Damion Sturm | Massey University (original) (raw)

Books by Damion Sturm

Routledge, 2022

This fascinating book investigates the sporting traditions, successes, systems, "terrains" and co... more This fascinating book investigates the sporting traditions, successes, systems, "terrains" and contemporary issues that underpin sport in New Zealand, also known by its Māori name of Aotearoa. The book unpacks some of the "cliches" around the place, prominence and impact of sport and recreation in Aotearoa New Zealand in order to better understand the country’s sporting history, cultures, institutions and systems, as well as the relationship between sport and different sections of society in the country. Exploring traditional sports such as rugby and cricket, indigenous Māori sport, outdoor recreation and contemporary lifestyle and adventure sports such as marching and parkour, the book examines the contested and conflicting societal, geographical and managerial issues facing contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand sport. Essential reading for anybody with a particular interest in sport in Aotearoa New Zealand, this book is also illuminating reading for anybody working in the sociology of sport, sport development, sport management, sport history or the wider history, politics and culture of Aotearoa New Zealand or the South Pacific.

"Media, Masculinities, and the Machine identifies a distinctive phenomenon in today's media cultu... more "Media, Masculinities, and the Machine identifies a distinctive phenomenon in today's media culture – the contemporary male fantasy of 'suiting up' and pushing technology to its limits. The authors deconstruct this fantasy using two in-depth studies from American, British and global media: the social imagining of hi-tech in the long-running Transformers franchise and global Formula One motorsport, with links to numerous other areas of contemporary culture. By drawing on non-representational theory and the latest theories of affect while employing the method of autoethnography to explore what boys and men ‘want’ and say, the book offers a timely contribution to our understanding of contemporary cultural attachments. The book provides informative accounts of two instances united by their apparent gender focus and by their interest in ways of imagining high-tech. Tracking their theme through TV, cinema, toys, magazines, merchandising, and the culture of the gadget, the authors raise important questions about mediated masculinities today and propose a new theoretical framework for uncovering what is going on.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Chapter 1: The Android Imaginaire (Jacques, Move Your Body)
Chapter 2: Intensities and Affective Labor
Chapter 3: The Scene of Autoaffection
Chapter 4: Containment 1: the Strategy-Intensity Field
Chapter 5: Containment 2: the Companionship of Things
Chapter 6: Containment 3: Boys' Toys
Chapter 7: Masculinities, Vitality and the Machine
Afterwords
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Reviews

Fleming and Sturm have achieved a rare success in academic writing, by producing a book that is both important in its arguments and engaging in its style of writing and presentation. This book focuses on the complex relationship between humans, and more specifically men, and machines, but through their dual treatise of Transformers toys and Formula One racing, they provide insights that will have resonance with a wide variety of disciplines and subjects, including the study of masculinity, fandom, play, everyday life, material culture, technology, sport, social theory and media.

— Garry Crawford, Senior Lecturer in Cultural Sociology, University of Salford

Like a Formula 1 driver negotiating a hairpin turn through the sheer downforce of acceleration, Fleming and Sturm stick fast to their objects of analysis and don’t let go. Linking affective resonances and processual materialities with hyper-reflexive riffings on methods, theories, fans and their attachments, this book continually assembles and then reassembles itself into new configurations of meaning and intensity. This is a book not only about machines but a machinic book!

-- Gregory J. Seigworth, co-editor of The Affect Theory Reader"

Papers by Damion Sturm

Leisure Studies, 2023

Attending and consuming events are integral to many peoples’ leisure lives. However, as the liter... more Attending and consuming events are integral to many peoples’ leisure lives. However, as the literature attests, events represent significant sites of contestation over who does and does not belong. This paper explores such contestation in the notoriously elitist and traditionally exclusionary sport of cricket, and specifically The Hundred; the most recent attempt to democratise the sport by appealing to a more demographically diverse spectator base. It uniquely blends extensive semi-structured interviews with stakeholders (n = 33), and a synthesised theoretical framework of mediatisation, media events and digital leisure studies, to argue that the apparent success of The Hundred in attracting and including new audiences has been enabled by incorporating elements of media spectacle. We therefore, use The Hundred to further delineate the processes described in the extant literature, and extend analysis of the ‘digital turn’, by drawing attention to the tensions between the speed and trajectory of these developments and the constraints imposed by cricket’s history. We illustrate how digital and analogue leisure remain highly interdependent, and argue that the ongoing contestation of game forms championed by different cricket stakeholders makes it improbable that The Hundred can achieve its twin goals of being economically viable, while increasing the popularity and, ultimately survival, of other cricket formats.

Sport in Society, 2021

Often international sport can be viewed through a nationalistic lens, with sport allowing for nat... more Often international sport can be viewed through a nationalistic lens, with sport allowing for nation-based team selections and competitions. Alternatively, we probe the notion of pseudo-nationalism in a New Zealand setting to examine two professional teams that, falsely, evoke familiar symbols and linkages to the nation. The first is ‘Team New Zealand’, which races in the global America’s Cup yachting series but overtly manufactures nationalistic links between the corporate sport, syndicate and nation. The second is the ‘New Zealand’ Warriors which operates as a professional franchise in the Australian-based National Rugby League competition against 15 other Australian clubs. Despite their corporate structures, as well as circulation in non-nation-based sporting contests, both teams exhibit forms of pseudo-nationalism by conflating, obfuscating and masquerading as nationally-representative sports teams. Collectively, both teams proffer a contested vision of pseudo-nationalism by mimicking other national sport teams while projecting, evoking and imploring an allegiance to ‘New Zealandness’.

Sport in Society, 2021

Shaped by the forces of globalisation, commericalisation and mediatisation, contemporary cricket ... more Shaped by the forces of globalisation, commericalisation and mediatisation, contemporary cricket has been repackaged as a media-centric “product” notable for innovative and experimental technologies. Indeed, by embracing constant technological innovation, cricket affords an accelerated culture of intensified spectacle interlaced with and interwoven by the threads of entertainment, consumerism, tourism and officiating orientations across its global telecasts. My article explores how technologies creatively manipulate and play with the spatial and aesthetic realms of cricket in non-traditional ways to recast, re-position, augment and enhance the viewing experience. Thus, cameras often oscillate between stylistic (intensified mobility), all-seeing (analytical omniscience) and participatory (pseudo-participatory) perspectives, providing a highly-mobile visual intensity through extraneous exploration, analytical complexity via hi-tech officiating tools, to the sensory invigoration of mediated athletic replication. Such permutations are extending to the digitalised, mobile and virtual formats that continue to re-shape the future mediated consumption of cricket for ephemeral and invested viewers.

Convergence, 2020

Media technologies and digital practices are reshaping and redefining the future of sport fandom.... more Media technologies and digital practices are reshaping and redefining the future of sport fandom. This article points to some of the utopian and dystopic transformations for fandom presented by (post)television, digital/social media and the anticipated virtual technologies of the future. Specifically, three distinct phases of fan participation are charted around existing and futuristic visions of technology-as-sport. First are the current televisual technologies that attempt to engage and retain traditionally “passive” viewers as spectators through pseudo-participatory perspectives that will carry over to new screens and technologies. Second, the assumed interactive participation afforded by social and digital media is considered, positing the future amplification of connectivity, personalisation and networking across digital fan communities, albeit undercut by further impositions of corporatisation and datafication through illusory forms of “interactivity”. Finally, the fusion, intensification and continual evolution of technology-as-sport is explored, asserting that forms of immersive participation will be significant for future virtual technologies and may ultimately re-position fans as e-participants in their own media-tech sport spectacles. Collectively, it is anticipated that the creation of new virtual worlds, spaces and experiences will amplify and operationalise forms of immersive participation around augmented spectatorship, virtual athletic replication and potentially constitute the sport itself. Indeed, a new model of the fan-as-immersed-e-participant is advanced as such futuristic virtual sporting realms may not only integrate fans into the spectacle but also project them into the event as participant and as the spectacle.

