Agenda 21 helps provide an overview of the different aspects published in international scientific reviews in sport management, demonstrating its international dynamism and the depth of the topics covered. It intends to prove useful to the international academic in sport management community for internal and external communication.

Sports and politics: A study

Sports and politics are an integral part of any advance and progressive nation. Sports can make a positive contribution to national morale, health and the economy, but politics in sports can engender interference in promotion of sports.The purpose of the study was to investigate the impact of Politics and Government on the development of sports in respect to political factors in the Haryana state. Five hundred respondents comprising of physical educationists, general people/public and students/players of both sexes were taken for this study. A questionnaire having questions related to politics having political factors was administered and analysis was done with the help of chi-square and percentile method. The level of significance was chosen 0.05. The study approved the hypothesis i.e. Politics creates hindrance in the promotion of sports and government has a great importance in promotion of sports. The study concluded that there exists a strong relationship between politics and sports in the state, but Politics in sports always create barrier in promotion of sports. The study also reveals that no game can survive for a long without the liberal attitude and funding by the Govt. in the age of global competition.

Направления и формы реализации публичной дипломатии

Public diplomacy becomes a more and more popular area of research due to several global trends: growing interdependence of states and the rise of transnational actors that urge governments to seek ways beyond their military and economic power to achieve their political goals; technological progress that makes information more accessible to the public, enabling international communication, thus increasing the importance of a dominating narrative; the rise of a human-centric approach placing the emphasis on individual people, protection and promotion of their rights, thus making public opinion more crucial to policy-makers than ever. However, there are still a lot of lacunae in the theoretical framework analyzing public diplomacy. Among them is the lack of a clear widely accepted classification of activities that fall into the area of public diplomacy. Some researchers choose to avoid typology altogether, others provide academic community with a variety of overlapping and contradicting approaches and terms, such as “dimensions”, “types”, “media”, “frameworks”, etc. After carefully studying related publications of international and Russian researchers, analyzing them and defining most common trends, the author proposes her own way to classify public diplomacy activities via two synergetic typologies. The first one offers a division by fronts based on the principal of the final goal of each front of public diplomacy: e.g. relationship-building activities and agenda-setting to influence the news. The second one implies a division by forms based on the principal of the general shape of the main types of public diplomacy activities: e.g. cultural diplomacy, international broadcasting. The author highlights that this approach does not involve multiplication of public diplomacy types based on the instrument (e.g. gastro-diplomacy, twitter-diplomacy, sport diplomacy), since each form may incorporate several instruments and the particular toolkit may change in time. The article suggests using both typologies for comprehensive research of public diplomacy (either in a case-study or for a theoretical model). However, a front-based classification can be more useful for studies related to strategic planning, long-term and short-term political goals of government, whereas a form-based classification can be more useful for researchers who focus on measuring a country’s public diplomacy effectiveness or seek to attribute a new instrument of public diplomacy

Proposição de um index para a diplomacia esportiva no contexto militar

Sports diplomacy uses sportsmen and sporting events to build a favorable image between audiences and foreign institutions. The objective of the research was to propose an index of sports diplomacy in the context of military sport. An analytical literature review was conducted to list the tools and indicators of sports diplomacy. Five experts judged the importance and impact potential of the tools in the military sports context. Multidimensional scaling was performed to define tool retention. Finally, it was identified in the International Military Sports Council yearbooks the frequency of use of these tools in the last three editions of the Military World Games and the confirmatory factorial analysis of partial least squares for formative models was employed to generation of the index algorithm. The results indicate that six tools were relevant and the factor analysis indicated that the index met the required quality criteria, being possible to generate the algorithm from its weighted factor weights, generating a model for analysis of sports diplomacy in the military context.

