Tag Archives: new media

Athletic Programs’ Twitter Jitters – The Conversation – The Chronicle of Higher Education

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Athletic Programs’ Twitter Jitters

February 25, 2013, 12:43 pm

By David J. Leonard

A few months into his inaugural season at Washington State University last fall, the football coach Mike Leach faced yet another controversy. Plagued by allegations that he had mistreated a player while coaching at Texas Tech and a reputation as a bit of a loose canon, Leach was about to wade into what some people consider another form of abuse—barring players from using Twitter.

Reporters from a student news service had provided Leach with evidence that several players apparently posted messages on a social-media site that included negative terms for women and African-Americans. Leach imposed an immediate ban for the entire Cougar football team. “If after today you see anything on Twitter from our team—and I don’t care if it says ‘I love life’—I would like to see it because I will suspend them,” he announced.

Leach’s decision is nothing new. In 2010, Chris Petersen (Boise State University) decided that intercollegiate athletics and social media were incompatible. The next year, Steve Spurrier (University of South Carolina) and Turner Gill (University of Kansas) followed suit. Then Mississippi State’s basketball coach, Rick Stansbury, took away his team’s tweeting privileges after a player criticized the team on Twitter. “The reason we decided to not allow our players to have a Twitter account is we feel like it will prevent us from being able to prepare our football program to move forward. Simple as that.” Tell that to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, whose road to NCAA punishment started with a tweet from a player about his lavish lifestyle. UNC would ultimately lose 15 football scholarships—that’s less than 10 characters per scholarship.

Outright bans have not been the only approach. Some institutions have suspended players for tweets. A Lehigh University student-athlete was disciplined for retweeting a racial slur; at Western Kentucky University, officials suspended a player who did the unthinkable—criticizing oh-so-important fans in social media. At Boston College, a women’s soccer player was suspended because of several tweets about Jerry Sandusky.

Other colleges are employing commercial monitoring services like Varsity Monitor, Centrix Social (recently acquired by Varsity Monitor), and UDiligence to flag the use of a growing number of taboo words. According to The Chronicle, the University of Louisville nixes references to drugs, sex, and alcohol; the University of Kentucky, agents’ names.

Continue reading at Athletic Programs’ Twitter Jitters – The Conversation – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Under The Hood: A New Take On Activism In Sports | Racialicious – the intersection of race and pop culture

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Under The Hood: A New Take On Activism In Sports

By Guest Contributor David J. Leonard

As individuals from throughout the United States and in other parts of the world voiced their anger and outrage at the murder of Trayvon Martin, there was an initial frustration from many in the social media world about the reticence and silence from today’s (black) athletes. The wish that athletes, and really black athletes–since it is rare to hear about the failure of white athletes–would uses their platform to shape change has become commonplace. So when the Miami Heat and several other players joined the calls for justice, there was certainly a level of joy and satisfaction.

Whereas individual athletes have a long tradition of protest and using the platform of athletes to express political sentiments, from Tommie Smith and John Carlos to Toni Smith, few teams have collectively taken a stand. Donning hoodies, the Heat stood in solidarity with Trayvon, shining a spotlight on the deferred justice in his case and the real-life dangers of racial profiling. As a team, they stood together as one, although it is clear that both Dwyane Wade and LeBron James were the ringleaders beyond this effort. The picture and the tweet, under the hashtag of #wewantjustice, were in fact the impetus of James himself.

Many have expressed surprise at the involvement of James and even Wade, given their emergence as America’s team to hate, as emblematic of the me-first baller generation. This is particularly the case for James, who has been subjected to endless criticism since high school. While much of the condemnation often focuses on his unwillingness to take the “big shot” in important games or his attitude, some progressives have lamented the lack of political engagement from James. While not unique in their eyes, his power and status elevates him in this regard. Writing about James’ refusal to sign a letter from teammate Ira Newble concerning China’s role in the Darfur genocide, Dave Zirin took James to task for his refusal to join the fight:

At the tender age of 22, you have the galactic talent to make us wonder if a mad scientist had Magic and MJ genetically spliced. But talent ain’t wisdom. In a recent interview, you said that your goal in sports was to become “the richest man on earth.” You also told ESPN, “I’m trying to be a global icon … on the level of Muhammad Ali.”

These dreams are compatible only if you choose to emulate Ali the icon and not Ali the man. Ali the icon is used to sell books, computers, snack foods, and anything not nailed down. Ali the man sacrificed his health, future, and untold millions by standing up to racism and war. No one is demanding you do the same. No one is insisting you get in front of a microphone and say, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Iraqis.”

But you should understand that the reason Ali remains a “global icon” is precisely because he didn’t define himself by his corporate sponsors. When his handlers told him to stop throttling the golden goose of fame he said, “Damn the money! Damn the white man’s money!”

Seemingly challenging James, Zirin highlights a clear choice for the NBA’s next great superstar.

“The choice you face is frankly quite stark: How free do you want to be?,” he asks. “Do you want to be ‘King James of Nike Manor’ or the King of the World? Only by refusing to be owned, only by displaying independence from the very corporate interests that enrich you, will you ever make the journey from brand to three dimensional man.” With his participation with the Million Hoodie March, and the efforts from other Heat players, it is clear that not only has James made clear how he “wants to be” but silenced his critics by highlighting his willingness to take the big shot, one far more significant than any last game heroics.

At one level, the response reflects the connection that James, Wade, and several other players felt with Trayvon. According to James, “I have two boys, D-Wade has two boys and a lot of our teammates have sons. This could be one of our sons someday. The thought of sending your son to the store and never having him return is an emotional one for any parent.” In reading their statements, it is clear that their statement didn’t merely reflect their being fathers but father of black boys.