Celebrity Studies, 2019

New visual regimes of fame and femininity continue to challenge the traditional realms of sport s... more New visual regimes of fame and femininity continue to challenge the traditional realms of sport stardom and media representation. Through new media, individual athletes potentially have more agential control over their imagery, content and forms of self-presentation. This article offers an exploratory case study of French-Canadian tennis player Eugenie Bouchard’s self-presentational on Facebook. Through her construction of an online Genie persona, Bouchard offers an idealised, desirable and commodified ‘body’ of work on Facebook. Collectively, Genie’s playful embodied projections and performances merge athletic endeavours and self-depreciating tennis posts with an array of provocative, hetero-sexy displays. Poignantly, such self-presentations are notable for the frequency of bikini-clad and ‘Genie hot body’ imagery, coupled with the reduced emphasis on tennis performances. As such, Bouchard’s visual regime seemingly illuminates, confronts and challenges traditional sporting and feminine identity constructions. By enacting and performing the online Genie persona, Bouchard largely eschews the expected sport stardom parameters of merit and achievement, while foregrounding a postfeminist body politics around desirability and agency through her self-sexualising and self-objectifying practices.

Qualitative Inquiry, 2019

Recently, several researchers have highlighted the difficulty with the binary terms “insider–outs... more Recently, several researchers have highlighted the difficulty with the binary terms “insider–outsider” within qualitative research. We similarly critique the insider/outsider binary in this article, but offer an alternative by utilizing Bourdieu’s theoretical concepts of capital, habitus, and field to compare two researcher’s ethnographic accounts of researching sports facilities in New Zealand. One of the ethnographers, D.S., describes himself as closer to an outsider than an insider in the context of the velodrome he was examining, while R.K. describes herself as an insider in the field of gymnastics. Through comparing their accounts, we show how the language of insider/outsider can be limiting. Instead, we argue that Bourdieu’s framework provides a more nuanced account of researcher positionality that moves beyond the insider/outsider binary, while affording insights into the reflexive and fluid researcher performances that shape the ethnographically researched field.

Leisure Sciences, 2019

Creating inclusiveness and user-friendly spaces is a challenge to any new sporting venue. This ar... more Creating inclusiveness and user-friendly spaces is a challenge to any new sporting venue. This article explores the attempts by various ‘stakeholders’ involved in the production of the Avantidrome, New Zealand's ‘Home of Cycling’ to align the rhetorics with the realities for creating a new velodrome across its first 20 months of operation. More specifically, there exists a tension in the ‘selling’ of a sport-for-all model with the public construction of a high-performance, elite-use facility. In neoliberal times, such contradictions seemingly proliferate when public spending blends and blurs with corporate sponsorship and a results-driven framework for funding elite sport while being aligned with visions of community. Combining user interviews and sustained on-site ethnographic observations with Foucault's theories of power, we seek to understand how these multiple entities produced relational forms of power that resulted in efforts to accommodate both community-based and high performance models within the same cycling space.

By continuously integrating the latest new-media advances while still predominantly relying on ol... more By continuously integrating the latest new-media advances while still predominantly relying on older broadcast models, contemporary mediated sport affords an interesting paradox. That is, while most well-known sports provide “digitized” processes, platforms and applications, these technologies primarily complement the televised coverage. Thus, despite assumptions of a decline in broadcast media, the televisual representation of sport often remains paramount in terms of viewership, circulation (or its online replication) and broadcasting rights. This is especially true for “mega” sporting events that generate widespread interest and often attract large, diverse audiences to their live global telecasts outside of normal viewing hours.
My article considers these contemporary trends through a specific examination of the 2015 Cricket World Cup (CWC) and its global televised representations. As a televised sport, cricket continually integrates emerging technologies and tools to aesthetically revamp its re-presentation to attract and retain large international audiences. Cricket’s specific televised technological innovations and refinements blur the lines of information, entertainment and commodification, while allowing a traditional broadcast-media form to be re-presented in non-traditional ways. That is, cameras and other technologies often operate in fluid and highly mobile ways by floating above, encroaching upon, mapping over, or being embedded within the field of play. In combination, such technological perspectives provide an intensified visual navigation of the cricket-scape and position viewers as fluid spectator-tourists. Cameras and, by implication, viewers are increasingly allowed to enter the field of play and navigate nimbly among the spaces and competitors of live sport. Furthermore, there is a stylistic orientation towards extraneous exploration, as the agile cameras (e.g. Steadicams, Segways, Spidercams and drones) fluidly roam and float across the cricket-scape and its surrounds, often dipping into and out of the on-field action.
In what is presented as a global “mega-event”, these contrasting technologies and multiple perspectives provide affective layers for broader viewer engagement, aesthetically rendering the CWC as a televised sports “spectacular” for both casual and engaged viewers of live TV broadcasts.

Focusing on the Australian KFC T20 Big Bash League (BBL), this article explores the innovative te... more Focusing on the Australian KFC T20 Big Bash League (BBL), this article explores the innovative televisual technologies that represent T20 cricket as an action packed ‘smash and bash’ spectacle. An array of innovative technologies is deployed to aesthetically and affectively re-present the BBL. Cameras and microphones are embedded within the field of play, operate in highly mobile and fluid ways, and are framed in close proximity to the action – particularly when placed on the players themselves. The BBL provides intersecting affective layers for viewer engagement built upon tools for analysis, sites of commodification, visual renditions of pseudo-player perspectives and an emphasis on fast-paced entertainment. By constructing degrees of sensory invigoration and vicarious involvement for both casual and invested viewers, these innovative technologies mobilise ‘smash and bash’ cricket as an affective televisual spectacle.

My article plays with notions of performativity and representation to repudiate assumptions of on... more My article plays with notions of performativity and representation to repudiate assumptions of one-dimensional fandom. In particular, due to its self-reflexive writing style, I argue that autoethnography can articulate and show the subject-fan voice through evocations of first-person, insider experiences. Therefore, staged vignettes are deployed to represent the fan as an assemblage of investments, intensities, and energies that anchor within but fluidly move through broader socio-cultural realities. Illuminating the materialization and salience of affect, these stagings intentionally convey varying levels of invigoration to refute common misperceptions of fandom as singular in its focus, experience, or intensity. Moreover, underpinning these renditions is a degree of playfulness, crafting autoethnography to explore both the subject and fandom as an enacted series of performances. Ultimately, as a performative writing and representational strategy, the vignettes aim to blend, blur, and elicit traces of a culturally bound and multifaceted first-person fandom.

