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THE SOCIOLOGY
OF SPORTS-TALK
RADIO
Robert L. Kerr
The Sociology of Sports-Talk Radio
Robert L. Kerr
The Sociology
of Sports-Talk Radio
Robert L. Kerr
The University of Oklahoma
Norman
OK, USA
ISBN 978-3-319-67252-6 ISBN 978-3-319-67253-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67253-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017952822
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

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List of Previous Books by Robert Kerr
How Postmodernism Explains Football, and Football Explains

Postmodernism: The Billy Clyde Conundrum
The Corporate Free Speech Movement: Cognitive Feudalism and the
Endangered Marketplace of Ideas
The Rights of Corporate Speech: Mobil Oil and the Legal Development
of the Voice of Big Business
Half Luck and Half Brains: The Kemmons Wilson Story
Images of Texarkana
v
Contents
1 Introduction: Why the Sociology of Sports-Talk Radio

Matters 1
2 The Smooth Talk of National Sports Radio 19
3 More Intensity in Major Regional Talk 37
4 Small Talk - With a Big, Classic Clash of Narratives 59
5 Straight Talk from Beyond the Male Gaze 79
6 Conclusion: What Matters Most Sociologically 93
Index 97
vii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Why the Sociology

of Sports-Talk Radio Matters
Abstract The opening chapter introduces this study of the social struc-
tures and processes that make sports-talk radio today such a vibrant societal
milieu and seeks to identify the essential sociological dynamics that make all
that endless talking so vital to so many. Through a qualitatively descriptive
analytic focus on the sociological dynamics of the talk of sports-talk radio, a
remarkable world where so very many come together to interact frequently,
insistently, colorfully, emotionally, and quite often with stunning ferocity in
processes by which human communicators construct meaning.
Keywords Sports-talk radio · Sociology · Postmodernist theory
Talk radio… is about as accurate as a North Korean test missile.
When Oklahoma State University Head Football Coach Mike Gundy

used that analogy at a press conference in late 2016 to dismiss the valid-
ity of most of the talk on sports-talk radio, he was referencing the way so
many of the test-missile efforts by North Korea at that time were lucky
even to launch, much less accurately strike a target.
From our vantage point looking back now from the future, we can see
he did not consider the possibility of that failure rate declining enough
that the missiles could represent a potential threat to many nations, even
the United States. Nevertheless, Gundy did in a very few words did quite
© The Author(s) 2018 1

R.L. Kerr, The Sociology of Sports-Talk Radio,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67253-3_1
2 R.L. KERR
vividly express an essential sociological dynamic of commercial sports

media that has not—and will not—change.
I took quite a few more words to elaborate upon that dynamic in my
2015 book, How Postmodernism Explains Football, and Football Explains
Postmodernism. That work demonstrated how the fundamental assertion
of postmodernist theory—that narratives, or explanatory stories, most
often fail ultimately to reliably explain important social phenomena—
through analysis of media representations of football over the course of
the game’s existence.
Ever since American college students in the mid-nineteenth century
began playing a brutal game that contributed some element of mean-
ing to their lives that they felt their classes did not, its popularity spread
inexorably and proved so fascinating to audiences that one mediated rep-
resentation after another extended its reach still further. Over time, foot-
ball’s essential structure proved fundamentally ideal for both narrative
drama and commercial exploitation.
The appeal of the game enabled it to survive early challenges that
strove sincerely to banish it from civilized society. Reformers saw in the
game a serious undermining of Americans’ physical, intellectual, and
moral well being. But rule changes and its phenomenal popularity and
commercial viability allowed it to flourish—as did the rise of two com-
peting metanarratives.
First established was the Frank Merriwell model of a football player as
an honorable hero, “the picture of an honest, healthy straight-shooter,
always on the side of truth and honor,” inspired by a fictional charac-
ter whose proliferation in novels and magazine installments dominated
media tropes for decades. But eventually, the darker side of the game
gave rise to another model that championed the player as hedonist often
bordering on sociopath. In fiction and in fact, the Billy Clyde Puckett
model would prove so primally connected to football’s essential appeal
that it grew to rival and often muscle out Merriwellian themes in the
meaning-making efforts of popular media.
Yet it is in the ongoing demonstration of the game’s age-old inabil-
ity to resolve what I characterized as its “Billy Clyde conundrum” that
we can apprehend the even broader assertion of postmodernist theory—
that we are better off seeking a multiplicity of narratives than pretending
grand resolutions are possible in the first place.
I proposed this as the ultimate lesson from that study: We may want
grand answers, but we probably won’t get them—particularly when
1 INTRODUCTION: WHY THE SOCIOLOGY OF SPORTS-TALK … 3
it comes to our most prominent cultural institutions, like commercial

football.
But what football and mediated sport more generally do for us instead
is spawn the endless narratives that evidence suggests we actually need
even more than reliable answers. Indeed, that seems to be a much more
likely explanation for why both commercial football and the almost
incomprehensibly vast media cosmos that it inspires not only exist but
endure and mean so much to so many Americans.
So that, in a nutshell, was the scholarly contribution of How
Postmodernism Explains Football—arguably as close to a unified theory as
has been fully articulated for understanding the driving force that pow-
ers the sociological phenomenon represented by mediated commercial
football, and to a great extent mediated sport more broadly: What I con-
ceptualized in that study as the “hyper-mediated marketplace of com-
mercial-football narratives.”
Our innate, seemingly insatiable need for mediated narratives of that
sort—even if most of them are no more reliable than the malfunctioning
missiles of Coach Gundy’s analogy—provides insight into the sociology
not just of commercial football or even sport more generally but of so
much societal obsession as manifest in recent decades. Similarly, hyper-
mediated marketplaces of business, entertainment, politics, and so much
more thrive on a scale beyond anything that could have been imagined
a century before, or even just a few decades ago. Although many of the
underlying component dynamics are not that new, it has been only in the
late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries that technology has made
possible for such an unprecedented multitude of narrative advancement
and rejection to be experienced so commonly, so perpetually—because
of the way that the reach of media as we know it has been multiplied
exponentially. Almost overnight, it seems that reality has expanded
through a technological and sociological transformation that extends
galaxies beyond the traditional press and broadcast networks via endless
talk radio, social media, blogging, posting, texting, and tweeting—just to
attempt to capture the uncapturable in a manageable few words.
This study seeks to build upon the theoretical constructs established
in How Postmodernism Explains Football so as to provide a fuller body of
descriptive analysis of the social interaction transpiring so profusely in the
hyper-mediated marketplace of sports narratives.
It will consider that mass of narrative production and consumption at
a more fundamental level, specifically examining the social structures and
4 R.L. KERR
processes that make sports-talk radio today such a vibrant societal milieu
and seeking to identify the essential sociological dynamics that make all
that endless talking so vital to so many. It will analyze in narrative detail
just what it is that humans do in that communicative milieu that they
consider so deeply important—and make no mistake, the intensity of the
interactions among participants demonstrates with consistency and clar-
ity what a place of almost unequaled significance it represents in their
understanding of social life.
The study will so endeavor through a qualitatively descriptive analytic
focus on the sociological dynamics of the talk of sports-talk radio itself—
or in more formally methodological language, interrogating for social
significance this profusion of mediated representations of sport to con-
sider how they contribute to recurring themes and dominant frames and
encourage those involved to develop thematically consonant understand-
ings. In that remarkable world where so very many today come together
to interact frequently, insistently, colorfully, emotionally, and quite often
with stunning ferocity, the analysis of this study will place in sociological
context these significant bodies of media discourse and the role they play
in processes by which human communicators construct meaning.
The social process is “the dynamic component of sport in society,”
wrote sociologist Wilbert Marcellus Leonard in his classic A Sociological
Perspective of Sport, emphasizing the critical elements of that activity as
“the repetitive and reoccurring interactional patterns characterizing indi-
vidual and group transactions.” Sports-talk radio offers a remarkably rich
source for considering such interactional patterns. It has been found,
for example, to contrast with political talk radio in that it is “more tol-
erant of diverse perspectives,” as cultural studies scholar David Nylund
has discussed. The media venues where sports discourse flourishes in
many ways provide “a socially sanctioned gossip sheet,” as media-studies
scholar Lawrence A. Wenner has characterized it in discussing the quali-
ties of sport communication scholarship in his volume Media, Sports, and
Society, where “the legitimized gossip… is about sporting events rather
than social events, but it is socializing nonetheless.”
More broadly, this study contributes to greater understanding of what
sociologist David Rowe formulated as “the media sports cultural com-
plex,” which he said, “signifies both the primacy of the sports media and
the great cultural formation of which it is part.” That complex is driven
in significant part, as Wenner wrote in MediaSport (a title referencing
his concept of the “new genetic strain” produced via “cultural fusing of
sport with communication”) by the fact that sport is a source of “con-

tent that is more compelling to many than other artifacts and respon-
sibilities of daily living” and provides “a conduit or medium through
which feelings, values, and priorities are communicated.” Certainly, the
analysis in this study will show, all that is most vividly documented in the
socially interactive world of sports-talk radio.
The Vital Connection Between Postmodernist