Sports Diplomacy in the System of Modern Interstate Relations

Sports Diplomacy in the System of Modern Interstate Relations

Scholar Spotlight

Scholar Spotlight Samantha N. Sheppard and Jennifer McClearen Feminist media scholar Jennifer McClearen examines the cultural production of difference in contemporary society with an emphasis on the mediation of gender, race, and sexuality in sports media. An assistant professor in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin, she is currently completing her first book, Fighting Visibility: Sports Media and Female Athletes in the UFC. McClearen's interest in the intersection of sports and media compelled her to help establish the newly formed Sports Media Scholarly Interest Group for SCMS. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Jennifer McClearen, Assistant Professor in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin (Marc Speir, 2020). Samantha N. Sheppard: What does it mean for you to study, write, and teach sports in this current cultural moment? Jennifer McClearen: It is a thrilling time to be a media scholar who examines the cultural politics of sports because of the ways sports media can spur national conversations about issues that impact our culture more broadly. Sports media is one gathering space where people of vastly different backgrounds, tastes, and interests come together. It is a space where live TV is still thriving, and time-shifting is far less [End Page 1] common than other forms of media. Sports media is a cultural space where democratic debate still circulates, so athlete activists have the capacity to become particularly meaningful agents of change. Sheppard: How has your research helped you address issues of visibility, representation, industrial practice, and social identity in women's sports? McClearen: My forthcoming book with the University of Illinois Press, Fighting Visibility: Sports Media and Female Athletes in the UFC, is a cautionary tale about our scholarly and activist fascination with making female athletes more visible. I examine a specific sporting context in depth: mixed martial arts (MMA), or more specifically, the world's largest MMA promotion, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Women have been and continue to be largely underrepresented or represented in trivialized ways within sports media. Fighting Visibility argues that the UFC has made women in combat sports more visible than ever before. Yet they do so by exploiting a vulnerable labor force of athletes and brokering unfulfilled promises of women's empowerment and the American Dream. The book urges those invested in women's sports to avoid a categorical assumption that visibility is good for all women in all contexts and instead asks us to consider who benefits and who is harmed when the image of the powerful female athlete becomes marketable in sports media brands. Sheppard: How did you come to your area of research? McClearen: If you had told me ten years ago that I would become an expert in sports media, I would have laughed. Yet hindsight is indeed twenty-twenty when considering my intellectual path here. I started graduate school planning to study the action genre with a specific focus on the representation of female action heroes, which is what my master's thesis focused on. I had been practicing martial arts for several years and always thought of mediated fighting in terms of cinema and television rather than as actual sports. Shortly after completing my master's degree, some Brazilian jujitsu training partners and friends convinced me to watch UFC fights. I skeptically began watching the sport that I had always considered violent, hypermasculine, and sexist. As I watched, I slowly began realizing that despite there being some truth to MMA's stereotype, the UFC was far more compelling than I had ever given it credit. When Ronda Rousey burst onto the scene as the first female UFC fighter, I thought, "This could be an interesting way to explore my interests in women, physical power, feminism, cultural politics, and the body." To my utter joy, I began reading literature in feminist and cultural studies of sports and realized those were the intellectual genealogies that allowed me to engage my most burning research questions. I read Cheryl L. Cole's "Resisting the Canon: Feminist Cultural Studies, Sport, and Technologies of the Body" and sensed that my budding academic research agenda suddenly became legitimate...

Wintry Women: Skiing, Modern Girls, and the Body Politics of Sport as Represented in 1930s Nihonga

Wintry Women: Skiing, Modern Girls, and the Body Politics of Sport as Represented in 1930s Nihonga

An Analysis of “How Much Is an NBA Ticket Worth in China Now” from the Perspective of Multi-Modal Intertextuality

This paper analyzes the multi-modal text “How Much is An NBA Ticket Worth in China Now” from the perspective of intertextuality. Based on the theories of intertextuality and cultural intertextuality, four story lines in multi-modal texts are extracted. The story lines clearly show that Daryl Morey’s comments about Hong Kong have disappointed Chinese fans and, in turn, caused the NBA to lose a lot of the Chinese market. After exploring these details, this paper abstracts the root causes of contradictions in the multi-modal text from the perspectives of Chinese national feelings, the realistic function of sports diplomacy and the difference view of freedom of speech. Finally, based on these findings, a questionnaire has been designed and SPSS was used to verify the reliability. After collecting data, we verified the realistic reasons behind the storyline, in order to make suggestions for Sino-American cultural exchanges.