What is it that fans do? Do they consume? Do they produce? And when they are in the process of be... more What is it that fans do? Do they consume? Do they produce? And when they are in the process of being fans how do we characterize that activity? Is it passive and determined? Is it active and resistant? And are these the only categories we have to work with when discussing fan activity? This discussion is a step towards exploring what new terms and theories can be used to elucidate contemporary fan practices, specifically sport fan practices, beyond these more traditional binaries. Particularly, this discussion is an attempt to grapple with what the current state of capitalism makes possible or impossible for sports fans.

""(Introduction): From the moment at the International Rugby Board (IRB) meeting in Dublin in ... more ""(Introduction):
From the moment at the International Rugby Board (IRB) meeting in Dublin in November 2005, when it was announced that New Zealand would be the host nation for the 2011 Rugby World Cup, it was clear this event was not just about a series of games, semi-finals and a winner. It was to be a grand event for New Zealand, which was as much about financial returns, visitor numbers and showcasing New Zealand to the rest of the world—and hopefully getting exposure beyond the usual rugby-watching nations, which can be described as ‘international’ but not necessarily ‘global’. Our article explores the representations of ‘New Zealandness’ that were evoked by holding this host nation status. However, rather than the rugby itself, it is the mediated moments, nationalistic communal rituals, ancillary events and the (trans)national promotional cultures of corporate sponsors that coalesced around New Zealand and forms of nation-building that are our prime focus. ""

Writing from an autoethnographic perspective, this article explores male leisure practices via th... more Writing from an autoethnographic perspective, this article explores male leisure practices via the mediated relationships fans enter into with stars. More specifically, my own fandom for Formula One driver Jacques Villeneuve is the locus of study, revealing how this affective investment shapes and furnishes my corresponding leisure practices. Notions of gendered ‘performativity’ come to the fore, with my own displays evoking, enacting and revealing oscillating performances of masculinity. Moreover, there are interesting gendered dynamics that such fan leisure practices flag in terms of the intersection of female/male relationships and the potential ‘fantasy’ and/or narcissistic readings that a male fan identifying with and performing as another male sport star afford. Finally, my research reveals paradoxes for contemporary masculinities, with fans reliant upon mediation and commodification to facilitate and sustain their performative roles.

With global appeal, large commercial and mediated interest and splashes of glamour, motor-racing ... more With global appeal, large commercial and mediated interest and splashes of glamour, motor-racing operates on the knife-edge of risk versus reward for its competitors. With the origins of motor-racing dating back to the 1890s, the elite contemporary structure of Formula One is a volatile mix of hi- technology, breakneck speeds and risk-taking bravado as drivers race their expensive hybrid rocket cars around the globe.

Book Chapters by Damion Sturm

The Future of Motorsports Business, Politics and Society, 2023

Operating as one of the most expensive, media-centric, and global sports, Formula One is ripe for... more Operating as one of the most expensive, media-centric, and global sports, Formula One is ripe for analysis due to an array of contemporary issues. Specifically, despite wide-ranging sustainability initiatives, Formula One provides self-promotional ‘green-washing' strategies that maintain a large carbon footprint and cause environmental destruction. Moreover, Formula One can be accused of virtue signalling by proposing to challenge diversity and inclusion in a sport that has steadfastly remained white, elitist, and male. Finally, the precarious nature of human rights within some of the emerging host nations further exposes the potential hypocrisy of Formula One's virtue signalling, while leading to accusations of sportwashing by authoritarian regimes. It is these processes of greenwashing, virtue signalling, and sportwashing that will be probed in this chapter.

Sport in Aotearoa New Zealand: Contested Terrain (Editors: Damion Sturm & Roslyn Kerr), 2022

Contemporary celebrity provides media objects ripe for circulation, consumption and representatio... more Contemporary celebrity provides media objects ripe for circulation, consumption and representation. Select New Zealand athletes are celebrated and lionised for their sporting feats, while allegedly embodying nationalistic attributes surrounding their character, value and “mana” as representatives of and ambassadors for the nation. Of course, such inscriptions are always fluid and in flux, with stardom re-evaluated and re-inscribed based on sporting and mediated performances. Moreover, underpinning New Zealand sport stardom are the conditions for celebrity that are subject to local/global fluidity, with many athletes needing to achieve recognisable success in international sport competitions to shape and solidify their national sport stardom. We probe three case studies to illuminate these dimensions. As an agential embodiment of liquid celebrity, Sonny Bill Williams operates as a polysemic signifier of sporting masculinities, while being embroiled in an array of commercial, racial, erotic, nationalistic and religious discourses. Interrelated, Brendon McCullum’s refashioned charismatic projection as New Zealand cricket captain bore witness to nationalistic outpourings of affection and hero worship. Finally, Lydia Ko embodies contemporary liquid sport celebrity through global golf successes, while negotiating nationalistic identity politics that blur her Korean/New Zealand background, an “Exotic Othering”, and attempts to endear herself to the nation.

Sport in Aotearoa New Zealand: Contested Terrain (Editors: Damion Sturm & Roslyn Kerr), 2022

This chapter examines the emergence and transformation of the New Zealand All Blacks, one of the ... more This chapter examines the emergence and transformation of the New Zealand All Blacks, one of the most successful sporting franchises in history, following the professionalisation of global rugby. Tracing the impact of both a global broadcast deal and subsequent attraction of global corporate sponsors, the All Blacks are examined as both a national team and a national brand. In particular, the chapter focuses on the concept of corporate nationalism, “the process by which corporations (both local and global) use the currency of ‘the nation’ – its symbols, images, stereotypes, collective identities and memories as part of their overall branding strategy” – to explore the contested terrain of the team, the sport of rugby and its associated cultural rituals, for example, the haka. A series of advertisements are explored that illustrate the shifting place of rugby in New Zealand and the ongoing challenge for the All Blacks to be a national team which is dependent on being both a local and a global brand.

Sport, Gender and Mega-Events, 2021

Formula One offers an interesting terrain to explore the gendered tensions that play out in a meg... more Formula One offers an interesting terrain to explore the gendered tensions that play out in a mega event/motorsport space. Indeed, despite some recent progressive transformations, Formula One’s long-standing intertwining of ‘glamour’ and hi-tech racing has arguably reflected and projected a set of ‘traditional’ gendered dynamics seemingly more aligned with stereotypical 1960s James Bond filmic gender representations, rather than a contemporary mega sporting event.

Formula One focuses on, emphasises and embellishes masculine attributes, with these ‘macho racers’ understood and reified through their bravado, technical mastery and risk-taking endeavours. Nevertheless, the ‘real’ presence of risk, bravado or mastery is debatable in contemporary times, with Formula One the safest it has ever been. Originating in 1950, Formula One’s too frequent driver fatalities ushered in a raft of safety features since the mid-1960s that have been incrementally updated over time. Thus, while the spectre of death may loom due to wheel-to-wheel racing at speeds in excess of 200mph, the reality is a safe and largely sanitised sport, with only four fatalities occurring since 1982.

Similarly, elements of driver skill, mastery and risk-taking have also been reduced. Due to the current regulations and restrictions, drivers often conserve their cars, tyres, engines and fuel-usage rather than ‘race’ one another during a Grand Prix. As such, five-time world champion Lewis Hamilton has bemoaned the lack of effort, risk or fear for drivers and asserts that contemporary Formula One has become ‘too easy’. Further encroaching into Formula One’s space is the appeal of Esports and sim-racing which, through its rapid progression, development and commercialisation, is offering an alternative ‘virtual’ motorsport avenue replete with championships and ratification by official organisations. Hence, the once sacred space for displays of masculine bravado, mastery and risk-taking is being negated in contemporary Formula One.