Theory and Mediated Sport
The way I put it in originally making the case for the vital relevance of
this approach was to imagine that a top team of theorists of postmodern-
ism had set to work in research-and-development laboratories to identify
a textbook microcosm of human social activity that would vibrantly dem-
onstrate their essential ideas at work. In that hypothetical scenario, they
very well could come out with something along the lines of the mediated
game of commercial football.
So the proposition re-asserted and extended for this study is that
thinking about mediated sport and postmodernism in the manner put
forth here can suggest useful understandings of complex phenomena and
offer practical sociological insights into the human condition.
As I have noted before, some scholars of postmodernism will take
issue with that proposition—or any such assertion put forth in so tangi-
ble and linear of terms. It suggests too strongly a narrative of such grand
design—or metanarrative—that it presumes to offer explanatory power
that postmodernist thought insists can never be presumed. That said,
this study will press forward with drawing upon primal elements of post-
modernist thought that fashion an approximate template of analysis for
arriving at more essential meanings of concern in these pages.
Also as I have noted before, the rather unwieldy term approximate
template cannot be avoided because even suggesting that any more for-
mal method of analysis could conclusively be derived from postmodernist
premises would be—in the most orthodox interpretation of postmodern-
ist theory—truly a narrative too grand. That school of thought rejects
any mode of interpretation so clearly systematic.
The best articulations of postmodernist theory show us that so much
of what we pretend is consistently and clearly explainable actually is not.
The worst suggests that nothing is explainable. What might be charac-
terized as a fundamentalist school of postmodernist thought can seem
6 R.L. KERR
to suggest that anyone claiming to reliably explain postmodernism is

an unreliable authority by definition. And working in this vineyard, one
must concede the conceptual possibility that any attempt to explain post-
modernism must indeed fail—if the fallibility of metanarratives is con-
sidered an absolute, then any explanation of something as complex and
nuanced as postmodernism must indeed fail. But then, holding an abso-
lutist line on the fallibility of metanarratives would also mean that such
a line itself represents a metanarrative that also can only fail. And clearly,
not all scholars of postmodernism hold that any attempt to write acces-
sibly about postmodernism must on its face be rejected as another failed
metanarrative.
So, as in my previous work, this study embraces that line of scholar-
ship and considers postmodernist thought too valuable to only be dis-
cussed either incomprehensibly or not at all—and further, too valuable
to split hairs over narrow, technical definitions of key terms like metan-
arrative and narrative. The latter can be thought of here for everyday
working purposes simply as stories told to explain or give meaning, and
the former as a greater story told to explain many others. And then,
it follows that we may also consider relatively lesser stories in terms of
mini-narratives, micro-narratives, etc.
The postmodernist theory maintains that we accept all sorts of
explanations—including sometimes the really grand ones, the metanar-
ratives—that ultimately can’t actually tell us what we want to know, espe-
cially when we seek to reach practical insights into the most slippery and
consequential mysteries of the human condition. So part of this chapter
is devoted to laying out the case for asserting that what is perhaps the
most vital element of mediated sport, sociologically, is inherent in the
way it provides us as individuals and as a society remarkably compelling
sources for expressing and consuming endless, ever-competing narratives
in our primal quest to engage in the making of meaning.
Recognizing Mediated Sport’s Social Construction

Rather than providing any sort of “scientific reason or philosophi-
cal logic,” or even “common sense and accessibility,” literary scholar
Simon Malpas observed, postmodernist theory as more often articulated
“seeks to grasp what escapes these processes of definition and celebrates
what resists or disrupts them.” Discourse on postmodernism is “often
associated with philosophical writings and social and political theo-

ries that are complex, dense, esoterically sophisticated and all too often
replete with jargon and incomprehensible prose, which intimidate even
the most sophisticated readers,” said Michael Drolet, who writes on the
history of political thought.
Yet a persuasive body of related scholarship advances the assumption
that within the concept of postmodernism, there is something more than
“academic irresponsibility and ivory-tower indifference” that rejects “all
wisdom of the past” by “playfully appeal[ing] to our subjectivities” but
making “no genuine judgment of what is better or worse,” as philoso-
pher Harvey Cormier put it. As utilized here to assert proposed under-
standings of complex phenomena, it can prove useful in advancing
understanding of mediated sport as a phenomenon that has been soci-
etally constructed, even though it has grown so ubiquitous that it may
feel as if it just is something that has been with us always, perhaps almost
naturally. Linda Hutcheon, a literary theorist who has written extensively
on postmodernism, characterized its “initial concern” as an effort “to de-
naturalize some of the dominant features of our way of life; to point out
that those entities that we unthinkingly experience as ‘natural’… are in
fact ‘cultural’; made by us, not given to us.”
In part, advancing that understanding is enhanced through a deep
skepticism of the explanatory power of metanarratives, what sociolo-
gist Frank Webster characterized as an “opposition to what we may call
the Enlightenment’s tradition of thought which searches to identify
the rationalities… which govern change and behavior.” Postmodernist
theory argues that such efforts to articulate linear, explanatory narra-
tives are “disintegrating, losing their validity and legitimacy and increas-
ingly prone to criticism,” and that it is becoming ever more “difficult for
people to organize and interpret their lives in light of meta-narratives of
whatever kind,” declared Dominic Strinati, also a sociologist. Within the
social sciences, modernism “is generally understood to identify a clus-
ter of changes – in science, industry and ways of thought” commonly
referred to as the Enlightenment that “brought about the end of feudal
and agricultural societies in Europe and which has made its influence felt
pretty well everywhere in the world”—while postmodernism “announces
a fracture with this,” Webster said.
Most centrally, the school of postmodernism does that by challeng-
ing what are variously referred to as metanarratives, grand narratives,
8 R.L. KERR
rationalities, or totalities, striving “to demonstrate the fractures and

silences that have always been a part of the grand narratives,” in Malpas’s
summary. It represents a perspective “axiomatic to postmodern thought”
that “all the accounts of the making of the modern world, whether
Marxist or Whig, radical or conservative, that claim to perceive the main-
springs of development… are to be resisted” because they “have been
discredited by the course of history.” Political philosopher Jean-Francois
Lyotard described such resistance as the “antimythologizing manner in
which we must ‘work through’ the loss of the modern.” Sociologist Jean
Baudrillard characterized postmodernism as “the immense process of the
destruction of meaning” and declared that “he who strikes with mean-
ing is killed by meaning.” In rejecting “the claim of any theory to abso-
lute knowledge,” postmodernism proposes instead “more contingent
and probabilistic claims to the truth” that articulate it in terms of a more
“diverse, iconoclastic, referential and collage-like character,” in Strinati’s
phrasing. Thus, literary critic Fredric Jameson offered in his influential
Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, that one way
to think of postmodernism quite arguably could be as “the narrative of
the end of narratives.”
When postmodernist theorists speak of the way modernist grand
narratives of earlier times have been shown to be flawed, they tend to
most generally refer to ideas such as Fascism, communism, capitalism,
Christianity, Marxism, and others that represent major, social-organizing
philosophies. All still have varying numbers of adherents, but all have
been shown to be objectively less reliable than once held to be as abso-
lute guides to truth. More broadly, the same line of reasoning is applied
to all sorts of theories, explanations, assertions, etc., that are shown to be
similarly unreliable—with postmodernist theory contending that much
or even all modernist/Enlightenment rationalities ultimately suffer such
a fate.
Therefore, for the purposes of this study, not only that which can for-
mally be called metanarratives can be thought of in this context but also
less expansive assertions that can be referenced simply as narratives. That
is, whenever any attempt to neatly explain the meaning of events, devel-
opments, or other subjects of societal interest proves fallible, it could—in
this context—be considered to further confirm essential postmodernist
tenets. As Webster summarized it, “Postmodern thought is characteristi-
cally suspicious of claims from whatever quarter, to be able to identify
‘truth’.”
The Hyper-mediated Narrative Marketplace

As introduced above, a veritable multitude of narrative advancement and
rejection can be seen so commonly today in the way that technological
developments have recently made it possible for virtually every individ-
ual on the planet who wishes—and mind-boggling numbers seemingly
hold that wish quite dearly indeed—to actively, aggressively participate
in what can be understood as a narrative marketplace hyper-mediated
through technological change. Mediated representations are so much
more profuse than ever before or even ever before imaginable. And it is a
highly contentious marketplace of narratives, one in which it often seems
that almost every comment is “characteristically suspicious” of the claims
of almost all others and is fiercely determined to advance its own version
of the truth.
Yet most of them must also be considered as failed narratives. For
most participants in such a narrative marketplace, quite simply, are wrong
most of the time—because actual developments in the sports world are
so completely random as to defy anyone’s ability to know most of the
time what will happen next, or even why past events really happened.
For example, given that only one team can win the championship in any
particular league, virtually each and every narrative concerning each and
every team, except one, in any given season that advances assertions of
success for any but that team is a narrative that failed. So too is any nar-
rative about the one team that did win the championship that advanced
assertions predicting anything except the championship. And even among
that small selection of narratives, one must consider that the narrators
almost always advanced other assertions contradictory in various ways of
the certainty of championship for the team in question—thereby in most
cases undermining to one degree or another the reliability of those few
narratives that theoretically could be argued as successful.
Still, relentlessly, the narrative blitz goes on—and on and on. Quite
simply, it almost never matters how off base or even absolutely wrong
any particular narrative is. This hyper-mediated narrative marketplace
never closes, so participants can effortlessly just move on to propagate
and interrogate ever more streams of narratives that quickly move far
beyond all the ones that failed as they recede more and more rapidly
into a mediated past that rarely matters to anyone. But that is consistent
with what literary critic Brian McHale has written of how postmodern-
ism is most concerned with raising a creative range of questions about
10 R.L. KERR
the nature of reality in any given world. That relevant consistency can be
identified in other key characteristics critical to understanding postmod-
ernist theory.
First, postmodernism “describes the emergence of a society in which
the mass media and popular culture are the most important and power-
ful institutions, and control and shape all other types of social relation-
ships,” as Strinati has emphasized. “Popular cultural signs and media
images increasingly dominate our sense of reality, and the way we define
ourselves and the world around us.” Second, as social theorist Geneviève
Rail focused upon in Sport and Postmodern Times, a collection of essays
she edited on the subject, crucial to postmodernist thought is “the idea
that the world is fragmented into many isolated worlds; it is a collage, a
pastiche of elements randomly grouped in a plurality of local, autono-
mous discourses that cannot be unified by any grand theory,” along with
a preoccupation with “the problem of meaning… as fundamentally slip-
pery and elusive.” Finally, the assertion that mediated sport may derive
its sociological significance more than anything else from serving as a
powerful source of narratives draws upon society’s great need for narra-
tives—in all sorts of matters, not just sport.
Functionally, narratives hardly exist only as stories, amusements, or
diversions. In plain language, narratives make things happen—because
human beings much more often than they realize act upon narratives
that explain what they believe to be transpiring—rather than only on
empirical knowledge of what may actually be happening. Peter Kramer,
a professor of clinical psychiatry, has written convincingly for example of
the role that narratives play in the practice of medicine. Ideally, he has
declared, doctors will “consider data, accompanying narrative, plausi-
bility and, yes, clinical anecdote in their decision making,” because “we
need storytelling, to set us in the clinical moment, remind us of the vari-
ety of human experience and enrich our judgment.” Or consider how
Robert Shiller, the Nobel Prize winning economist, has written of the
way narratives can move markets more dramatically than actual economic
developments—so much so that he states flatly: “Fundamentally, stock
markets are driven by popular narratives, which don’t need basis in solid
fact,” and “these narratives can affect people’s spending behavior, too, in
turn affecting corporate profit margins, and so on. Sometimes such feed-
back loops continue for years.”
So it is actually far from any wacky egghead notion to recognize
the way that commercial sport represents–more than anything else–a
compelling source of narratives that fulfill a deep sociological need.