한-소 스포츠 교류에 나타난 소비에트 한인 스포츠인들의 초국가적 정체성 연구-넬리 김과 유리 채를 중심으로-

This study investigated the progress and achievements of Korea-USSR sports exchanges until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 after the Korean sports delegation first visited Moscow to participate in the Universiade in 1973 and found out the meaning in Korean sports history. In addition, it examined the role of Soviet Korean sportsmen and the emergence of transnational identity in this process. As a research method, a content analysis was used to analyze the articles of the monthly Physical Education published by the Korean Sports & Olympic Committee since 1966 as the main text and the daily newspapers’ articles as the subtext. Before the dissolution of the USSR, Korea-USSR sports exchanges showed different aspects before and after the 24th Seoul Olympics and were divided into three periods: Embryonic Period (1973~1984), Growth Period (1985~1988.8.), Mature Period (1988.9.~1991). The Korea-USSR Sports exchange was one of the representative success stories of sports diplomacy that played a leading role in the re-establishment of the Korean-Soviet diplomatic relations on September 30, 1990. In this process, Among the Soviet Korean sportsmen, Nellie Kim and Yuriy Tskhay contributed to the development of sports in Korea through the Koreanization of Soviet sports techniques and were able to experience the emergence of transnational identity by serving as a bridge between Korea-USSR sports exchanges.

The role of sports diplomacy in recognition of newly created states

Problem setting. Sport becomes an important part of modern life. Nowadays there are many international sports competitions and events, where unrecognized states take part. In connect with this, such cases have an impact on society and social media. Consequently, there is a question of the impact of sports diplomacy on recognition of states and its importance on this procedure. Target research. To identify the impact of sport diplomacy on the recognition of newly created states. Analysis of recent researches and publications. The object of research was recognition in international law of a large number of both domestic and foreign scientists, among which, Telipko V.E., Ovcharenko A.S., Feldman D.І., Janatayev H.M., whose doctrinal developments provide an important theoretical basis for studying the issue of the impact of sports diplomacy on recognition of states. Article’s main body. Forms of recognition of states were identified in the article. It was determined that there are three form of recognition: de jure, de facto and ad hoc. Definition of sports diplomacy was given. It was proposed that in ad hoc recognition as the representative of the state should be considered not only a representative of the Government, but also other persons with official powers given by authorities. Cases of using sports diplomacy were analyzed. Usually a platform of sports diplomacy is different sport events where unrecognized states take part. The examples of such events are participation of Kosovo Republic in Olimpic Games in Brazil, Kosovo’s entry into FIFA, the football match between Kosovo Republic and Ukraine and others. In this way, sports representatives of the states enter into the negotiations and establish relationships between the states, which don’t recognize each other. It was found that sports diplomacy can be a way of ad hoc recognition. Conclusions and prospects of development. Sports diplomacy is a type of diplomacy, which purpose is to provide state foreign policy in the field of sports. However, sports diplomacy doesn’t cause de jure or de facto recognition of states; it can influence on recognition of the states by helping to build relationships between them.

Sport Diplomacy and Survival: Republic of China Table Tennis Coaches in Latin America during the Cold War

Expatriate sport coaches were a phenomenon of the export of sport talent during the Cold War and were a strategy of sport exchange in public diplomacy. The Republic of China (ROC) coach exchange plan in Latin America was influenced by the United States and the ROC’s on-going opposition to the Chinese Communist Party. Analysis of archival documents regarding expatriate coaches focused on: requirements for table tennis coaches in Latin American partner nations; the programme’s objectives and implementation process; and the appeal of sport coaches as agents of soft power. The ROC sport coaches exchange programme had three objectives. First, they promoted Latin American people’s understanding of the nationality, culture and system of Free China to prevent the penetration of communist ideas. Second, they set up a channel of trust communication through the friendship between Taiwanese coaches with Latin American officials, interest groups and athletes to drive the ROC policies. Third, they developed diplomatic support for the ROC government. The personalities, values, words and deeds, professional knowledge and skills of Taiwanese coaches were turned into desirable outcomes by increasing the host country's sports participation and competition performance. However, the policy itself and the limitations of the ROC’s hard power led to the undesirable outcomes of the coach exchange plan.