Meanwhile, marginalisation, trivialisation and sexualisation persists for women. Traditionally Formula One (and most other categories), relied upon ‘grid girls’ to allegedly add ‘glamour’ to motorsport through their appearance and ornamental roles as sexy props/trophies for the ‘masculine’ drivers. In 2018, Formula One removed ‘grid girls’, proclaiming it to be an allegedly outdated practice, while reducing the overt emphasis on sexualised female ‘eye-candy’ roles. However, while arguably a positive progressive step, the lack of female driving opportunities remains a barrier. Only five female drivers have ever raced in Formula One, the last in 1992, while test driver roles have limited and curtailed, rather than offered pathways, to securing a drive in Formula One. Hence, test drivers such as Susie Wolff and Simona de Silvestro left Formula One disillusioned by the lack of future opportunities, while Carmen Jorda had a seemingly ornamental ‘development driver’ role with Lotus F1 and Renault geared towards a media emphasis on her appearance rather than driving ability. In an interrelated development, Formula W was created in 2019 as a female-only series to enhance female driving prospects, but has been met with a polarised reception to date. It is these gendered dynamics, tensions and representations surrounding Formula One that will be the focus of this chapter.

Routledge, 2022

Table of Contents

Reviews

— Garry Crawford, Senior Lecturer in Cultural Sociology, University of Salford

-- Gregory J. Seigworth, co-editor of The Affect Theory Reader"

Leisure Studies, 2023

Sport in Society, 2021

Convergence, 2020

Celebrity Studies, 2019

Qualitative Inquiry, 2019

Leisure Sciences, 2019

The Future of Motorsports Business, Politics and Society, 2023

Sport in Aotearoa New Zealand: Contested Terrain (Editors: Damion Sturm & Roslyn Kerr), 2022

Sport, Gender and Mega-Events, 2021

Leisure Communities: Rethinking Mutuality, Collective Identity and Belonging in the New Century, Sep 2020

Creating inclusive, user-friendly spaces is a perennial challenge confronting sports and faciliti... more Creating inclusive, user-friendly spaces is a perennial challenge confronting sports and facilities attempting to open their doors to the community while essentially servicing elite sports programmes. We aim to probe tensions underpinning the co-habitation of elite and community sports in a New Zealand setting and assumed utopian visions of navigating, managing and merging such disparate sporting groups.

‘Utopian’ refers to anticipated or hoped for ideals or improvements, the foregrounding of which may clarify what is naturalised as optimal. The association between utopianism and community harmony, utopia’s willingness to experimentally reconcile antimonies such as minority and communal goals, finds affinity with the questions about community raised in this chapter.

We draw upon two prime case studies. The first considers the Avantidrome/‘Home of Cycling’, located in the Waipa/Waikato region of New Zealand, which opened in April 2014 as primarily an elite track cycling venue designed, built and provided for Cycling New Zealand elite squads. Its promotional strategies, however, have also been geared towards representing the site, its surroundings and its associated activities as an inclusive space for broader community involvement. The second case probes Olympia Gymnastics Sports, a gymnastics club in Christchurch, New Zealand, which was established in 2003 as an amalgamation of four clubs with a mission to produce Olympic success alongside servicing the community. Underpinning the two case studies are the contested natures and notions of community. Due to contentious sources of funding, both facilities needed to champion the rhetoric of providing communal spaces and activities, provide a premise of openness and assuage concerns by promoting public good, well-being and engagement through utopian evocations of community. Drawing upon ethnographic accounts, interviews, surveys and on-site observations, we reflect upon these utopian representations and realities, their places and spaces, and the high performance/community dynamics that play out.

Understanding Esports: An introduction to the global phenomenon, 2019

The growth of e-sports seemingly blurs a futuristic vision of sport, fandom, fan as e-participant... more The growth of e-sports seemingly blurs a futuristic vision of sport, fandom, fan as e-participant and sport-as-media. While debates may rage over the rise, merit and legitimacy of e-sports as a sport, such debates have been further fractured by ‘real’ sports, teams and competitions entering the e-sport terrain. This chapter focuses on the Formula 1 Esports Series, launched in 2017, which has created an annual global competition for gamers. It should be noted, racing games and simulations have long been recognised for their sophisticated tactile imagery that can furnish visual, visceral and haptic first-person simulated experiences for gamers. The official e-sports series is endorsed by the ‘real’ Formula One World Championship, culminating in a finale staged and e-sports world champion crowned at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Additionally, drivers and teams are getting involved; Fernando Alonso created his own e-sport motor-racing team, while McLaren ran their own separate e-sports competition, the “World’s Fastest Gamer”, employing the winner as a McLaren simulator driver in 2018. By legitimising these e-competitions as stand-alone world championship events, the future points to a new model for sport and fandom; e-participants competing in the simulated global e-sport world of Formula One racing.

Green events and green tourism: An international guide to good practice, 2018

Motorsport rarely offers a model of sustainability. Economically it is expensive, socially it is ... more Motorsport rarely offers a model of sustainability. Economically it is expensive, socially it is often exclusive and privileges the elite, while politically it is most often used as a symbolic tool for ambitious nations and corporations. Motorsport’s environmental reputation is also problematic: burning fossil fuels, large global carbon footprints and the wanton waste of resources including its impacts on green spaces and locations. While large motorsport series such as Formula One and the World Endurance Championship have shifted towards hybrid technologies, their transformation to or at least recognition for sustainable efforts arguably has been negligible. In contrast, the emergence and growth of Formula E has seen a sustained attempt to change attitudes to motorsport and sustainability. Formula E is premised on ‘green’ technologies which harness battery packs and other hybrid technologies to produce zero emissions, recycle parts (tyres) and primarily race on temporary city circuits. While speaking to their own green technologies, the series also partners with ‘smart cities’ to run events in global cities such as Paris, London, Monaco, Montreal, Berlin, New York and Hong Kong. Such partnerships offer the incentive to associate with green technologies and an environmental sustainability message, while also affording an image-branding opportunity for these host locations too. This chapter will explore the operation of Formula E, discussing the possibilities of its push towards environmental sustainability and some of the changes it has engendered to date.

Identity in professional wrestling: Essays on nationality, race and gender , Mar 2018

The alleged “golden age” of the then World Wrestling Federation (WWF) was or still remains an im... more The alleged “golden age” of the then World Wrestling Federation (WWF) was or still remains an important moment in the lives of many professional wrestling fans. Indeed, ardent fans will most likely still have some of the wrestling remnants from this period, with an assortment of personal artefacts, memorabilia and subsequent purchases sustaining their collective affective attachments to the larger-than-life wrestlers, events, and matches of the time. This golden age witnessed the emergence of Hulkamania and Wrestlemania as dominant forces that would shape the WWF scene, usher in other major tournaments and attract large American (and increasingly globally diffuse) audiences to professional wrestling. Moreover, a stellar cast of heroes and villains (“faces” and “heels”) provided entertainment and diverse talking points for fans enamored with these hyper-muscular men and the characters they portrayed. Pertinently, while overly reliant on television and pay-per-view telecasts during this era, in contemporary times different media forms are enhancing fans’ lived memories of the WWF. In a traditional consumptive framework, pre-packaged WWF box sets have become more pervasive, with an abundance of major tournaments (e.g., Wrestlemania, Survivor Series) or career sketches and best matches of prominent wrestlers (e.g., Hulk Hogan, Macho Man Randy Savage) readily available for purchase.