Indeed, if we holistically consider the full social reality of a mediated
commercial sporting event, we can understand it to be nothing without
the narratives that sponsors, participants, media, fans, and others impose
upon it. For example, fans must embrace the notion that there is great
significance for them—an explanatory story of some sort—in deeply
bonding with one group of individual players wearing a particular uni-
form (rather than those wearing another), when in fact any player, in
theory, could potentially be wearing one uniform or another. How, for
example, would fans respond if the two teams in any given game decided
at halftime to swap uniforms? Would fans still maintain the same bond
with different players wearing “their” team’s uniforms? Or would the
supposedly deep union between the fans and “their” players wearing one
uniform endure when the players switched to the other team’s uniforms?
In essence, what actually happens in all games of football at even the
highest levels of play is no more than what happens when a bunch of kids
get together on a field, court, or street, choose up sides, and see which
can perform what is agreed upon to count as scores more often than
the other team can. To that end, the participants will run and jump and
throw and kick and swing and shove for some period of time—whatever
the particulars of the game at hand may encompass. And beyond that, all
meaning imposed upon those activities is narrative—an effort to develop
stories with explanatory power. It offers textbook examples of processes
that sociological scholars and others would call meaning-making, the
social construction of reality, or narrative creation.
And what happen at the most advanced, most commercialized lev-
els of the game is different only in degree, not really in essence, from
what happens in the most impromptu game at the most local neighbor-
hood level. Yes, at those highest levels, teams select the largest, fastest,
most talented players to practice and prepare with successful coaches in
advance of games against other teams who have selected the largest, fast-
est, most talented players to practice and prepare with other successful
coaches. Then, those teams meet on the same field and try to execute
what they have practiced and prepared to achieve. Certainly, on some
occasions, they do achieve those things—but just as often, indeed far
more often, the results are more random. The things that happen are not
at all what was planned so elaborately.
Regardless, the mediated narratives—and as noted, the possibilities
that term encompasses cast an unimaginably diverse swath today—never
12 R.L. KERR
cease. Before, during and after the games, such narratives seek to impose
meaning upon what will happen, what is happening, what has happened.
And the appetite for such narratives among consumers and producers of
every stripe seems to have no limit.
A Narrative Marketplace that Never Ends

Although print media have been instrumental in the development of
commercial sport since the nineteenth century, the hyper-mediation of
sports narratives increased with a staggering degree of magnitude when
electronic media began to enter the picture in the early and mid-twen-
tieth century, first with radio and much more so with television. Indeed,
with most sports today, the first time most people experienced any par-
ticular game was when television showed them one. Television alone
dramatically multiplied the number of people who take interest in sports
and expanded the role sports play in the lives of countless individuals and
families. For better or worse, that mushroomed the opportunities for
commercializing sports through media, synergizing explosively with that
escalation of interest and the development of more advanced television
technology.
But today, the teeming narrative pastiche generated through all of the
above comprises only a fraction of the hyper-mediated marketplace of
sports narratives. Today’s fans are conditioned to have access to multiple
games telecast at every level of competition, every day, year-round. But
even that now too exists as only a fraction of the picture in today’s media
cornucopia.
Take sports-talk radio alone. It has become an endless blitz of nar-
ratives spewed forth one after another just by the hosts of the shows—
never mind all the calls from listeners who light up the studio phones
and ignite the air waves. That is, for those who are participating via the
air waves, when so many more are doing so via Internet connections.
And even at that point, we still have touched on only a fraction of the
full, hyper-mediated picture because, yes, now try—just try—to consider
the mass of narrative generation and consumption made possible by a
digitally networked world. Whether there is a game of interest actually in
progress at any given moment has grown truly irrelevant in an age when
the vastly immeasurable flow of online highlights, previews, updates, and
discussion perpetually washes through the hyper-mediated marketplace
with narratives far beyond count.
In this raging maelstrom of exponentially ever more mediated sports

narratives spun out by infinitely more people than ever before, sports
organizations have dramatically expanded their participation in generat-
ing narratives to compete as aggressively as possible in the marketplace.
How Postmodernism Explains Football included, for example, analysis
of the way one of the most prominent college football programs in the
nation, the University of Oklahoma, has developed an in-house multi-
media operation that dwarfs the newsletter and press-release operations
of sports-information directors there and elsewhere of just a few decades
before, churning out an array of mediated football narratives for a vora-
cious market. Like almost anyone in the commercial-football business
today, the university regularly finds itself responding to counter-narra-
tives from the dark side of the game, such as violence and other off-the-
field criminal activity involving players. So it remains vital public relations
to push the Merriwell model as vigorously as ever and to continue push-
ing back against excesses of the Billy Clyde tide.
Coaches involved in commercial sports today frequently find them-
selves devoting as much if not more of their time and effort to all sorts
of media activity as to actual coaching. Quite simply, they are in the nar-
rative-advancing game every bit as much as they are in whatever athletic
games they are hired to manage. How Postmodernism Explains Football
highlighted that with revelatory analysis of the way then Oklahoma
Football Coach Bob Stoops had become so skilled at using his weekly
in-season press conferences to take on all the questions of a roomful of
sports reporters with narrative agendas of their own but vigorously reg-
ularly reframing them on his own terms, advancing his own narratives
and rejecting theirs. The way he pulled off that feat so consistently and
impressively indeed suggests—in the terms of this analysis—his method
can be understood as something of a postmodernist-grounded model for
coaches in the hyper-mediated age; whatever the reasoning or method
through which he may have arrived at it. In an age of such unimaginable
narrative profusion, it can hardly be surprising that a perceptive football
coach would come to grasp how vital it is to his and his program’s inter-
est to staunchly advance narratives that he finds more valid interpreta-
tions of relevant football realities. Clearly, the evidence does suggest
Stoops and other elite coaches are quite skilled at rejecting and counter-
ing narratives that fail to meet that standard.
Certainly, coaches at high-profile programs like Oklahoma’s are always
at risk of having competing narratives undermine their success, given
14 R.L. KERR
the discussion above on how human behavior can be shaped as much or

more by the power of narratives as by more objective realities. For exam-
ple, analysis in How Postmodernism Explains Football highlighted the syn-
drome through which participants in sporting contests who achieve less
success than popularly forecast—as all inevitably must, eventually—then
find that popular sports media virtually always represent it as a failure
on the part of the participants—rather than a failure of media to con-
struct more reliable narratives. But that is simply one fact of life in the
hyper-mediated marketplace of narratives in which big-time coaches in
commercial sports operate today. They must attempt not only to win
as many games as possible but also to advance the narratives they see as
most valid. Sports media, by contrast, have a relatively easier job of only
advancing narratives, with no requirement to also win games.
The Hyper-mediated Sociology of Sports-Talk Radio