The soft power of Arab women’s football: changing perceptions and building legitimacy through social media

ABSTRACT Soft power refers to the ability to advance interests through persuasion without coercion and has often been described in its capacity to aid foreign policy. Within the sports realm, sport diplomacy has emerged as a way of strengthening diplomatic, social, and political relations. The extended understanding of the soft power of sport goes beyond the often-cited practice of hosting mega-events, to wider strategies, employed internationally or domestically, to achieve various objectives. This study examines the capacity of Arab women’s football committees to engage soft power to challenge local and international perceptions of gender norms and gain acceptance in the region. The utilisation of social media as a tool for generating soft power by women’s football committees, in the Arabian Gulf region, is explored. A one-year analysis of the Instagram activities of these accounts indicates two overarching aims: changing perceptions and building legitimacy. These aims are targeted through four identified mechanisms of sport social media soft power: Campaign Involvement; Community Engagement; Technical Displays and Event Hosting; and Enhancing Formal Ties. The article examines each mechanism as utilised within the social media accounts. A choice was made to focus on Instagram, given the application’s popularity in the region. The contribution of this study is two-fold. First, it expands the understanding of sport as a means of exercising soft power by presenting social media as an instrument for sport diplomacy in the Arab world. Second, it analyses the specific use of women’s success in sport to shape public perception and achieve international recognition.

Unification of the Two Koreas: Comparative Examination of Media Coverage on the Unified Women’s Ice Hockey Team across South Korea, the United States, and China

This study examined the media coverage of a unified Korean women’s ice hockey team between North and South Korea at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, the United States, and China. Framing theory was used to make sense of media coverage of sports events and issues from the lenses of three countries. Data were derived from online print news articles from major news outlets across the three countries. A qualitative content analysis was employed, and the analysis indicates that while three countries domesticated the unified team according to the geopolitical interest of each country—we are one, political charade, the contradiction between North Korea and the U.S.—they also shared a common theme—a milestone for the two Koreas—evident in the findings. The media frames underscored the role of geopolitical contexts in the process of frame-building with the news media mediating and legitimating sports diplomacy varyingly.

Sport-tech diplomacy: exploring the intersections between the sport-tech ecosystem, innovation, and diplomacy in Israel

The purpose of this article is to explore and discuss the role of the growing sport-tech ecosystem and the branding of Israel as a start-up nation in the country’s sports diplomacy. When analysing Israel’s deteriorating image, scholars and practitioners recommended to focus the country’s branding and diplomatic efforts on micro-marketing and in creating bypassing messages to the Israeli–Arab dispute. While other countries manage to use sports for such purposes, international politics often limited Israel’s possibilities. Being the number one country in the world in start-ups per capita, and having a growing sport-tech ecosystem used by some of the biggest international sport-related organizations, embody new opportunities especially in the context of “sport-tech diplomacy”. The article is significant as it contributes to existing literature on the branding of Israel as a “start-up nation”, on Israel’s sports diplomacy, and on public diplomacy and soft power through exploring the intersections of technology, innovation, sports, and diplomacy, using the term “sport-tech diplomacy”.

Compilation Framework of Sport Diplomacy Development in Islamic Republic of Iran Armed Forces

Compilation Framework of Sport Diplomacy Development in Islamic Republic of Iran Armed Forces

Transcending Taekwondo Competition to Sustain Inter-Korean Sports Diplomacy

Taekwondo has long been used by the Republic of Korea (ROK; South Korea) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK; North Korea) for diplomatic purposes. ROK athletes practice a Taekwondo best identified as Kukki (National) Taekwondo, the competition rules for which are overseen by World Taekwondo (WT). In the North, the International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF) governs all aspects of that country’s Taekwondo. A shortage of other soft diplomacy tools for inter-Korean dialogue all but demands that Taekwondo diplomacy be maintained in the interests of peace. For this reason, the two organizations desire to hold joint competitions rather than the currently held joint demonstrations that have seen moderate success to date. By adopting Galtung’s conflict resolution theory (CRT) of transcendence, this study utilizes Peace Studies research to 1) permit ROK and DPRK practitioners to participate in joint competitions, 2) continue sport and cultural diplomacy efforts between WT and the ITF, and 3) allow both Kukki and ITF Taekwondo to remain intact. The examples of open Taekwando competitions provided illustrate how CRT may overcome the decades-long friction between these Taekwondo groups, thus providing an avenue for improved sports diplomacy.