Continue reading @ Under The Hood: A New Take On Activism In Sports | Racialicious – the intersection of race and pop culture.

NewBlackMan: Black Sambo 2.0? New Media Technology and the Persistence of Racist Representations

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Black Sambo 2.0?

New Media Technology and the Persistence of Racist Representations

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

New media technology is changing the landscape of television. At one level, the emergence of web-based television, along with platforms like YouTube, provides a space for historically ignored themes and silenced voices within popular culture. I previously wrote about the potential during a discussion of The LeBrons, which “highlights how new media technologies provide modern black athletes (among others) tools to define their own image and message, partially apart from those ‘restrictive script,’ yet bound by the dominant discourse and accepted images.”

Reflecting on this cultural and technological shift, Aymar Christen Jean argues that the golden age of black television has ended. He notes further that the potential afforded by new media technologies are significant in challenging the white hegemony of American television culture: “In this early stage, the writing and production values are uneven. But when you throw in social-networking possibilities online, the emergence of original Web programming can only be good news for black art and expression.” Writing about the brilliant and rightly celebrated The Misadventures of AWKWARD Black Girl, Britni Danielle highlights the transformative potential residing in Web 2.0. “It’s official, the best shows featuring Black people are not on BET, TVOne, NBC, or any other TV channel. The best shows featuring interesting Black characters are on the web,” writes Danielle. “In times like these, when TV shows and films featuring interesting Black characters are missing from most mainstream outlets, it’s nice to see that many (and I do mean many) are taking matters into their own hands and making their own way.”

While clear, from The Misadventures of AWKWARD Black Girl, The New 20s, The LeBrons, Kindred, and Road to the Alter, that the web is emerging as the promise land for the production of black-themed shows and the dissemination of counter-narratives and representations, the frontier of new media technology is also littered with dehumanizing shows as well.

The advance of new media technology, whether on YouTube, I-Tunes, or the totality of the Internet provides a space for the dissemination of racist shows of yesterday, narratives, stereotypes, and episodes that artists fought long and hard to remove from public consumption. William Van De Burg, in New Day in Babylon, documents the ways in which organizations, like the National Black Media Coalition and Black Citizens for Fair Media, fought the continued dissemination of racist imagery. They, along with Asian Americans for Fair Media and others, worked hard to counter those racial images that represented “an explosive psychological force that warps human relationships and wreaks havoc on one’s personal dignity” (Wei, 1993; 51). While movements of the 1960s and 1970s were successful in challenging the presence of dehumanizing representations within network television, the advance of new media has proven to given life to many shows of past generations.

On YouTube, you can find a number of cartoons from the mid-20th century, some of which are explicitly labeled as racist (or banned/censored) cartoons, while others lack specific marking. These cartoons bring into wide circulation the otherwise put into the grave racist televisual moments of yesteryear. For example, on YouTube, “Southern Fried Rabbit” where bugs sings, “I wish I was in Dixie,” also depicts the South as a beautiful oasis in juxtaposition to the barren wasteland of the North. In this episode, Bugs Bunny is presented in blackface, ultimately impersonating a happy slave. At one level, this particular episode is keeping “past” images and narratives alive (the happy slave is clear in circulation as evidence by “pledge”); at another level, it facilitates a space where commentators can rehash and deploy their own racial narratives and ideologies. Claims about permissibility of racist images back then, that it was just entertainment, and simply kid’s stuff are commonplace on YouTube. Likewise, in this episode and in countless others found on YouTube, the history of blackface, of imagining and depicting blackness through dehumanizing imagery is evident.

Continue reading at NewBlackMan: Black Sambo 2.0? New Media Technology and the Persistence of Racist Representations.

New Media Literacy and Sporting Cultures

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Call for Papers

New Media Literacy and Sporting Cultures

Special Issue of Journal of Sport and Social Issues

David J. Leonard and CL Cole

Challenging those who blamed Twitter for the recent controversy surrounding Rashard Mendenhall, LZ Granderson celebrated the possibilities of new media technologies within American sports culture: “Twitter empowers them to show they are more than just the sport they play, to show they have a sense of humor, are aware of the world around them and are not afraid to try new things, like ballet classes. In other words, they are real people — not product-pushing puppets or faces of the franchise, walking around without thoughts or souls.”

Despite the humanizing possibilities, new media technology, evident in the power of sports video games, fantasy sports, and the often-hateful online discussions, simultaneously dehumanizes today’s athletes.  Reimagined as an object of play, consumption, ownership, and derision, the shifting technological tools exposes and disempowers today’s athletes all while enhancing agency and control. Breaking down boundaries, changing the relationship between athletes-fans-the media, and otherwise reconstituting the ways the sports operates; these technological-cultural-social shifts are changing the nature of sports itself.  We seek to reflect on the ways in which new sports media technologies simultaneously humanize and dehumanize across time and space.

This special issue works to highlight the dynamic nature of sporting cultures and the transformative possibilities resulting from new media technologies.  It attempts to build upon the existing literature all while engaging ongoing debates and discussions.  It seeks to foster critical new media literacy in a sporting context, all while elucidating the social, cultural and political significance resulting from the changing sports landscape.

In an effort to expand the conversation and engage the issues of new media and sports through alternative formats, we seek to publish editorial-styled essays.  We look for pieces that are theoretically rich, those focused on asking questions and expanding the discussion, and those dedicated to critical analysis.  We seek pieces that offer commentary and those committed to advancing and promoting new media literacy within a sporting context.

Authors should follow the ‘Manuscript Submission’ found at the JSSI website. Essays should be roughly 4,000-5,000 words, excluding endnotes and reference list. Questions should be sent to CL Cole – clcole@illinois.edu – or David J. Leonard, – djl@wsu.edu. All submissions are due by February 1, 2012 and should be submitted in electronic format to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jssi