Moreover, new media and digital platforms afford the viewing and uploading of footage, interviews, and other rare archival materials, while social media networks furnish new forms of fan participation, sustain nostalgic manifestations, and provide an impetus to the memories and dialogue surrounding this era of the WWF. In fact, if anything, social and digital media refashions the halcyon days of the WWF as a durable and also permeable record that takes on its own form. That is, through the tireless, affective labor carried out by fans and administrators across these platforms, this historical era in WWF history is reconstructed and re-energized as a living, contested, and constantly updated archival record that is fueled by the memories, intensive engagements, and investments of the fans. These complementary processes of recording, reporting and reinvigorating the golden age of the WWF through an array of mediatized forms and fan practices will be the prime focus of this chapter.

Sport, Media and Mega-Events, Apr 2017

Known as the ‘Jewel in the Crown’ and ‘the Greatest Spectacle in Racing’ respectively, the Monaco... more Known as the ‘Jewel in the Crown’ and ‘the Greatest Spectacle in Racing’ respectively, the Monaco Grand Prix and Indianapolis 500 are significant global motor-racing events. Both races are imbued with rich traditions, prestige and legendary histories. Through highly-stylised media representations, they are further recast as alluring ‘spectacles of speed’. However, their aura is evoked in distinctive ways. The Monaco Grand Prix projects ‘European glamour’ through images and symbols of wealth, privilege and the elite from its luxurious location. In contrast, the Indianapolis 500 imparts ‘Global Americana’ via pageantry, ceremonies and rituals built around idealized American values and fervent patriotism

Music at the extremes: Essays on sounds outside the mainstream (pp. 13-29) , Jun 2015

An intriguing affective and ‘elitist’ aesthetic underpins forms of extreme metal fandom. Within t... more An intriguing affective and ‘elitist’ aesthetic underpins forms of extreme metal fandom. Within this fan subculture, it is the merits of genres, bands and the aesthetics of the music (such as technical prowess, performance and production) that are a constant source of interest, debate and subsequent demarcation amongst fans. This chapter explores how fans engage with the more extreme forms of metal through their interactions online and in-person. In particular, the intensities, performances and practices of self-identified extreme metal fans will be discussed by tracing their histories, experiences, progressions within and rationale for their musical interests. Moreover, while fan performances and practices are informed by aesthetics and invigorated through affect, broader ‘elitist’ debates also emerge within extreme metal’s subgenres. Thus fans converge around and enforce forms of taste-making and gate-keeping by delimiting the appropriateness of comments, content and viewpoints surrounding specific genres, bands and so forth.

Methodologically this chapter blends interviews, ethnography and textual analysis, while drawing on key works on fan (sub)cultures, music and socio-cultural theories of affect and taste to explore extreme metal fandom. In particular, Bourdieu’s cultural theories of taste, capital and literacy are deployed to demonstrate that many fans are highly literate in the subtleties and nuances of their metal subgenres, while displaying forms of symbolic and cultural capital through their accumulated knowledge, musical ability and collecting of artifacts. Finally, conceiving of fandom as a performative project of identity construction, the affective (and aesthetic) attachments, investments and intensities that underpin and shape such forms of extreme metal fandom are also explored.

Sports Events, Society and Culture, Jul 2014

Taking South Park seriously, 2008

Celebrity has a high currency in contemporary western society, with widespread circulation, comme... more Celebrity has a high currency in contemporary western society, with widespread circulation, commercialization and notions of desire and emulation understood through the representation and dissemination of celebrity. Modern celebrity can be understood through a range of lenses; be it a social function, as a sign or star text (Dyer, 1979), as contributing to cultural identity, or as a process of manufacture and the celebrity as a commodity. Furthermore, celebrity is to some extent substantiated, exacerbated, celebrated and reproduced through promotion and the self-perpetuating effect of mass mediations which provide a vortex of subsidiary circulation for celebrity. Conversely, however, the animated series of South Park offers a challenge to this privileged position and reproduction of celebrity by undermining the representation, manufacture and value of contemporary celebrity. Through parody, South Park provides both a comical and insightful critique of celebrity, exposing and mocking...

World Congress of Sociology of Sport (International Sociology of Sport Assocation - ISSA), May 2019

Anna Kournikova arguably has offered the ‘model’ template for female sport stardom since the 1990... more Anna Kournikova arguably has offered the ‘model’ template for female sport stardom since the 1990s. Blonde, lithe and athletic, her tennis performances were re-orientated to excessive mediatised and commercialised processes that overwhelmingly centered on appearance across her entire career. Such excesses were a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Kournikova’s limited tennis success (doubles’ victories but no coveted singles’ titles) subjected her to ridicule by being lavished with ‘star’ qualities but failing sport’s assumed inherent criteria of talent, achievement and meritocracy. On the other hand, the incessant media vortex exacerbated Kournikova’s fame as media object, sex object and commodity-spectacle.

Historically, notable antecedents from women’s sport were framed with an emphasis on beauty over athletic performance. However, the pronounced shift for Kournikova projected more overt and explicit representations of sexualisation, ‘glamour’, and idealisations of her beauty and body than had accompanied her predecessors. In contradistinction, Kournikova was complicit with the exploitative and sexualised framework, arguably knowingly and willingly reproducing sexualised commodity-object performances in return for lucrative media exposure and financial gain on and off the court.

Kournikova operates as a forerunner for the strategic and agential alignment of female appearance with sport, media and commercial personas. Post-Kournikova, stars were expected to blend sporting prowess and achievement alongside beauty (Maria Sharapova, Danica Patrick) to counter traditional media anti-talent narratives. Current self-presentational social media strategies seemingly showcase appearance over sporting achievements (Eugenie Bouchard, Paige Spiranac), proffering self-objectifying and self-sexualising ‘athlete-as-model’ personas that provide playful contemporary exemplars of the ‘Anna Kournikova effect’.

Keywords: Television Technologies, Televised Sport, Point-of-View Structures, Affect, Video Games... more Keywords: Television Technologies, Televised Sport, Point-of-View Structures, Affect, Video Games, Virtual Representations

Despite assumptions of a decline in broadcast media, the televisual representation of sport events often remains paramount in relation to its viewership, circulation and for broadcasting rights. To remain prominent, an emerging array of technologies have revamped how television cameras frame and re-present contemporary global sport, included its gaming worlds.

Focusing on cricket, rugby league and Formula One, my presentation explores how diverse cameras creatively manipulate and play with the spatial and aesthetic realms of sport events in non-traditional ways. Thus, cameras often oscillate between participatory and exploratory perspectives to complement and expand upon their predominantly narrative function. On the one hand, degrees of sensory invigoration, mediated athletic replication and vicarious involvement are constructed that permit visual renditions of first-person, pseudo-player perspectives. On the other hand, there has been a stylistic orientation towards extraneous exploration, as highly mobile cameras (e.g., Steadicams, Segways, Spider-Cams and Drones) fluidly roam around and float across the sportscape and its surrounds, often dipping in and out of the on-field action.