Sports Diplomacy at its Tipping Point: Can NBA China Survive a Culture Clash over Free Speech Norms?

For the past twelve years, the Chinese government has been an active participant in the joint venture of NBA China — a business venture that has allowed the National Basketball Association to host exhibition basketball games in the People’s Republic of China (“China”), broadcast basketball games on Chinese television networks, and operate a Chinese-approved Internet website. Nevertheless, the future of the NBA China joint venture was called into doubt last year when an NBA team employee, on his personal Twitter account, shared an image bearing the caption “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong” — a message that both the Chinese and Hong Kong governments regard as supporting a civil insurrection. This article explores the future of sports diplomacy between the U.S. and China in the aftermath of this October 2019 conflict over an NBA employee’s tweets about the Hong Kong protest movement. This topic is important not only to the study of freedom of speech, but also to the generalized study of political relations between the U.S. and China and the role that sports diplomacy plays in improving international relations between these two countries. Thus, any potential demise in collaboration between Chinese and American citizens in the realm of sports business could mark further separation, if not isolation, of these two countries within their respective spheres of influence.

Representation of Stuttering in the United Sates Newspaper Media

The understanding of how stuttering is portrayed in the newspaper media has largely been ignored but plays a role in public perception of stuttering. A text pattern analysis, cross-sectional study was conducted based upon analyses of publicly available data. The text corpus were generated from the U.S. newspaper media during 1980–2018 (downloaded from the database U.S. Major Dailies by ProQuest). The text corpuses were analyzed using the Iramuteq software using the cluster analysis and Chi square tests. The newspaper data set had 970 texts (i.e., articles in the main corpus). The cluster analysis of the main corpus resulted in six clusters, which were named as: (1) music (2) sports (3) politics and economy (4) speech (5) cinema, and (6) general. The sub-corpus which was built based on aspects related to speech (i.e., cluster 4 in main corpus analysis) had 539 texts, which had at least one segment in sub-corpus. The cluster analysis of sub corpus resulted in four clusters, which were named as: (1) education and social support (2) personal aspects (3) aspects related to speech and (4) research and development. Time series analysis of clusters indicated a change in the pattern of information presented in newspaper media during 1980–2018. The study shows that stuttering has been presented in the media while discussing various elements including sports, arts and politics and economy, and speech. The aspects related to speech found media focuses on various elements including personal aspects, providing education and support, and providing new insights into research and development

ESports diplomacy: towards a sustainable ‘gold rush’

With a marked growth in the industry of esports, this paper examines the epistemological, ethical and operational challenges impacting esports. In exploring the available literature on the esports phenomena, it argues that the current ‘gold rush’ is unsustainable unless the problems of government interference, legitimacy, regulation and inequality within gaming culture are tackled by widening the study of esports. To manage the challenges confronting esports and recognise the potential benefits, this paper proposes that the theory of sports diplomacy be applied to esports. Doing so provides a better framework for understanding and tackling the challenges threatening the growth and legitimacy of esports.

Environmental Aspects and Public Concern for the Environment as Part of Sport Diplomacy at the 2018 Asian Games

The environmental aspects and the community's environmental concern are an inseparable part of the Sports Diplomacy at the 2018 Asian Games. This study is aimed at examining the environmental aspects and environmental concerns of the community. Researchers used explorative and descriptive methods. The sampling technique in this study is purposive sampling. Data were gathered using online questionnaires in a google form for likert scale 1-5. The results showed that all the public facilities were considered to be sufficient for visitors to the Jakabaring Sport city during the 2018 Asian Games. Based on the asked opinions with likert scales 1-5 it was found that the respondents’ opinions on the environmental aspects of the games’ facilities were quite good to very good, which included the availability of clean water, garbage boxes, availability of public toilets and smoke-free zones. Less than 10 percent of respondents are concerned about the adequacy of clean water and other public facilities.