The rest of this book provides more detailed, macro-level descriptive anal-
ysis of one of the most—arguably the most—vigorous and dynamically
generative venues for contesting sports narratives in all of today’s hyper-
mediated marketplace. This study will focus upon sociological analysis of
sports-talk radio as a mediated place where millions of participants gather to
actively interact–often with a shocking level of passion and indeed aggres-
sion–in a deliberative effort to socially make meaning of the games of sport
as played today and consumed most often through an endless array of media.
Although the first sports-talk-radio station was not launched until the
mid-1960s, more than a thousand stations in the United States today
focus on sports talk, with around two-thirds of those broadcasting noth-
ing but sports talk. While radio is often thought of as a pre-digital, early
twentieth-century medium, sports-talk radio has particularly flourished in
the twenty-first century, with approximately half of the current stations
operating in that format having been launched since 2000.
Sports-talk radio also has adapted remarkably well to the Internet age,
with virtually all stations now being available online as well as via tradi-
tional broadcast. And sports-talk-radio hosts and their listeners operate
interactively and almost seamlessly in today’s web of digital social media
as quite possibly the most prominent and extensively synergized compo-
nent of the hyper-mediated marketplace of sports narratives.
Methodologically, qualitative framing analysis will be employed
to structure this study’s analysis of the ways that media producers and
consumers construct representations of reality via this robustly interac-

tive world of sports-talk radio. The analysis will be focused selectively on
some of the most prominent sports-talk-radio shows from important but
different levels of markets in the United States , presenting in a relatively
lively scholarly format that seeks to illuminate understandings of a truly
phenomenal segment of American social life today. This study focused
on shows that aired over the course of the time frame of the 2016 col-
lege football season—which tends to be the most active time of the year
for sports-talk-radio shows generally—from late August of that year into
early 2017.
Selected sports-talk-radio shows that are focused upon in this study
were chosen for their prominence in their markets, to provide a degree
of variation and multiple perspectives from different types of audiences.
As noted, sports-talk radio today is a huge field, and there are many
other shows that could have been focused on if this were intended to be
a comprehensive survey of that field. It is not. The methodological focus
is on close and qualitatively descriptive analysis. So the shows chosen are
undeniably prominent in the field but are not intended to reflect a rank-
ing of that field’s “bests.”
The analysis was concentrated on considering the way mediated rep-
resentations of sport and its social significance are advanced and utilize
narrative elements in a manner that contributes to recurring themes and
dominant frames. Such analysis seeks to identify what political-commu-
nication scholar Robert Entman has described as “the specific properties
of the… narrative that encourage those perceiving and thinking about
events to develop particular understandings of them… and convey the-
matically consonant meanings across media and time.” This approach on
balance serves to “render one basic interpretation more readily discern-
ible, comprehensible, and memorable than others,” as he has character-
ized it.
Most centrally, this approach to framing analysis utilizes sociologist
David Altheide’s “document analysis” process to connect the media rep-
resentations that are the focus of the study to broader ideas in discourse
and ideology. Altheide’s approach defines the conceptual relationship of
discourse, themes, and frames in this manner: “The actual words and
direct messages of documents carry the discourse that reflects certain
themes, which in turn are held together and given meaning by a broad
frame…. Frames are a kind of ‘super theme’.” It is a method that relies
less on counting than on qualitative identification of prominent themes
16 R.L. KERR
through a multi-step process. As a methodological approach, it is not

without bias, but it does provide a systematic framework to guide the
critical evaluation of relevant media discourse.
As sociologists William Gamson and Andre Modigliani have discussed
it, “Media discourse is part of the process by which individuals construct
meaning.” Approaching the analysis of mediated sport in the manner of
this study places it in the context of considering how media texts—such
as those represented by the discourse of sports-talk radio—potentially
represent symbolic meaning relevant to both communicators and receiv-
ers. Both influence and are influenced by the times and culture in which
they live and thus provide enduring insights into their social significance.
Sources
David L. Altheide, Qualitative Media Analysis (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage,
1996).
David Rowe, Sport, Culture, and the Media: The Unruly Trinity, 2nd ed.
(Berkshire, England: Open University Press, 2004).
David Nylund, Beer, Babes, and Balls: Masculinity and Sports Talk Radio (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 2007).
Dominic Strinati, An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, 2nd ed. (New
York: Routledge, 2004).
Entman, Robert M., “Framing U.S. Coverage of International News.” Journal of
Communication 41.4 (1991): 6–27.
Entman, Robert M., “Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm.”
Journal of Communication 43.4 (1993): 51–58.
Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
(Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1991), xii.
Frank Webster, Theories of the Information Society, 3d ed. (New York: Routledge,
2006).
Gamson, W. A., & Modigliani, A. (1989). Media Discourse and Public Opinion
on Nuclear Power: A Constructionist Approach. American Journal of
Sociology, 95(1), 1–37.
Geneviève Rail, Sport and Postmodern Times (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1998).
Jean Baudrillard, “On Nihilism.” in: Sheila Faria Glaser (Translator) On the
Beach, Vol. 6, Spring 1984, pp. 38–39.
Jean-Francois Lyotard, Universal History and Cultural Differences, in The
Lyotard Reader, Andrew Benjamin, ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell,
1989).
Kyle Fredrickson, “OSU Football Journal: Four Players Request NFL Draft
Evaluations,” The Oklahoman, 15 December 2016, accessed 22 May 2017 at:
http://newsok.com/article/5531089.
Lawrence A. Wenner, ed., Media, Sports, and Society (London: Sage, 1989).
Lawrence A. Wenner, ed., MediaSports (London: Routledge, 1998).
Linda Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge,
2002).
Michael Drolet, ed., The Postmodernist Reader: Foundational Texts (New York:
Routledge, 2003).
Robert L. Kerr, How Postmodernism Explains Football, and Football Explains
Postmodernism: The Billy Clyde Conundrum (Palgrave Macmillan: New York,
N.Y., 2015).
Simon Malpas, The Postmodern: The New Critical Idiom (New York: Routledge,
2005).
Wilbert Marcellus Leonard II, A Sociological Perspective of Sport, 3rd ed. (New
York: Macmillan, 1988).
CHAPTER 2
The Smooth Talk of National Sports Radio
Abstract This chapter focuses on a prominent sports talk-radio show

with a large national market, The Dan Patrick Show. The narratives con-
tested on it over time tend to suggest themes that resonate with such a
broad listenership. Those narratives reflect a dominant tone of inclusive-
ness and generally restrained conflict of views, which can be read as con-
tributing to a metanarrative most compatible with a truly national and
relatively diverse audience.
Keywords Sports-talk radio · Sociology · Narrative analysis
When it comes to sports talk-radio shows with large national m arkets, The
Dan Patrick Show provides an example of one of the most prominent.
Its syndication on almost 300 stations across the nation and simulcast-
ing on the Fox Sports Radio Network and DIRECTV are all testament
to its major institutional status in the field and indeed the sports world
more broadly. The Dan Patrick Show consistently reaches and maintains
one of the largest national audiences in sports-talk radio, and the narra-
tives contested on it over time will tend to reflect themes that resonate
with such a broad listenership. That reflects what TDPS contributes to
the vast media cosmos, or what sociologist David Rowe characterized as
“the media sports cultural complex.”
In terms of this study’s concept of the hyper-mediated marketplace of
sports narratives, TDPS represents one of the more prolific participants
© The Author(s) 2018 19

R.L. Kerr, The Sociology of Sports-Talk Radio,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67253-3_2
20 R.L. KERR
in the unprecedented multitude of narrative advancement and rejec-

tion that so very recently has been established as the perpetual reality of
media as we know it, multiplied exponentially through watershed tech-
nological and sociological transformation.
The show’s Website describes Dan Patrick as the “legendary multi-
platform sports host” who “features the most extensive A-list interviews
from the world of sports.” Patrick became a household name in that
world as co-host of ESPN’s Sports Center with Keith Olbermann from
1989 to 2006, still considered by many the best host pairing in the his-
tory of that groundbreaking cable-television show. He has hosted this
version of his radio show since 2007 (an earlier version ran on ESPN
Radio 1999–2007), also hosts NBC Television’s showcase Football Night
in America just before each week’s Sunday Night Football matchup,
writes for Sports Illustrated, and has appeared in some seventeen mov-
ies such as The Longest Yard and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
and music videos with the likes of alternative rockers Hootie and the
Blowfish and country singer Brad Paisley. Talkers magazine ranked him
Number Five on its 2017 “Sports Talk Heavy Hundred,” in which it
annually lists its determination of the one hundred most important
sports-talk-radio hosts.
The Dan Patrick Show can also be heard on venues such as Sirius satel-
lite radio and PodcastOne podcasts. The show airs from a studio often
referenced as “the man cave” and featuring decor that includes sports
memorabilia, a basketball hoop, a pinball machine, and a bar with three
kegs. Patrick has a regular supporting cast of other commentators who
are known on the show as The Danettes.
Qualities of a Very High-Profile National Show

A typical show begins with an announcer who tells the audience, “Here
he is, joined by the Four Danettes, Dan Patrick.” Usually Patrick starts
off with various commentaries: Perhaps his view on how Cleveland quar-
terback Robert Griffin III needed to show “how smart he is more than
how tough he is” and slide to avoid hard tackles like the one that had
just left him unable to play for eight to ten weeks. Or which college
teams face “must win” games on the upcoming weekend. Complaining
about the Chicago Cubs clinching first place in their division in a game
played at an opponent’s stadium instead of in front of their home fans.
Castigating the Houston Texans for losing in a shutout in an NFL game
2 THE SMOOTH TALK OF NATIONAL SPORTS RADIO 21
Patrick and most other observers expected them to win. Retelling on a