Such innovations have extended to virtual recreations of the sporting event. In cricket, Hawk-eye, ball-tracking and thermal ‘hot-spots’ are deployed for dual officiating and entertainment purposes. Within Formula One video games simulated and participatory ‘first-person’ driving experiences are afforded to further immerse players and fans in the (primarily televised) sports event experience.

Collectively, I suggest that these techniques provide an intensified and affective non-narrative visual navigation of contemporary televised sports events for its ephemeral and invested viewers.

Motorsport rarely offers a model of sustainability. Economically it is expensive, socially it is ... more Motorsport rarely offers a model of sustainability. Economically it is expensive, socially it is often exclusive and privileges the elite, while politically it is most often used as a symbolic tool for ambitious nations and corporations (Lefebvre & Roult, 2011; Silk & Manley, 2012; Sturm, 2014). Motorsport’s environmental reputation is also problematic: burning fossil fuels, large global carbon footprints and the wanton waste of resources including its impacts on green spaces and locations. While large motorsport series such as Formula One and the World Endurance Championship have shifted towards hybrid technologies, their transformation to or at least recognition for sustainable efforts arguably has been negligible. Indeed, despite its potential environmental benefits, Formula One’s hybrid era has generally been perceived as underwhelming, if not a failure by insiders and fans. Widespread changes have been introduced for 2017 to ‘reinvigorate’ the racing spectacle, while strong rumours persist that future iterations of Formula One may revert back to their previous non-sustainable displays to salvage the sport’s dwindling audience.

In contrast, the emergence and growth of Formula E has witnessed a concerted attempt to change attitudes to motorsport and sustainability. Formula E is premised on ‘green’ technologies which harness battery packs and other hybrid technologies to produce zero emissions, recycle tyres and primarily race on temporary city circuits. Major global car manufacturers are getting involved as participants and for the leveraging opportunities surrounding sustainable technologies. The series also partners with ‘smart cities’ to run events in locations such as Paris, London, Monaco, Montreal, Berlin, New York and Hong Kong. Such partnerships offer the incentive to associate with green technologies and an environmental sustainability message, while also affording an image-branding opportunity for these host cities as ‘green’ partners too.
Collectively, this presentation will explore the operation of Formula One and Formula E, discussing the possibilities and pitfalls of their push towards environmental sustainability. Their ‘green-washing’ self-promotional strategies (Boykoff & Mascarenhas, 2016; Miller, 2016) will also be probed to assess their value and viability as sustainable, ‘green’ events.

References
Boykoff, J. & Mascarenhas, G. (2016). The Olympics, sustainability and greenwashing: The 2016 Rio summer games. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 27 (2) 1-11.
Lefebvre, S., & Roult, R. (2011). Formula One’s new urban economies. Cities, 28(4) 330–339.
Miller, T. (2016) Greenwashed sports and environmental activism: Formula 1 and FIFA. Environmental Communication, 10 (6) 719-733.
Silk, M. & Manley, A. (2012). Globalization, urbanization and sporting spectacle in Pacific Asia: Places, peoples and pastness. Sociology of Sport Journal, 29(4) 455-484.
Sturm, D. (2014). A glamorous and high-tech global spectacle of speed: Formula One motor racing as mediated, global and corporate spectacle. In K. Dashper, T. Fletcher and N. McCullough (Eds.). Sports events, society and culture (pp. 68-82). London: Routledge.

Strong performances by the New Zealand men’s cricket team, particularly during the 2015 Cricket W... more Strong performances by the New Zealand men’s cricket team, particularly during the 2015 Cricket World Cup (CWC) which New Zealand co-hosted, witnessed an upsurge in positive media attention to accompany these achievements. As such, media coverage, promotional material and advertising depicted a nation, as well as its global visitors, transfixed and unified by the event. However, such representative assumptions were problematic for nation-building and belied New Zealand’s socio-cultural realities, as well as the scope and scale of the event. For example, the ANZ bank’s ‘Dream Big New Zealand’ advertisement was prevalent during the tournament which, through its narrative and imagery, provided an idyllic projection of cricket’s assumed inclusiveness and place within the national fabric. Nevertheless, while portraying gendered and racial diversity set against stereotypical scenic backdrops, the advertisement failed to acknowledge cricket’s only mild popularity in New Zealand. Moreover, despite the presence of local and visiting exuberant South Asian fans, the specificity of New Zealand cricket’s prime audience and participants is overwhelmingly white, middle-class males.

Alternatively, the mediatisation of the tournament catered to further assumed nationalistic links. Camera drones framed not only the on-field sports action but also afforded tourism-inspired perspectives of the surrounding cities and landscapes. Such footage contributed to leveraging the world cup as a promotional tool for advertising New Zealand as a host nation and as a desirable location for prospective tourists. Other similarly-hued national advertisements and forms of media coverage were commonplace. Collectively, these promoted New Zealand as a tourist destination, embellished the place and role of cricket within the nation, evoked communal solidarity and success, and overhyped the (limited) global appeal of the CWC during this time. It is these popular and promotional representations of the nation and New Zealand national identity that will be examined within this presentation.

It is often assumed that an abject and objectionable aesthetic underpins extreme metal. Indeed, s... more It is often assumed that an abject and objectionable aesthetic underpins extreme metal. Indeed, sonically, extreme metal arguably operates like a relentless and incessant abrasive wall of sound for untrained ears. Discursively, images and themes are often taboo, macabre, obscene, occult or grotesque (lyrics, song titles and band names), particularly in the realms of death and black metal. In many ways, extreme metal practices seemingly constitute a form of dark leisure by generally lacking mainstream exposure, commodification or mass appeal and, as such, are often viewed with suspicion, as problematic or as a deviant pursuit.

However, what is striking about extreme metal and the associated dark leisure practices is the intense affective attachments that many fans make in terms of their loyalty, longevity and highly-knowledgeable displays. On the one hand, there are fans enamoured by its dark imagery or abject representational components, and who embrace these visual and discursive elements within the extreme metal scene. Moreover, such fans often adopt and deploy the supposedly rebellious posturing of allegedly being anti-mainstream, anti-commercialisation and operating on the margins. On the other hand, there are fans who are arguably more sonically than discursively inclined. While potentially reinforcing the aforementioned practices, this is primarily buttressed by the reflexive awareness of the importance of strategic outward displays of knowledge, allegiance and membership. More specifically, these ‘connoisseurs’ (Allett, 2011; Sturm, 2015) explicitly privilege the musical virtuosity of the compositions and arrangements over the representational elements.

This presentation seeks to explore some of these non-representational components in more depth, understanding how fans reflexivity negotiate and strategically deploy the objectionable imagery, while often being ambivalent to its abject discursive forms. Moreover, the rendering of affective and embodied intensities, fan performativity and aesthetic forms of sonic sense-making are also examined in relation to this allegedly ‘abrasive wall of sound’.

