CFP: Virtual Sport as New Media

Call for Papers
Virtual Sport as New Media
Special Issue of Sociology of Sport Journal
Guest Editor: David J. Leonard

Daily, sports fans throughout the globe visit various sports websites,
participate in fantasy sports, celebrate and criticize teams, players, and
sporting cultures on blogs, in discussion groups, and list serves, and enjoy
immense pleasure in playing sports video games. Each of these media, to
varying degrees, embodies what has come to be known as new media, a
catch-all phrases that includes everything from the Internet to the
Blogosphere to video games, virtual reality, and other examples in which
media technologies are defined by increased accessibility, fluidity, and
interactivity. In 1998, David Rowe found that Yahoo UK and Irish Search
engines offered 4,271 categories and 14,591 sites devoted to sport. As of
2007, a U.S. Google search landed 822,000,000 sports websites, yet yielded
few scholarly inquiries of sports and new media, especially in regards to
race, gender, sexuality, and nation. Moreover, when much of the video game
industry faced losses in sales in 2005, sports games remained strong within
the industry, accounting for more than thirty percent of all video games
sales. In total, sports video games represent a $1 billion industry, a fact
that demonstrates the economic power and cultural significance of sports
video games. Yet, to date, the literature within sports sociology, amongst
commentators and scholars of global sports culture, has with few exceptions
remained relatively silent to the cultural, political, sociological,
economic, and overall significance of new media within a globalized sports
culture. While there are countless examples and evidence of the increasing
significance of new media within global sporting cultures, the academic
community continues to lag behind in terms of analysis and critical
interrogation. This special issue attempts to bridge the gap between old
media, and new, reflecting on the ways in which new media cultures infect
and affect fans, teams, sporting cultures. Possible topics include but are
not limited to: sports video games; sporting blogs; the Internet and global
sports culture; white masculinity and virtual sports culture; fantasy
sports; sports discussion groups; ESPN.com and virtual sports media; virtual
sport as minstrelsy; the intersections of race, nation, sexuality, gender,
and class with sports and new media; race, gender and fantasy sports
leagues; analysis of the cultural affects of Youtube, Myspace, or Google
video on sporting cultures; sports talk radio and podcasting/the Internet
(particularly as they relate to race and gender); virtual sports culture and
Diaspora: Sports as imagined community; links between racism, sexism and
other institutions of domination and virtual sporting cultures, and, virtual
sports culture as racial/ gendered performance. This issue will consider
textual, empirical (data-based), case study, and/or theory-based papers
grounded in sociological theory and related to virtual sports culture, but
is especially interested in papers that are empirically-based and those that
critically engage the links between virtual sport and race, gender,
sexuality, nation or globalization, as well as papers that push analysis
into realms of comparison (beyond the U.S.). Authors should follow the
ŒInstructions to contributors¹ found in every issue of the Sociology of
Sport Journal. Essays should be roughly 6,000 words, excluding endnotes and
reference list. Questions should be sent to Dr. David J. Leonard,
djl@wsu.edu. All submissions are due by March 1, 2008 and should be
submitted on line to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/hk_ssj