show airing just after the weekend death of professional golfer Arnold
Palmer how Patrick once walked with Palmer and fellow great Jack
Nicklaus at the Master’s as they finished their round—“Still one of my
all-time favorite moments.” How younger fans like the antics of flamboy-
ant New York Giants receiver Odell Beckham—such as taunting and tus-
sling with other players and parading around on the field with his shirt
off—but older fans are offended by it. How he finds it difficult to explain
to his children why Cialis commercials (which air frequently during tel-
evised sports programing) feature couples sitting in adjacent bathtubs.
Significant portions of TDPS are always devoted to Patrick’s inter-
views with all sorts of sports and sports-related figures, such as: Star
ESPN college football commentator Kirk Herbstreit. Comedian and
impressionist Frank Caliendo, who often does impressions of sports
figures such as former NFL coach and commentator John Madden
and regularly appeared in sports-related sketches for several years on
Fox Television’s NFL Sunday (and who tells Patrick the key to popu-
lar impressions is less sounding exactly like the actual person than mak-
ing some feature of their personality connect with audiences—such as
the facial expression of someone who just ate a lemon as central to his
impressions of the boisterous, intense, idiosyncratic Madden). Three-
time triple-Olympic-gold-medalist and multiple-world-record holding
sprinter Usain Bolt (who responds to Patrick’s question about how big a
head start Usain could give him and still win a 100-yard dash by estimat-
ing at least forty yards). Keith Jackson, perhaps the best known broad-
caster in the history of college football (who tells Patrick he decided to
retire in 2006 after “it became more and more difficult trying to assume
that someone was right or wrong, and it became more difficult to chase
it down and get a declaration that you could believe in. I got tired of
doing that, and I figured I wasn’t qualified to be what I was trying to
be, so I quit. Fifty-six years is long enough.” And: “The game of football
involves every emotion that is possible to a human being. In sixty min-
utes, I think you can probably be touched by any emotion you can think
of, short of childbirth, and I think they’re working on that.” Continuing
with that line of insight, Jackson declared: “To this day, you can tell on
the playground which one of the little fellas has squared his shoulders
and bowed his neck and will go to express himself over the opponent.
And that’s life. It’s competitive. It has all of the competitive elements of
making a living and raising a family, and you know, all that.”).
22 R.L. KERR
The show has such a high profile nationally that interviews with
governors and former governors are not unusual. In an interview with
Ohio Governor John Kasich, he tells Patrick how worried he is about
Major League Baseball because there is no revenue sharing as is com-
mon in other professional leagues, meaning the richest teams in the larg-
est markets tend to dominate excessively. “I think baseball is going to
die. I think in the NBA and NFL they have figured out a way if you’re
not a giant you can still be competitive.” He says, noting that he has
analysis of comparing the teams with the largest player-salary payrolls to
those with the smallest that shows clearly how the teams that are able
to pay their rosters of players the most are consistently the teams that
win most often. Ohio has two of those relatively smaller market teams
in Cincinnati and Cleveland. “I’m worried with America’s pastime it’s
going to fade away because the smaller markets don’t have anyone to
root for. This is not good for us. Baseball is great. I’m afraid it’s going
to dwindle,” he says, observing that when the smaller-market teams (like
the Kansas City Royals’ recent World Series champions) get good play-
ers, they leave as soon as they can get more money with a larger market
team.
In an interview with former Mississippi governor and then Secretary
of the US Navy Ray Mabus (before the annual game between the Army
and Navy military academies), there is considerable focus on that long-
running rivalry, about how the athletes involved face a choice top play-
ers at other colleges don’t—“After their second year, everyone at Naval
Academy has to decide [whether to continue their military commit-
ment], and if they sign up for two more years, they are signing up for
five more [including their active service after graduation].” But somehow
they also get into a discussion, at the instigation of Patrick, as to how
many names Mabus has in his Rolodex. “I was governor of Mississippi
so I have a lot of names in my phone – probably eight or ten thousand,”
Mabus replies.
“Who would I be surprised at?” Patrick asks. “Archie Manning?”
(Manning was an All-American at the University of Mississippi, had a
long NFL career, and is the father of two Super Bowl winning quarter-
backs, Peyton Manning with the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos,
and Eli Manning twice with the New York Giants.)
“Yes,” Mabus says, seeming to astonish Patrick. “But we were at Ole
Miss together,” Mabus adds casually.
“Well, who would surprise me?” Patrick presses.
2 THE SMOOTH TALK OF NATIONAL SPORTS RADIO 23
After a slight pause, Mabus says, “Brooklyn Decker [the actress and
former Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover model].”
“Really?” asks an even more astonished Patrick.
“Well, we were in the movie Battleship together.” (Decker played a
Navy physical therapist who helps defeat aliens who attack Earth. Mabus
played the commanding officer of an aircraft carrier involved in the bat-
tle.) Mabus goes on to discuss with Patrick how he has encouraged film-
makers to develop movies that raise the profile of the US Navy.
Neither of those interviews got deeply political, but others occa-
sionally do, such as a November discussion between Patrick and Mike
Freeman, lead professional-football sports writer for Bleacher Report
(whose Website describes it as “the leading digital destination for team-
specific sports content and real-time event coverage”). Their focus was
on a recent article by Freeman in which he reported on NFL locker
rooms that had grown divided between players who voted for Donald
J. Trump for president and those who didn’t. When they start talking,
Patrick says he was aware of how sports locker rooms could often be
divided by women or money, but not by politics. “Locker rooms are just
like the rest of America,” Freeman tells him. “This election has been dif-
ferent, as you know, as everyone knows. It’s a whole different ball game.
And politics has always been a part of every locker room I have covered,
but it’s in sort of a minor way. This has moved to the forefront.” He
says he isn’t contending that has happened in every NFL locker room
but “I think it’s a pretty good representation. There’s a lot of heated
discussions, or in some cases, no discussions, which is almost the same
thing. And people and players just feel very strongly.” He emphasizes,
“When I talk about division, I don’t mean someone is not going to
block for someone,” and “It’s not going to cause fist fights and people
aren’t going to be throwing chairs at each other,” however “when you
look at how black people in general view Trump, it’s not very favorable.
But many white people view Trump favorably, and those things clash, the
same way they clash outside of locker rooms.”
Most of the time on TDPS, the tone is kept much lighter. When
Patrick interviews University of Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield,
much of the conversation focuses on the way Mayfield often dances
to celebrate, and he says he has more moves he hasn’t yet shown.
When Patrick asks if Mayfield despises rival opponent Oklahoma State
University, Mayfield says he doesn’t hate them, but “I don’t like’em,
that’s for sure.” Patrick asks then, “What would happen if you wore
24 R.L. KERR
your jersey and walked in downtown Stillwater?” Mayfield replies, “I

don’t think very many good things could happen if I did that.” After
that interview, Patrick says that Mayfield is the “new crush” of Danette
“Paulie” (Paul Pabst, who in addition to participating in the show’s on-
air banter also serves as executive producer). “Paulie falls in love with
a new quarterback usually about once a year. Like you sometimes have
multiple quarterback boyfriends,” Patrick jests. “They don’t all work
out,” Pabst says. “You never know.”
Time is devoted regularly to Patrick and the Danettes debating and
joking about topics such as those above and others, often subjects that
callers for the day are encouraged to comment upon as well. A good deal
of each show is also devoted to commercials. In testament to the market
reach of TDPS, it always features a cavalcade of spots for major advertis-
ers such as American Express, Lowe’s, Geico, Sony, Subaru, Macy’s, J.C.
Penney, NAPA Auto Parts, AutoZone, O’Reilly Auto Parts, Advanced
Auto Parts, Quicken Loans, Buffalo Wild Wings, LifeLock, Draft Kings,
Great Clips, Sleep Number, and Dollar Shave Club. Frequently, Patrick
does the pitches himself. For Omaha Steaks: “Are you looking for the
perfect gift this holiday season? Wanting to avoid the long lines at the
mall? How about Omaha Steaks? For only forty-nine ninety-nine you
can get my family gift pack when you to to OmahaSteaks.com, enter my
promo code DANP in the search bar and get seventy-seven percent off.”
For Dodge Ram pickup trucks: “Ram 1500 is what I drive, check the
full lineup at ramtrucks.com. Remember, it’s guts, it’s glory, it’s Ram.”
For Rocket Mortgage: “It brings the mortgage process into the twenti-
eth century. You can share your files with the touch of a button. A quick
online process you can manage from the comfort of your couch.” For
LegalZoom: “Don’t let things like legal matters become a distraction.
Use LegalZoom instead. You never have to worry about an attorney’s
billable hours piling up and costing you a fortune. You can have the
peace of mind of working with an independent network of independ-
ent attorneys, all at a reasonable flat rate. Need to make it legal? Make
it LegalZoom.” And even with so much time devoted to all the sorts
of activities highlighted above, TDPS still regularly includes call-in seg-
ments in which listeners can offer their own comments. A promotional
spot on the show pays tribute to the vital role of the audience, declar-
ing (with profuse related sound effects): “Two simple words that go a
long way—thank you. We want to thank you for putting up with our
yelling, our stuttering, our egos. But most of all we want to thank you
Another random document with
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East. At Pao-Ting Fu, where women were said to have suffered
indescribable brutalities before being slain, investigation by
an American military officer convinced him that "there is no
evidence of any peculiar atrocities committed upon the persons
of those who were slain"; and the American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions has publicly announced:
"While forced to believe that our missionaries in Shan Si and
at Pao Ting Fu were put to death by the Chinese, we have never
credited the published reports concerning atrocities connected
with their slaughter."
CHINA: A. D. 1901 (March).

Withdrawal of American troops, excepting a Legation guard.
The following order was sent by cable from the War Department
at Washington to General Chaffee, commanding the United States
forces in China, on the 15th of March: "In reply to your
telegram Secretary of War directs you complete arrangements
sail for Manila with your command and staff officers by end
April, leaving as legation guard infantry company composed of
150 men having at least one year to serve or those intending
re-enlist, with full complement of officers, medical officer,
sufficient hospital corps men and, if you think best, field
officer especially qualified to command guard. Retain and
instruct officer quartermaster's department proceed to erect
necessary buildings for guard according to plan and estimates
you approve."
CHINA: A. D. 1901 (March-April).