Leisure Studies Conference

Recently, several researchers have highlighted the difficulty with the binary terms “insider-outs... more Recently, several researchers have highlighted the difficulty with the binary terms “insider-outsider” (see for example, Corbin, Dwyer and Buckle, 2009; Paetcher, 2012; Kerstetter, 2012) within qualitative research. In this presentation, we similarly critique the, at times, overly simplistic insider/outsider binary and argue for recognising the greater forms of fluidity, oscillation and blurred relationships at play for researchers’ researching within leisure spaces. Indeed, one of our key arguments is a greater recognition for the forms of reflexivity and strategy that are enacted and enabled by researchers to negotiate and navigate the diverse spaces, people and practices encountered during the research process. To furnish this approach, we turn to Bourdieu’s theoretical framework, particularly around notions of the field and capital in its varying forms, offering an alternative means for comparing and understanding the two researcher’s ethnographic accounts of researching sports facilities in New Zealand. One of the ethnographers, Damion, describes himself as closer to an outsider than an insider in the context of the velodrome he was examining, while the other researcher, Roslyn, describes herself as an insider in the field of gymnastics. However, both found their assumed ‘insider/outsider’ position was never static either. Rather, this positioning was always context-dependent and reliant upon how their own assumed forms of capital could be deployed, read or recognised, or how it could be reflexively negotiated to further contribute to their status, access and the shared meaning-making with various people within these spaces. Through comparing their ethnographic accounts, we illustrate how the language of insider/outsider can be limiting. Alternatively, our presentation will also highlight how both researchers deployed forms of capital and reflexive strategies to more fluidity straddle these varying positions during their daily encounters; particularly with the research itself taking place within a hierarchical binary of elite/community sports spaces.

Celebrity Studies Conference

A run of recent strong performances by the New Zealand men’s cricket team, particularly during th... more A run of recent strong performances by the New Zealand men’s cricket team, particularly during the 2015 World Cup where they were co-hosts, allegedly had a temporary galvanising effect on the nation. Central to these nationalistic outpourings of affection was Brendon McCullum. Dubbed ‘captain courageous’, there had been a notable reconstruction of the previous articulations of an assumed brazen, maverick individualism often negatively portrayed. Conversely, McCullum’s more recently refashioned public ‘BMac’ persona projected and allegedly embodied nationally-championed attributes of leadership, tenacity, sporting prowess, humility and a strong moral code across his on and off field performances. McCullum’s sport-celebrity performances and performativity will be considered in relation to the nation, particularly through an exploration of the field of sport stardom and the representational politics that surround the elevation, projection and authentication of lionised heroic national individuals. However, given cricket’s temporal ability to also straddle, if not transcend such geographic boundaries, space is also accorded to the local/global fluidity that envelopes his stardom. McCullum stardom proffers a transnational and ‘liquid’ appeal to other localities which is evinced by the seemingly fanatic engagement with his image by Indian fans, and through the British press’ alternative projected persona of McCullum as the ‘Don’. More broadly, authenticating celebrity is explored through the operation and circulation of these two public representational personas, while paying particular attention to McCullum’s primarily heroic mediated and commercialised representations.

Future of Cycling Symposium

Creating inclusiveness and user-friendly spaces are a challenge to any new sporting venue. The Av... more Creating inclusiveness and user-friendly spaces are a challenge to any new sporting venue. The Avantidrome ‘Home of Cycling’ officially opened its doors to the public in April 2014. This research is interested in exploring the different practices, activities and spaces that have been established by the Home of Cycling in its first 18 months of operation. Indeed, while the Avantidrome is primarily an elite track cycling venue, its promotional strategies have also been geared towards representing the site, its surroundings and its associated activities as an inclusive space for broader community involvement. Drawing upon user-group interviews, surveys and my on-site observations, my presentation will reflect upon these representations and realities, its places and spaces, and the high performance/community dynamics that play out at the Avantidrome.

The Lincoln University Cycling Forum

The recent strong performances of the New Zealand men’s cricket team, particularly during the 201... more The recent strong performances of the New Zealand men’s cricket team, particularly during the 2015 World Cup, allegedly had a temporary galvanising effect on the nation. Central to these nationalistic outpourings of affection was Brendon McCullum. Dubbed ‘captain courageous’, McCullum’s projected public persona allegedly embodied nationally-championed attributes of leadership, tenacity, sporting prowess, humility and a strong moral code across his on and off field performances. McCullum’s mixing of persona, performances and performativity will be considered in relation to the nation, sport stardom and McCullum’s primarily heroic mediated and commercialised representations.

It is too easy to dismiss extreme metal music fans; the reductive stereotypes that classify them ... more It is too easy to dismiss extreme metal music fans; the reductive stereotypes that classify them as unrefined, troubled, angst-ridden and seemingly trapped in an adolescent phase. However, rather than a frenzied mass responding ‘aggressively’ to aggressive music, more nuanced fan cultures and experiences constitute this scene. Indeed, perhaps the extreme metal landscape can be considered as both a sensual and a transgressive space?

For the uninitiated, extreme metal operates on the periphery of mainstream popular culture and is marked as ‘extreme’ primarily due to its sonic and discursive forms. Specifically, the two subgenres of death and black metal are intentionally uncompromising, underground and anti-commercial in terms of their production, circulation and reception. These subgenres regularly offend mainstream sensibilities through abrasive soundscapes, macabre content and the promotion of reprehensible images. Nevertheless, conversely, an affectively invested fan community also thrives there, finding solace, solidarity and status through their maligned music.

My paper presents some of my findings from recent ethnographic fieldwork on extreme metal fans. In particular, my research probed the extreme metal scene to reveal more of the intricacies, nuances and workings of a scene largely unknown to mainstream audiences. Where possible, insider perspectives were included to help make sense of the music, the relationships, the attachments and the hierarchies that percolate there. Noteworthy were the intriguing ‘elitist’ fan categories (the connoisseurs and scene elitists) that to some degree operate as scene taste-makers and gate-keepers, while I also posit that future research into metal as assemblages of affective intensities may counter its often maligned and problematic representations.

The negotiation, integration and adaptation of ‘global’ sports within parts of South-East Asia of... more The negotiation, integration and adaptation of ‘global’ sports within parts of South-East Asia offers an interesting space for exploring notions of the cosmopolitan. Indeed, by using Formula One motor-racing and English Premier League football as two specific case studies, examinations of the local/global nexus become paramount for better understanding how these sports are both grobally imposed by transnational organisations and glocally adapted for local markets, audiences and purposes. By way of introduction, both sports arguably share a postnational global outlook and reach, disseminating their respective sports as highly mediated, commodified and consumable spectacles for diverse audiences across the globe.

In the case of Formula One, the sport projects what I have labelled elsewhere as ‘a glamorous and high-tech global spectacle of speed’ via its mediated, brand-saturated spectacle of elite motor-racing. Essentially Eurocentric in design and funded by major transnational corporations, the sport is also seemingly borderless due to its nomadic series annually traversing the globe, with races increasingly being staged in parts of Asia. Nevertheless, Formula One has a grobal orientation, with a homogenous global commodity spectacle, event and brand being imposed at each circuit, seemingly with little regard for the specifics of the country or culture.

The English Premier League has a similar mediated and commodified orientation to Formula One. The English Premier League may have historic ties to particular English regions but its contemporary operation and circulation can be conceived as postnational due to the global migration of players, coaches and transnational sponsors involved, as well as its paradoxical positioning as one of the most popular and prominent global/domestic football leagues. In this regard, the English Premier League brings its ‘domestic/global’ brand to South East Asia primarily via mediation and consumer goods, but increasingly by also staging mini-tours outside of the regular season due to the immense popularity of the Premier League within these regions.

