November 5-6, 2021

Online seminar

Deadline for submitting abstracts: 15 June 2021

Virtual Seminar of the ECREA Temporary Working Group „Communication and Sport" hosted by Aarhus University, Denmark (the seminar will take place online via Zoom)

Sport is an essential element of the culture around the world. As a growing social and economic phenomenon, it plays a key role in contemporary societies. This significance has become particularly obvious during the COVID-19 pandemic as measures prohibiting the performance of sports and on-site spectatorship have affected (and continue to affect) individual well-being as well as the function of sport in society including its health-related, educational, social, cultural, and recreational dimension.

The societal role of sport is historically and currently inextricably linked to mediated communication. Mediated sports increasingly form a constituent part of popular culture: Sport is distributed, consumed and even practiced via media. Hence, communication studies all over the world have witnessed a growing interest in mediated sport as an area of study and research. The virtual seminar of the ECREA Temporary Working Group “Communication and Sport” takes account of this significance and covers the nexus of mediated communication and sport in an inclusive way.

The seminar is dedicated to the theme of diversity – and this in two respects.

(1) First, it strives to reflect the diversity of European research on sports communication. By communication it understands mediated communication comprising phenomena ranging from publicly oriented mass media and social media to semi-public and personal communication efforts, e. g. via smartphone applications. Consequently, we invite submissions that address, but are not limited to, issues such as

• sports journalism,
• sports media content,
• strategic communication of sport-related issues,
• advertising in sports,
• mediatization of sports,
• sport and emerging technologies such as mobile media, e-sports, and virtual reality,
• patterns of media sports consumption,
• fan communication and mediated engagement with sport.

(2) Second, we especially invite submissions that address various aspects of equality and diversity in sports communication; e.g.

• diversity with regard to gender,
• diversity of sports disciplines and different types of sport such as high-performance sports, marginalized/minority sports, and leisure sports,
• sexual and race diversity in sport,
• disability sport,
• sport and social inclusion.

The TWG understands itself as interdisciplinary and wants to bring together scholars from all kinds of disciplines as well as practitioners that share the interest in the media-based communication of sport. Consequently, submissions may not only be rooted in communication studies, but also in the academic fields of sports politics, sports economy, sports management, sports technology, sports sociology, and sports practice itself.

In the seminar, we strive to include a diversity of theoretical and methodical approaches to sports communication and give voice to researchers from all parts of Europe.

Proposals for the conference should be submitted as abstracts via email to the chair of the TWG, Daniel Nölleke (daniel.noelleke@univie.ac.at). Abstracts should have between 350 and 500 words and must be submitted in English language. Abstracts should be anonymized and have a separate title page including the contact details of the authors.

Please note, that it is expected that authors will submit only one abstract as first author.

The deadline for submitting abstracts is Tuesday, 15 June 2021.

Should you have any questions, please contact us at daniel.noelleke@univie.ac.at.