Discussion of the question of indemnity.
Uneasiness concerning rumored secret negotiations of
Russia with the Chinese government relative to Manchuria.
As we write this (early in April), the reckoning of

indemnities to be demanded by the several Powers of the
Concert in China is still under discussion between the
Ministers at Peking, and is found to be very difficult of
settlement. There is understood to be wide differences of
disposition among the governments represented in the
discussion, some being accused of a greed that would endeavor
to wring from the Chinese government far more than the country
can possibly pay; while others are laboring to reduce the
total of exactions within a more reasonable limit. At the
latest accounts from Peking, a special committee of the
Ministers was said to be engaged in a searching investigation
of the resources of China, in order to ascertain what sum the
Empire has ability to pay, and in what manner the payment can
best be secured and best made. It seems to be hoped that when
those facts are made clear there may be possibilities of an
agreement as to the division of the total sum between the
nations whose legations were attacked, whose citizens were
slain, and who sent troops to crush the Boxer rising.
Meantime grave anxieties are being caused by rumors of a

secret treaty concerning Manchuria which Russia is said to be
attempting to extort from the Chinese government [see, in this
volume, MANCHURIA], the whispered terms of which would give
her, in that vast region, a degree of control never likely to
become less. The most positive remonstrance yet known to have
been made, against any concession of that nature, was
addressed, on the 1st of March, by the government of the
United States, to its representatives at St. Petersburg,
Berlin, London, Paris, Vienna, Rome, and Tokio, as follows:
"The following memorandum, which was handed to the Chinese

Minister on February 19, is transmitted to you for your
information and communication to the government to which you
are accredited: "The preservation of the territorial integrity
of China having been recognized by all the powers now engaged in
joint negotiation concerning the injuries recently inflicted
upon their ministers and nationals by certain officials and
subjects of the Chinese Empire, it is evidently advantageous
to China to continue the present international understanding
upon this subject. It would be, therefore, unwise and
dangerous in the extreme for China to make any arrangement or
to consider any proposition of a private nature involving the
surrender of territory or financial obligations by convention
with any particular power; and the government of the United
States, aiming solely at the preservation of China from the
danger indicated and the conservation of the largest and most
beneficial relations between the empire and other countries,
in accordance with the principles set forth in its circular
note of July 3, 1900, and in a purely friendly spirit toward
the Chinese Empire and all the powers now interested in the
negotiations, desires to express its sense of the impropriety,
inexpediency and even extreme danger to the interests of China
of considering any private territorial or financial
arrangements, at least without the full knowledge and approval
of all the powers now engaged in negotiation.
HAY."
----------CHINA: End--------
CHINESE TAXES.
See (in this volume)

LIKIN.
CHING, Prince:
Chinese Plenipotentiary to negotiate with the allied Powers.

CHINA: A. D. 1900 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).
CHITRAL: A. D. 1895.
The defense and relief of.

INDIA: A. D. 1895 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).
CHITRAL:A. D. 1901.
Included in a new British Indian province.

INDIA: A. D. 1901 (FEBRUARY).
CHOCTAWS, United States agreements with the.

INDIANS, AMERICAN: A. D. 1893-1899.
CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR, The Young People's Society of.
The nineteenth annual international convention of Young

People's Societies of Christian Endeavor was held in the
Alexandra Palace, London, England, from the 13th to the 20th
of July, 1900, delegates being present from most countries of
the world. Reports presented to the convention showed a total
membership of about 3,500,000, in 59,712 societies, 43,262 of
which were in the United States, 4,000 in Canada, some 7,000
in Great Britain, 4,000 in Australia, and smaller numbers in
Germany, India, China, Japan, Mexico, and elsewhere.
{145}
The first society, which supplied the germ of organization for

all succeeding ones, was formed in the Williston
Congregational Church of Portland, Maine, on the 2d of
February, 1881, by the Reverend Francis E. Clark, the pastor
of the church. The object, as indicated by the name of the
society, was to organize the religious energies of the young
people of the church for Christian life and work. The idea was
caught and imitated in other churches—Congregational,
Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and others—very rapidly,
and the organization soon became, not only widely national,
but international. In 1898, it was reported that Russia then
remained the only country in the world without a Christian
Endeavor Society, and the total was 54,191. In the next year's
report Russia was announced to have entered the list of
countries represented, and the number of societies had
advanced to 55,813. In 1900, the numbers had risen to the
height stated above. The Epworth League is a kindred
organization of young people in the Methodist Church.

EPWORTH LEAGUE.
CHRISTIANS AND MOSLEMS:

Conflicts in Armenia.

TURKEY: A. D. 1895.
CONFLICTS IN CRETE.

TURKEY: A. D. 1897 (FEBRUARY-MARCH).
CHUNGKING.
"Chungking, which lies nearly 2,000 miles inland, is, despite

its interior position, one of the most important of the more
recently opened ports of China. Located at practically the
head of navigation on the Yangtze, it is the chief city of the
largest, most populous, and perhaps the most productive
province of China, whose relative position, industries,
population, and diversified products make it quite similar to
the great productive valley of the upper Mississippi. The
province of Szechuan is the largest province of China, having
an area of 166,800 square miles, and a population of
67,000,000, or but little less than that of the entire United
States. Its area and density of population may be more readily
recognized in the fact that its size is about the same as that
of the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky combined,
but that its population is six times as great as that of those
States. Its productions include wheat, tobacco, buckwheat,
hemp, maize, millet, barley, sugar cane, cotton, and silk."
United States, Bureau of Statistics,

Monthly Summary, March, 1899, page 2196.
CHURCH OF ENGLAND: A. D. 1896.

Papal declaration of the invalidity of its ordinations.

PAPACY: A. D. 1896 (SEPTEMBER).
CIVIL CODE: Introduction in Germany.

GERMANY: A. D. 1900 (JANUARY).
-------CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM IN THE UNITED STATES: Start-----
CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM IN THE UNITED STATES: A. D. 1893-1896.

Extensions of the Civil-Service rules by President Cleveland.
"Through the extensions of the Federal classification during

President Cleveland's second administration, the number of
positions covered by the civil-service rules was increased
two-fold. On March 3, 1893, the number classified was 42,928.
By a series of executive orders ranging from March 20, 1894,
to June 25. 1895, 10,000 places were added to the list,
bringing the total, approximately, to 53,000. Meanwhile, the
Civil Service Commission had recommended to the President a
general revision that would correct the imperfections of the
original rules and extend their scope to the full degree
contemplated by the Pendleton Act. After much correspondence
and consultation with department officers, and careful work on
the part of the Commission, the rules of May 6 [1896] were
promulgated. They added to the classification about 29,000
more places, and by transferring to the control of the
Commission the system of Navy Yard employment, established by
Secretary Tracy, brought the total number in the classified
service to 87,117. The positions in the Executive branch
unaffected by these orders included those classes expressly
excluded by the statute—persons nominated for confirmation by
the Senate and those employed 'merely as laborers or
workmen'—together with the fourth-class postmasters, clerks in
post-offices other than free delivery offices and in Customs
districts having less than five employees, persons receiving
less than $300 annual compensation, and about 1,000
miscellaneous positions of minor character, not classified for
reasons having to do with the good of the service—91,600 in
all. Within the classified service, the list of positions
excepted from competitive examination was confined to the
private secretaries and clerks of the President and Cabinet
officers, cashiers in the Customs Service, the Internal
Revenue Service and the principal post-offices, attorneys who
prepare cases for trial, principal Customs deputies and all
assistant postmasters—781 in all. The new rules provided for a
general system of promotion, based on competitive examinations
and efficiency records, and gave the Commission somewhat
larger powers in the matter of removals by providing that no
officer or employee in the classified service, of whatever
station, should be removed for political or religious reasons,
and that in all cases like penalties should be imposed for like
offenses. They created an admirable system, a system founded
on the most sensible rules of business administration, and
likely to work badly only where the Commission might encounter
the opposition of hostile appointing officers. President
Cleveland's revised rules were promulgated before the
Convention of either political party had been held, and before
the results of the election could be foreshadowed. The
extensions were practically approved, however, by the
Republican platform, which was adopted with full knowledge of
the nature of the changes, and which declared that the law
should be 'thoroughly and honestly enforced and extended
wherever practicable.' … Mr. McKinley, in his letter of
acceptance and in his inaugural address, repeated the pledge
of the Republican party to uphold the law, and during the two
months of his administration now past he has consistently done
so. He has been beset by many thousands of place-seekers, by
Senators and Representatives and by members of his own
Cabinet, all urging that he undo the work of his predecessor,
either wholly or in part, and so break his word of honor to
the nation, in order that they may profit. … At least five
bills have been introduced in Congress, providing for the
repeal of the law. … Finally, the Senate has authorized an
investigation, by the Committee on Civil Service and
Retrenchment, with the view of ascertaining whether the law
should be 'continued, amended or repealed,' and sessions of
this Committee are now in progress. … Mr. McKinley, by
maintaining the system against these organized attacks, will
do as great a thing as Mr. Cleveland did in upbuilding it."
Report of the Executive Committee of the New York

Civil Service Reform Association, 1897.
{146}
In his annual Message to Congress, December, 1896, President

Cleveland remarked on the subject:
"There are now in the competitive classified service upward of

eighty-four thousand places. More than half of these have been
included from time to time since March 4, 1893. … If
fourth-class postmasterships are not included in the
statement, it may be said that practically all positions
contemplated by the civil-service law are now classified.
Abundant reasons exist for including these postmasterships,
based upon economy, improved service, and the peace and quiet
of neighborhoods. If, however, obstacles prevent such action
at present, I earnestly hope that Congress will, without
increasing post-office appropriations, so adjust them as to
permit in proper cases a consolidation of these post-offices,
to the end that through this process the result desired may to
a limited extent be accomplished. The civil-service rules as
amended during the last year provide for a sensible and
uniform method of promotion, basing eligibility to better
positions upon demonstrated efficiency and faithfulness."
United States, Message and Documents (Abridgment),

1896-1897, page 33.
CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM IN THE UNITED STATES: A. D. 1894.

Constitutional provision in New York.

CONSTITUTION OF NEW YORK.
CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM IN THE UNITED STATES: A. D. 1897-1898.