Nevertheless, rather than merely subsuming these commodified global sport spectacles, the interplay of the local and the global via glocal adoption and adaptations offer interesting insights into how these sports encounter and collude with the local. Thus, some of these appropriations will be explored, such as the integration of football within Malaysian daily life (specifically around food cultures, local media and imitation regalia), as well as the disparate uses and successes of Formula One as a glocal/grobal spectacle by and for different regions within Asia.

Given their ability to traverse multiple mediatised sites, platforms and formats, contemporary ce... more Given their ability to traverse multiple mediatised sites, platforms and formats, contemporary celebrity provides media objects ripe for circulation, consumption and manipulation. Indeed, celebrity mediations both garner and afford wide ranging audience positionings, engagements and responses while being entangled in a range of broader socio-cultural processes and discourses. Enter Sonny Bill Williams. A polarising figure, Sonny Bill Williams provides an intriguing exemplar of the local/global fluidity and potential agential capacity for contemporary male sport stardom as he navigates diverse mediascapes and technologies. Indeed, within a New Zealand context, he often literally embodies the notion of ubiquitous media (particularly with his impending return to New Zealand rugby in 2015).

Nevertheless, what makes Sonny Bill Williams (or SBW) a fascinating case study is how he operates as a polysemic signifier of sporting masculinities while seemingly being embroiled in an array of eroticised, commercial, racial and nationalistic discourses. Hence, my presentation will focus on SBW in relation to themes such as masculinity, bodies, commodification, nationalism and stardom/celebrity, teasing out some of the performative and affective traces contained there, as well as the tensions and paradoxes that underpin his representations. Moreover, on the one hand, Sonny Bill Williams rugby league/rugby stardom seemingly reifies sport’s continual reliance on a predominantly broadcast model gradually integrating ‘new media’ forms. However, on the other hand, it is his status, notoriety, public backlashes and the set of public/private performances he provides as a celebrity that provide insights into how celebrity operates as a ubiquitous media form via digital technologies.

By continuously integrating the latest new media advances but retaining an overwhelming reliance ... more By continuously integrating the latest new media advances but retaining an overwhelming reliance on older broadcast models, contemporary mediated sport affords an interesting paradox. That is, while most well-known sports provide ‘digitised’ processes, platforms and applications, these technologies primarily complement the televised coverage. Thus, despite assumptions of a decline in broadcast media, the televisual representation of sport often remains paramount in terms of viewership, circulation (or its online replication) and for broadcasting rights. Therefore, my presentation will consider this contemporary trend, specifically the emerging technologies and tools that are being utilized to revamp how televised sport is re-represented and consumed.

With an explicit focus on the ‘KFC Big Bash’ Australia T20 domestic cricket competition, as well as other salient televised sport examples, my presentation will explore how contemporary sport is packaged as an affective commodity-spectacle. These technological innovations and refinements blur the lines of information, entertainment and commodification, while allowing a traditional broadcast media form to be re-presented in non-traditional ways. That is, cameras and other technologies operate in fluid and highly-mobile ways, encroach upon or are embedded within the field of play, and more frequently are placed on players and officials during live sporting contests. In turn, these contrasting technologies and multiple perspectives simultaneously provide the analytical tools for sporting knowledge, sites for commodification and affective layers for viewer engagement. Combining video game dynamics, filmic aesthetics and seemingly furnishing mediated athletic replication, such techniques arguably afford an enticing affective commodity-spectacle for both ephemeral and invested sports viewers.

There are fascinating contradictions that play out around prominent athletes and the subsequent c... more There are fascinating contradictions that play out around prominent athletes and the subsequent corporately groomed, commodified and marketed images that are transposed onto them as sport stars. My research paper examines aspects of the professional image making that underpins contemporary sport. In particular, I will discuss how the corporate manufacturing and marketing of different sporting celebrity images often belies assertions of an authentic or ‘real’ person behind the image, can supersede the original basis for any sporting achievement or, on occasion, can expose the rupture when marketed personalities cannot always emulate their own simulated personas.

As a broader context, sports rampant commercialisation clearly transforms stars into commodities that are branded both on the field (sponsored uniforms and attire) and off the field as celebrity endorsers for transnational corporations and an array of consumer goods and/or lifestyles. Traced across diverse sporting fields and sporting individuals, my case studies seek to illuminate the tensions that exist between an often myopic corporate ethos of slick branding, public relation exercises and the assumed unproblematic marketability of sport stars with the very different ‘realities’ that confront and confound such professional image makers. In fact, despite the apparent seamlessness to the sporting images professionally constructed and disseminated by transnational corporate entities, there are also broader tensions that underpin such celebrity representations that are worthy of further consideration. Therefore, the lens of professional image making will be recast onto certain sporting codes and transnational corporations to critically interrogate some of the overt manufacturing, transgressive acts and paradoxical practices that resonate within and through the ‘packaging’ of commodified and/or corporate sporting personalities.

My analysis reflects the current orientation of the critical celebrity studies canon which, collectively, conceptualises celebrity (or in this instance, the images of sport stars) as pervasive and ubiquitous in contemporary times. Sport stars are always and already media stars, transmitted as ‘personalities’ through the televising of sporting contests, as well as a collage of eclectic personas manipulated by numerous digital technologies and broadcast media representations that blur the ‘real’ public star athlete and the private individual. Moreover, they are always and already commercialised and commodified objects for consumption, emulation and are readily reproduced as endorsers of goods, lifestyles and corporations. It is these contestable representations of the sporting persona, married with the very determined marketing, manufacturing and dissemination of professional commercial images for global consumption, that I will specifically address.

"This paper argues that autoethnography has the potential to articulate the subject-fan voice and... more "This paper argues that autoethnography has the potential to articulate the subject-fan voice and unlock evocations of first-person, ‘insider’ experiences within the broader field of sports fandom. Due to its self-reflexive writing style, autoethnography can be used to frame and represent fandom as an affective and experientially ‘lived’ project of identity construction. More specifically, the fan’s individuated investments, intensities and shifting sense of self can be evocatively rendered and made accessible as affectively lived moments that, when reassembled, also reveal how fan practices are embedded and anchored in broader socio-cultural realities.

Given that fandom is itself a performative process, my paper proposes that performative (auto)ethnography is also a useful means for exploring the fan experience and for articulating the fan voice. To provide this reflexive turn, I introduce the subject-fan through staged ‘first-person’ vignettes that seek to re-inject a less coherent and socially-constrained sense of subjecthood than is often constructed in autoethnographical accounts. Alternatively, as a performative writing and representational strategy, these vignettes blend, blur and elicit traces of a culturally bound and multifaceted ‘first-person’ fandom. In turn, such performative vignettes produce further reflexive layers from which the phenomena of fandom (and the role of autoethnography) can be understood and analysed."

My presentation seeks to explore ways of conceptualising agency that expand upon and, to some deg... more My presentation seeks to explore ways of conceptualising agency that expand upon and, to some degree, move beyond Bourdieu’s frameworks. Specifically, I attempt to reconcile Bourdieu’s theoretical forms of agential containment (habitus, reflexivity, fields, capital and cultural intermediaries) by incorporating emerging debates that favour social mobilities, affective investments and strategic forms of reflexivity. As such, Bourdieu’s ‘field’ is drawn upon to trace the degrees of agency, as well as the affectively and reflexively structured mobilities, that anchor us in the lived spatio-temporal realities of our daily lives.

Media International Australia, Aug 2014

Studies in Documentary Film, May 2014