[ecrea] CFP: Conflict and Crisis in Elite Sport: Media, Ideology, Identity and Politics in an Era of Hyper-sportisation

Call for papers: Special issue of the Catalan Journal of Communication 
and Cultural Studies 6.2

'Conflict and Crisis in Elite Sport: Media, Ideology, Identity and 
Politics in an Era of Hyper-sportisation'

Guest editors: Verner Møller (Department of Sports Sciences, University 
of Aarhus) and Bernat López (Department of Communication Studies, 
Universitat Rovira i Virgili).

Professional elite sport and the closely related phenomenon of media and 
spectator sport are among the most global, pervasive, influential, and 
visible social phenomena across countries, cultures, and social strata. 
Modern societies seem to be clearly demanding more sport, not less 
(Dimeo, 2007: 138). The sportisation process (Maguire, 2007) seems to be 
entering a new era in which more is at stake concerning elite and 
spectator sports: nationalism, identity, geopolitics, the leisure 
economy, corporate capitalism, and the continuous (re)definition of the 
boundaries of human performance and capabilities. Despite commercial 
sport being increasingly an object of attention for social theory and 
social research, their expanded relevance calls for further and closer 
scrutiny. This proposed special issue intends to contribute to this.

Although a wide range of commodities and infrastructures, from tennis 
balls to stadia, are closely associated with elite sport, its basic 
"product" has no materiality in and of itself since it is a performance: 
essentially a mass-mediated performance. Sport is a cultural and 
symbolic phenomenon. As such it offers an ideal site for the expression 
of ideology, identity (re)construction and cultural and political 
struggle. Therefore this special issue will focus on modern elite sport 
as the arena for symbolic and ideological conflict, struggle and crisis. 
Contributions are invited from any social scientific and cultural 
studies perspective, such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, 
philosophy, media and communication studies, sports studies, gender 
studies, economics, law, history, and political science.

Proposals are expected to focus on the relationship between elite and 
media sports and a wide range of issues: national, class, gender, 
sexual, intergenerational or racial struggle, the doping debate, 
symbolic violence, identity (re)construction, global versus local, the 
survival of small national cultures in the new global context, etc. 
Articles applying a stateless-nation or small nation-state perspective 
will be particularly welcome.

The journal plans to include articles of around 6-7.000 words, plus 
short research reports of around 2-3.000 words for the Viewpoint 
section. Full articles for proposed contributions should be sent to 
(catalan.journal /at/ urv.cat) <mailto:(catalan.journal /at/ urv.cat)> by 31 January 
2014. Acceptance of articles will be confirmed by 30 March 2014. All 
contributions will be subjected to anonymous peer review. For more 
details about the journal guidelines please visit: 
http://catalanjournal.wordpress.com/

Guest editors:

Professor Verner Møller is one of the leading scholars in the field of 
doping and sport studies. He is co-founder of the International Network 
of Humanistic Doping Research (INHDR) (http://www.doping.au.dk), which 
brings together 30 researchers from twelve different countries devoted 
to the study of the philosophical, social, and cultural aspects of 
doping and anti-doping. Professor Møller has published extensively on 
the issue, in Danish and English. His main contributions include the 
monographs The ethics of doping and anti-doping: Redeeming the soul of 
sport? (Routledge, 2010), Dopingdjævlen – analyse af en hed debat 
(Gyldendal, 1999; English version: The Doping Devil), Doping and Public 
Policy (co-editor, University Press of Southern Denmark, 2004), Elite 
sport, doping and public health (co-editor, University of Southern 
Denmark Press, 2009), and Doping and anti-doping policy in sport: 
ethical and legal perspectives (Routledge, 2011).

Bernat López has recently moved into the field of sport and doping 
studies where he has published on the social history of cycling in Spain 
and Catalonia, and already contributed recognised insights into the 
social construction of the doping issue. His previous research 
activities dealt mainly with minority cultures, media, and communication 
and cultural policies in Catalonia. He is the author of, among other, 
“Sport, Media, Politics and Nationalism on the Eve of the Spanish Civil 
War: The First Vuelta Ciclista a España (1935)” (International Journal 
of the History of Sport 27, 4, 2010), “Doping as Technology: A Rereading 
of the History of Performance-Enhancing Substance Use” (International 
Journal of Sport Policy and Politics 4, 1, 2012) and “The invention of a 
‘drug of mass destruction’: deconstructing the EPO myth” (Sport in 
History 31,1, 2011).

See previous special issues of the Catalan Journal of Communication and 
Cultural Studies:

Volume 5. Issue 2. Communication and Food for Health Benefits. 
Negotiating Meanings in Networked Times. (forthcoming this month)

Volume 4 Issue 2 – Gender Relations in the Media. Conflicting Pictures 
and New Representational Practices: 
http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-issue,id=2298/

Volume 3 Issue 2 – Tourism & Communication: Place Brands, Identities and 
New Trends: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-issue,id=2053/

Volume 2 Issue 2 – Special Issue: 'The Communicative Turn in Risk 
Communication: Theory and Practice': 
http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-issue,id=1890/

--
Enric Castelló
Departament d'Estudis de Comunicació
Universitat Rovira i Virgili