Onslaught of the spoils-men at Washington.
Failure of the Congressional attack.
"During the four months following the inauguration [of

President McKinley] the onslaught of place-seekers was almost
unprecedented. Ninety-nine out of every hundred of them
discovered that the office or position he desired was
classified and subject to competitive examination. The tenure
of the incumbent in each case was virtually at the pleasure of
the department officers; removals might easily be made; but
appointments to the places made vacant could be made only from
the eligible lists, and the lists were fairly well filled. It
is true that the rules permitted the reinstatement without
examination of persons who had been separated from the service
without personal fault within one year, or of veterans who had
been in the service at any time, and that some removals were made
to make room for these. But the appointments in such cases
went but a very little way toward meeting the demand. The
result was that almost the whole pressure of the
office-hunting forces and of their members of Congress was
directed for the while toward one end—the revocation or
material modification of the civil service rules. President
McKinley was asked to break his personal pledges, as well as
those of his party, and to take from the classified service
more than one half of the 87,000 offices and positions it
contained. … But the President yielded substantially nothing.
… The attack of the spoils-seekers was turned at once from the
President to Congress. It was declared loudly that the desired
modifications would be secured through legislation, and that
it might even be difficult to restrain the majority from
voting an absolute repeal. In the House the new movement was
led by General Grosvenor of Ohio; in the Senate by Dr.
Gallinger of New Hampshire. … The first debates of the session
dealt with civil service reform. The House devoted two weeks to
the subject in connection with the consideration of the annual
appropriation for the Civil Service Commission. … The effort
to defeat the appropriation ended in the usual failure. It was
explained, however, that all of this had been mere preparation
for the proposed legislation. A committee was appointed by the
Republican opponents, under the lead of General Grosvenor, to
prepare a bill. The bill appeared on January 6, when it was
introduced by Mr. Evans of Kentucky, and referred to the
Committee on Reform in the Civil Service. It limited the
application of the civil service law to clerical employees at
Washington, letter carriers and mail clerks, and employees in
principal Post Offices and Customs Houses, proposing thus to
take from the present classified service about 55,000
positions. A series of hearings was arranged by the Civil
Service Committee, at which representatives of this and other
Associations, and of the Civil Service Commission, were
present. A sub-committee of seven, composing a majority of the
full committee, shortly afterward voted unanimously to report
the bill adversely. About the same time, the Senate Civil
Service Committee, which had been investigating the operation
of the law since early summer, presented its report. Of the
eight members, three recommended a limited number of
exceptions, amounting in all to probably 11,000; three
recommended a greatly reduced list of exceptions, and two
proposed none whatever. All agreed that the President alone
had authority to act, and that no legislation was needed. …
The collapse of the movement in Congress has turned the
attention of the spoilsmen again toward the President. He is
asked once more to make sweeping exceptions."
Report of the Executive Committee of the

New York Civil Service Reform Association, 1898.
CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM IN THE UNITED STATES:A. D. 1897-1899.

Temporary check in New York.
Governor Black's law.
Restoration of the merit system under Governor Roosevelt.
"In June [1897]—after the Court of Appeals … had declared that

the constitutional amendment was self-executing, and that
appointments made without competitive examination, where
competitive examinations were practicable, must be held to be
illegal—steps were taken to secure a reduction of the exempt
and non-competitive positions in the State Service. A letter
was addressed to Governor Morton, by the officers of the
Association, on June 8, asking that the service be
reclassified, on a basis competitive as far as practicable.
The Governor replied that he had already given the subject
some thought, and that he would be glad to give our
suggestions careful consideration. On the 4th of August he
instructed the Civil Service Commission to prepare such a
revision of the rules and classification as had been proposed.
On the 11th of November this revision, prepared by
Commissioner Burt, was adopted by the full Commission, and on
the 9th of December the new rules were formally promulgated by
the Governor and placed in immediate operation. … The
Governor, earlier in the year, had reversed his action in the
case of inspectors and other employees of the new Excise
Department, by transferring them from the non-competitive to
the competitive class. … This marked the beginning of a
vigorous movement against the competitive system led by
chairmen of district committees, and other machine
functionaries.
{147}
Governor Morton's sweeping order of December completed the
discomfiture of these people and strengthened their purpose to
make a final desperate effort to break the system down. The
new Governor, of whom little had been known prior to his
unexpected nomination in September, proved to be in full
sympathy with their plan. In his message to the legislature,
Mr. Black, in a paragraph devoted to 'Civil Service,' referred
to the system built up by his predecessor in contemptuous
language, and declared that, in his judgment, 'Civil service
would work better with less starch.' He recommended
legislation that would render the examinations 'more
practical,' and that would permit appointing officers to
select from the whole number on an eligible list and not
confine them to selections 'from among those graded highest.'
Such legislation, he promised; would 'meet with prompt
executive approval.' Each house of the legislature referred
this part of the message to its Judiciary Committee, with
instructions to report a bill embodying the Governor's ideas.
… Within a few days of the close of the legislative session,
the measure currently described as 'Governor Black's bill was
Introduced. … The bill provided that in all examinations for
the State, county or municipal service, not more than 50 per
cent. might be given for 'merit,' to be determined by the
Examining Boards, and that the rest of the rating,
representing 'fitness,' was to be given by the appointing
officer, or by some person or persons designated by him. All
existing eligible lists were to be abolished in 30 days, and
the new scheme was to go into operation at once. … A hearing
was given by the Senate Committee on the following day, and
one by the Assembly Committee a few days later. … The bill,
with some amendments, was passed In the Senate, under
suspension of the rules, and as a party measure. … It was
passed in the Assembly also as a caucus measure."
"Early [in 1898] after time had been allowed for the act to
prove its capabilities in practice, steps were taken toward
commencing a suit to test its constitutionality in the courts.
… Pending the bringing of a test suit, a bill was prepared for
the Association and introduced in the Legislature on March
16th, last, one of the features of which was the repeal of the
unsatisfactory law. … The bill … was passed by the Senate on
March 29th. On the 31st, the last day of the session, it was
passed by the Assembly. … On the same date it was signed by
the Governor and became a law. This act has the effect of
exempting the cities from the operation of the act of 1897,
restoring the former competitive system in each of them."

"As a result of the confusing legislation of [1897 and 1898]

at least four systems of widely differing character had come
into existence by the first of [1899]. New York city had its
charter rules, … the state departments were conducted under
two adaptations of the Black law, and in the smaller cities
the plan of the original law of 1883 was followed. In his
first annual message, Governor Roosevelt directed the
attention of the Legislature to this anomalous condition and
strongly urged the passage of an act repealing the Black law
and establishing a uniform system, for the state and cities
alike, subject to state control. Such an act was prepared with
the co-operation of a special committee of the Association. …
After some discussion it was determined to recast the measure,
adopting a form amounting to a codification of all previously
existing statutes, and less strict in certain of its general
provisions. … The bill was … passed by the Senate by a
majority of two. … In the Assembly it was passed with slight
amendments. … On the … 19th of April the act was signed by the
Governor, and went into immediate effect. … The passage of
this law will necessitate the complete recasting of the civil
service system in New York, on radically different lines."

Modification of Civil Service Rules by President McKinley.
Severe criticism of the order by the National Civil
Service Reform League.
On the 29th of May, 1899, President McKinley was persuaded to

issue an order greatly modifying the civil service rules,
releasing many offices from their operation and permitting
numerous transfers in the service on a non-competitive
examination. This presidential order was criticised with
severity in a statement promptly issued by the Executive
Committee of the National Civil Service Reform League, which
says: "The National Civil Service Reform League, after mature
consideration, regards the order of President McKinley, of May
29, changing the Civil Service rules, as a backward step of
the most pronounced character. The order follows a long
succession of violations, of both the spirit and the literal
terms of the law and rules, in various branches of the
service, and must be considered in its relations to these. Its
immediate effects, which have been understated, may be set
forth as follows:
(1) It withdraws from the classified service not merely 3,000

or 4,000 offices and positions, but, as nearly as can be now
estimated, 10,109. It removes 3,693 from the class of
positions filled hitherto either through competitive
examination or through an orderly practice of promotion, and
it transfers 6,416 other positions in the War Department,
filled hitherto through a competitive registration system,
under the control of the Civil Service Commission, to a system
to be devised and placed in effect by the present Secretary of
War.
(2) It declares regular at least one thousand additional
appointments made temporarily, without examination—in many
cases in direct disregard of the law—in branches that are not
affected by the exceptions, but that remain nominally
competitive.
(3) It permits the permanent appointment of persons employed

without examination, for emergency purposes during the course
of war with Spain, thus furnishing a standing list of many
thousands which positions in the War Department may be filled,
without tests of fitness, for a long time to come.
(4) It alters the rules to the effect that in future any

person appointed with or without competitive examination, or
without any examination, may be placed by transfer in any
classified position without regard to the character or
similarity of the employments interchanged, and after
non-competitive examination only.
{148}
(5) It permits the reinstatement, within the discretion of the

respective department officers, of persons separated from the
service at any previous time for any stated reason.
The effect of these changes in the body of the rules will be

of a more serious nature than that of the absolute exceptions
made. It will be practicable to fill competitive positions of
every description either through arbitrary reinstatement—or
through original appointment to a lower grade, or to an
excepted position without tests of any sort, or even by
transfer from the great emergency force of the War Department,
to be followed in any such case by a mere 'pass' examination.
As general experience has proven, the 'pass' examinations, in
the course of time, degenerate almost invariably into farce.
It will be practicable also to restore to the service at the
incoming of each new administration those dismissed for any
cause during the period of any administration preceding. That
such a practice will lead to wholesale political reprisals,
and, coupled with the other provisions referred to, to the
re-establishment on a large scale of the spoils system of
rotation and favoritism, cannot be doubted."
In his next succeeding annual Message to Congress the

President used the following language on the subject: "The
Executive order [by President Cleveland] of May 6, 1896,
extending the limits of the classified service, brought within
the operation of the civil-service law and rules nearly all of
the executive civil service not previously classified. Some of
the inclusions were found wholly illogical and unsuited to the
work of the several Departments. The application of the rules to
many of the places so included was found to result in friction
and embarrassment. After long and very careful consideration
it became evident to the heads of the Departments, responsible
for their efficiency, that in order to remove these
difficulties and promote an efficient and harmonious
administration certain amendments were necessary. These
amendments were promulgated by me in Executive order dated May
29, 1899. All of the amendments had for their main object a
more efficient and satisfactory administration of the system
of appointments established by the civil-service law. The
results attained show that under their operation the public
service has improved and that the civil-service system is
relieved of many objectionable features which heretofore
subjected it to just criticism and the administrative officers
to the charge of unbusinesslike methods in the conduct of
public affairs. It is believed that the merit system has been
greatly strengthened and its permanence assured."
United States, Message and Documents

(Abridgment), 1890-1900, volume 1.
At its next annual meeting, December 14, 1900, in New York,

the National Civil Service Reform League reiterated its
condemnation of the order of President McKinley, declaring:
"The year has shown that the step remains as unjustified in
principle as ever and that it has produced, in practical
result, just the injuries to the service that were feared, as
the reports of our committee of various branches of the
service have proved. The league, therefore, asserts without
hesitancy that the restoration of very nearly all places in
every branch of the service exempted from classification by
this deplorable order is demanded by the public interest and
that the order itself should be substantially revoked."

