[Commlist] CFP - Sports and/as Media Studies: Velvet Light Trap Issue #87

*Call for Papers - /The Velvet Light Tra/p Issue #87: Sports and/as 
Media Studies*

Historically, media studies scholars have shied away from sports-related 
media texts due to a variety of perceived challenges: the sheer volume 
of texts (there’s always something on), their inaccessibility (the texts 
are ephemeral and controlled by corporate archives), the ambivalence of 
sports cultures (at once masculine and mainstream), and more. 
Additionally, other fields have long dominated sports scholarship, with 
communication studies and sociology shaping the academic discourse and 
asserting their own approaches. To mitigate these challenges, media 
studies scholars have applied alternative approaches to understanding 
sports media, such as critical-cultural analyses that account for sports 
media constructions of difference via gender, sex, and race—and 
athletes’ abilities to contest those differences. There have also been 
deft examinations of the media industries’ economic and ideological 
dependence on sports; historiographical accounts that mine a wealth of 
underexplored repositories and sources; and audience studies that 
foreground the reception and consumption of the sports genre.

While these studies placed sports media squarely in the foreground, 
others have used sports as a case study to illuminate broader trends in 
media studies. For example, scholars have recently revealed the key role 
sports broadcasts played in the innovation and diffusion of color 
television, while others have considered the pivotal role broadcasting, 
licensing, and franchising rights played in the conglomeration and 
consolidation of cable networks and providers. Others have addressed 
gaps in audience and fan studies by engaging with under-studied sports 
fan cultures.

/Velvet Light Trap/ #87 seeks to deepen media studies understandings of 
sports. Given our current era of destabilization (of texts, genres, 
technologies, industries, distribution models, franchises, policies, 
etc.), sports undoubtedly remains a stimulus of—and, at times, barrier 
to—change in the media industries. As such, we invite a variety of media 
scholars—not just those who specialize in sports media—to reconsider and 
engage with sports in new and dynamic ways, asking, for example: How 
have production, distribution, exhibition, and reception of sports media 
changed over the last century and how are those changes reflected in the 
wider media ecology? What is the afterlife of sports media and how have 
those practices impacted scholarship, pedagogy, and future production 
practices? Where do radio and podcasting fit into the history of sports 
broadcasting? How are new media technologies (streaming platforms, video 
games, etc.) responding to, reacting against, or complementing linear 
sports channels and networks?

We welcome submissions that push the boundaries of current sports media 
literature and/or use sports media as key case studies, exploring any of 
the following themes:

  * National broadcasting and industrial histories
  * Early film histories and the continuing theatrical exhibition of
    sporting events
  * Sports as a key media market sector
  * Identification and identity politics (race, gender, sexuality,
    class, ability, nationality)
  * Place and space [localism with franchises and coverage;
    (trans)nationalism with Olympics]
  * Changing role of agents and agencies
  * Franchising, ownership, and management
  * Publicity, promotion, and marketing
  * Activism and community engagement
  * Ephemerality and textual analysis
  * Distribution, exhibition, and transnational flow of sports media
  * Archival perspectives, footage libraries, and audiovisual asset
    management
  * Regulation (copyright, retransmission rights, horizontal integration)
  * Labor, compensation, and ecological concerns
  * Production techniques
  * Genre analysis (non-fiction, narrative, & documentary)
  * Pedagogical applications
  * Video games (licensed games and eSports)

*Submission Guidelines:*
Submissions should be between 6,000 and 7,500 words, formatted in 
Chicago Style. Please submit an electronic copy of the paper, along with 
a separate one-page abstract, both saved as a Microsoft Word file. 
Remove any identifying information so that the submission is suitable 
for anonymous review. Quotations not in English should be accompanied by 
translations. Send electronic manuscripts and/or any questions to 
*(vltcfp /at/ gmail.com)* <mailto:(vltcfp /at/ gmail.com)> by January 31.

*About the Journal:*
TVLT is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal of film, television, and new 
media. The journal draws on a variety of theoretical and 
historiographical approaches from the humanities and social sciences and 
welcomes any effort that will help foster the ongoing processes of 
evaluation and negotiation in media history and criticism. While TVLT 
maintains its traditional commitment to the study of American film, it 
also expands its scope to television and other media, to adjacent 
institutions, and to other nations' media. The journal encourages both 
approaches and objects of study that have been neglected or excluded in 
past scholarship.

Graduate students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the 
University of Texas at Austin coordinate issues in alternation, and each 
issue is devoted to a particular theme. TVLT's Editorial Advisory Board 
includes such notable scholars as Hector Amaya, Ben Aslinger, Caetlin 
Benson-Allott, Aymar Jean Christian, Lisa Dombrowski, Raquel Gates, Dan 
Herbert, Dolores Inés Casillas, Deborah Jaramillo, Meenasarani Murugan, 
Safiya Noble, Debra Ramsay, Bob Rehak, Bonnie Ruberg, Neil Verma, and 
Avi Santo. TVLT's graduate student editors are assisted by their local 
faculty advisors: Mary Beltrán, Ben Brewster, Jonathan Gray, Lea Jacobs, 
Derek Johnson, Shanti Kumar, Charles Ramírez Berg, Thomas Schatz, and 
Janet Staiger (emeritus).


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