Civil Service Rules in the Philippine Islands.
"An Act for the establishment and maintenance of an efficient

and honest civil service in the Philippine Islands" was
adopted, on the 19th of September, by the Commission which now
administers the civil government of those islands. The bill is
founded on the principles of the American civil service in
their stricter construction, and its provisions extend to all
the executive branches of the government. The framing of rules
and regulations for the service are left to the Civil Service
Board provided for in the act. A correspondent of the "New
York Tribune," writing from Manila on the day after the
enactment, states: "W. Leon Pepperman, who has long been
connected with the civil service in the United States, and who
has made a personal study of the systems maintained by Great
Britain, France, and Holland in their Eastern colonies, will
be on this board, as will be F. W. Kiggins of the Washington
Civil Service Commission. The third member probably will be a
Filipino. President Taft had selected for this post Dr.
Joaquin Gonzalez, an able man, but that gentleman's untimely
death on the eve of his appointment has forced President Taft
to find another native capable of meeting the necessary
requirements. Mr. Kiggins probably will act as Chief Examiner,
and Mr. Pepperman as Chairman of the board:" According to the
same correspondent: " Examinations for admittance to the
service will be held in Manila, Iloilo, and Cebu, in the
Philippines, and in the United States under the auspices and
control of the Federal Civil Service Commission." At the
annual meeting of the National Civil Service Reform League of
the United States held in New York, December 13, 1900, the
above measure was commended highly in the report of a special
committee appointed to consider the subject of the civil
service in our new dependencies, as being one by which, "if it
be persevered in, the merit system will be established in the
islands of that archipelago, at least as thoroughly and
consistently as in any department of government, Federal,
State or municipal, in the Union. This must be, in any case,
regarded as a gratifying recognition of sound principles of
administration on the part of the commission and justifies the
hope that, within the limits of their jurisdiction at least,
no repetition of the scandals of post-bellum days will be
tolerated. The ruling of the several departments that the
provisions of the Federal offices established in the
dependencies which would be classified if within the United
States is also a matter to be noted with satisfaction by the
friends of good government."
{149}

The "spoils system" of service in the House of Representatives.
The "spoils system" maintained by Congressmen among their own

immediate employees, in the service of the House of
Representatives, was depicted in a report, submitted February
28, 1901, by a special committee which had been appointed to
investigate the pay of the House employees. The report,
presented by Mr. Moody, of Massachusetts, makes the following
general statements, with abundance of illustrative instances,
few of which can be given here: "The four officers elected by
the House, namely, the Clerk, Sergeant-at-Arms, Doorkeeper,
and Postmaster, appoint the employees of the House, except the
clerks and assistant clerks of members and committees, four
elevator men, the stenographers, and those appointed by House
resolutions. The appointments, however, are made on the
recommendation of members of the House, and very largely,
though not entirely, of members of the dominant party in the
House. If a member upon whose recommendation an appointment is
made desires the removal of his appointee and the substitution
of another person, the removal and substitution are made without
regard to the capacity of either person. In case a member upon
whose recommendation an appointment has been made ceases to be
a member of the House, an employee recommended by him
ordinarily loses his place. Thus the officers of the House,
though responsible for the character of the service rendered
by the employees, have in reality little or no voice in their
selection, and, as might reasonably be expected, the results
obtained from the system which we have described are in some
cases extremely unsatisfactory. This method of appointing
House employees has existed for many years, during which the
House has been under the control of each party alternately. We
believe that candor compels us to state at the outset that
some of the faults in administration which we have observed
are attributable to the system and to the persistence of
members of the House in urging upon the officers the
appointment of their constituents and friends to subordinate
places, and that such faults are deeply rooted, of long
standing, and likely to continue under the administration of
any political party as long as such a system is maintained."
The committee found nothing to criticise in the

administration of the offices of the House Postmaster or
Sergeant-at-Arms. With reference to the offices of the Clerk
and the Doorkeeper they say: "We have found in both
departments certain abuses, which may be grouped under three
heads, namely: Transfers of employees from the duties of the
positions to which they were appointed to other duties,
unjustifiable payments of compensation to employees while
absent from their posts of duty, and divisions of salary.
"First. Transfers of employees from the duties to which they
were appointed to other duties.—Some part of this evil is
doubtless attributable to the fact that the annual
appropriation acts have not properly provided for the
necessities of the House service. An illustration of this is
furnished by the case of Guy Underwood, who is carried on the
rolls as a laborer at $720 per annum, while in point of fact
he performs the duty of assistant in the Hall Library of the
House and his compensation is usually increased to $1,800 per
annum by an appropriation of $1,080 in the general deficiency
act. Again, a sufficient number of messengers has not been
provided for the actual necessities of the service, while more
folders have been provided than are required. As a result of
this men have been transferred from the duties of a folder to
those of a messenger, and the compensation of some has been
increased by appropriation in deficiency acts. But evils of
another class result from transfers, some examples of which we
report. They result in part, at least, from an attempt to
adjust salaries so as to satisfy the members that their
appointees obtain a just share of the whole appropriation,
instead of attempting to apportion the compensation to the
merits of the respective employees and the character of the
services which they render. …
"Second. Payments of compensation to employees while

absent.—The duty of many of the employees of the House ceases
with the end of a session, or very soon thereafter. Such is
the case with the reading clerks, messengers, enrolling
clerks, and many others who might be named. Their absence from
Washington after a session of Congress closes and their duties
are finished is as legitimate as the absence of the members
themselves. But many employees who should be at their posts
have been from time to time absent without justification, both
during sessions and between sessions. In the absence of any
record it is impossible for the committee to ascertain with
anything like accuracy the amount of absenteeism, but in our

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How Postmodernism Explains Football, and Football Explains

1 Introduction: Why the Sociology of Sports-Talk Radio

2 The Smooth Talk of National Sports Radio 19

3 More Intensity in Major Regional Talk 37

4 Small Talk - With a Big, Classic Clash of Narratives 59

5 Straight Talk from Beyond the Male Gaze 79

6 Conclusion: What Matters Most Sociologically 93

Introduction: Why the Sociology

Keywords Sports-talk radio · Sociology · Postmodernist theory

Talk radio… is about as accurate as a North Korean test missile.

When Oklahoma State University Head Football Coach Mike Gundy

© The Author(s) 2018 1

vividly express an essential sociological dynamic of commercial sports

it comes to our most prominent cultural institutions, like commercial

sport with communication”) by the fact that sport is a source of “con-

The Vital Connection Between Postmodernist

to suggest that anyone claiming to reliably explain postmodernism is

Recognizing Mediated Sport’s Social Construction

associated with philosophical writings and social and political theo-

rationalities, or totalities, striving “to demonstrate the fractures and

The Hyper-mediated Narrative Marketplace

compelling source of narratives that fulfill a deep sociological need.

A Narrative Marketplace that Never Ends

In this raging maelstrom of exponentially ever more mediated sports

the discussion above on how human behavior can be shaped as much or

The Hyper-mediated Sociology of Sports-Talk Radio

consumers construct representations of reality via this robustly interac-

through a multi-step process. As a methodological approach, it is not

The Smooth Talk of National Sports Radio

Abstract This chapter focuses on a prominent sports talk-radio show

Keywords Sports-talk radio · Sociology · Narrative analysis

© The Author(s) 2018 19

in the unprecedented multitude of narrative advancement and rejec-

Qualities of a Very High-Profile National Show

Patrick and most other observers expected them to win. Retelling on a

your jersey and walked in downtown Stillwater?” Mayfield replies, “I

CHINA: A. D. 1901 (March).

CHINA: A. D. 1901 (March-April).

As we write this (early in April), the reckoning of

Meantime grave anxieties are being caused by rumors of a

"The following memorandum, which was handed to the Chinese

See (in this volume)

See (in this volume)

See (in this volume)

See (in this volume)

CHOCTAWS, United States agreements with the.

See (in this volume)

CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR, The Young People's Society of.

The nineteenth annual international convention of Young

The first society, which supplied the germ of organization for

See (in this volume)

CHRISTIANS AND MOSLEMS:

See (in this volume)

See (in this volume)

"Chungking, which lies nearly 2,000 miles inland, is, despite

A Narrative Marketplace that Never Ends

The Hyper-mediated Sociology of Sports-Talk Radio