SPORTS

AND MUSIC, CHILDREN AS AUDIENCE

Dr. Mina Tsay

CM 380: Theory and Process of Communication

What defines a fan?

Sports Fandom (Thorne & Bruner 2006)

Common characteristics Internal involvement Desire for external involvement Wish to acquire skills/knowledge Desire for social interaction

Sports Fandom: Coviewing

External Involvement: Fantasy Sports

Dr. Tsays Fantasy League

Sports as Vicarious Experience

Identification
Emotional (Empathy) Cognitive (Mutual Understanding)

Transportation

Absorption/Immersion

Vicarious Learning

Modeling Effect
Direct duplication of behavior

E.g., Batting the way a baseball player bats

Eliciting Effect
Performs behavior similar to models

E.g., Celebrity donation to charity

encourages you to volunteer at a Little League baseball game

Levels of motivation for watching sports

(Wenner & Gantz, 1998)

Fanship (e.g., thrill of victory) Learning Release Companionship Pass time

Social Identity Theory

(Tajfel & Turner, 1986)

Social identity

Self concept derived from perceived membership of social groups

Males found to turn to sports to derive an important social identity

Higher ratings of achievement, empathy, and knowledge

Social Identity Theory

(Tajfel & Turner, 1986)

Mere categorization of themselves as group members Ingroup Favoritism Influenced by:

Identification with ingroup to internalize that

groups membership as an aspect of their self concept Perceived relevance of ingroup

Evidence of Sports Fandom Effects

Strong sport or team identification

Game attendance and prediction of future

team success (Murrell & Dietz, 1992) Greater team knowledge (Wann & Branscombe,
1995)
Persistence in team commitment (DietzUhler &

Murrell, 1999)

Gender Differences

Males and females equally likely to be sports fans and attending sporting events (DietzUhler et al., 2000), except:
Males spend more time:

discussing sports watching sports on TV had greater sports interest/knowledge

What about motive to be a sports fan?

Gender Differences (cont.)

Motives:
Females more likely to be sports fans for

social reasons Males more likely to be sports fans because: they play sports enjoy/learning about sports in general

Sports Representations in Media

http://www.mediaed.org/cgibin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=208

Social Comparison Theory

(Festinger 1965; Goethals, 1986)

We look to media images that we perceive to be:

Attainable Realistic

Make comparisons among ourselves, others, and idealized images.

Two Types of Comparisons

Upward Social Comparison

Comparing to those deemed socially better

than us. Trying to find similarities to those more elite.

Downward Social Comparison

Comparing to those less fortunate than us. Emphasis on positive effects of comparisons.

Influence of Sports Media on Health

Applying objectification theory to:

Sports Media

Viewers Body Perceptions

Objectification Theory
(Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997)

Girls and women are typically acculturated to internalize a viewers perspective as a primary view of their physical selves. Process of selfmonitoring Selfobjectification
Tendency to perceive and describe own body

according to external rather than internal traits

Lean vs. NonLean Sports

Findings from Harrison and Fredrickson (2003)

426 females (1019 years) Sports magazine reading

Greater body satisfaction among older adolescents Selfobjectification mental health risks

Body shame Disordered eating Depressions

Music: ContextDependent Memory

Application to contextdependent memory (CDM)
Memory depending on relation between learning + context e.g., Learning is better in particular environments

Music: ContextDependent Memory

(Smith, 2007)

Variations of background music:

Mozart Jazz Quiet (control)

Procedure: Initial recall test + 2nd recall test (5 days later) 3 (M, J, Qinitial test) x 3 (M, J, Qfinal test) experimental design

Music: ContextDependent Memory

(Smith, 2007)

Findings:
Context matters (inducing context dependent memory) Same context leading to more words remembered Sound (as compared to no sound) acts as a memory cue

Classic Conditioning with Advertising

(Gorn, 2007)

Associations between Product + Music Product preferences Rationale

Valence of emotions generated by music becoming associated with product (process of classical conditioning)

Classic Conditioning with Advertising

(Gorn, 2007)

Advertised Pen

NonAdvertised Pen

Liked music

74

20

Disliked music

30

71

Shifting gears toward understanding children as audience

Theory of Cognitive Development

(Piaget, 1977)

Taking on constructivist approach

How does our intelligence grow? How do we accurately represent the world

and operate on these representations?

We acquire schemata through developmental stages

Assumptions of Piagets Developmental Stages

Learning occurs by an active construction of meaning, rather than by receiving it passively. Must build cognitive structures through the use of mental maps

Assumptions of Piagets Developmental Stages

Each stage lays foundation for next stage Everyone goes through same stages in order
Universal (not cultural specific)

Each stage is qualitatively different (thinking)

Four Developmental Stages

1st: Sensory Motor

Birth to 2 years old Dependent on physical interaction Development of spatial abilities

Sensory Motor Stage

Understanding objects through physical contact Object permanence developed later in the stage

Four Developmental Stages (cont.)

2nd: Preoperational
2 to 7 years Still lacking in areas of cognitive maturation Unable to conceptualize abstractly
Egocentrism Sees everything from own point of view Centration/Concreteness Focus on only one aspect of a situation Conservation Difficulty understanding transformations

Preoperational Stage

Four Developmental Stages (cont.)

3rd: Concrete Operational

7 to 11 years Intelligence both symbolic and logical Acquiring operations: general rules and

strategies

Four Developmental Stages

(cont).

Seriation: Ability to arrange objects in an order Classification: Ability to name and identify sets of objects Decentering: Ability to take into account multiple aspects of a problem Reversibility: Numbers/objects can be changed Elimination of Egocentrism: Ability to view things from anothers perspective.

Preoperational vs. Concrete Operational

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtLEWVu815o

Four Developmental Stages

4th: Formal Operational

Starts around 11 years into adulthood Abstract thinking, logical reasoning,

drawing conclusions
E.g., Understanding love, developing moral

judgment/values

Ill Never Have a Clown in my House: Why Movie Horror Lives On (Cantor, 2004)

Ill Never Have a Clown in my House: Why Movie Horror Lives On (Cantor, 2004)
Examined two types of effects: Bedtime behavior effects Waking life effects

Ill Never Have a Clown in my House: Why Movie Horror Lives On (Cantor, 2004)
I would jump from my doorway to my bedroom to my bed, so nothing under my bed could grab meI could not fall asleep with my closet door open.I would freak out whenever the cable would go out. Emphasis on protective behaviors / uneasiness with nonthreatening objects (e.g., clowns, TV sets, trees)

Ill Never Have a Clown in my House: Why Movie Horror Lives On (Cantor, 2004)
Whenever I swim in the ocean, or even a murky lake, where I cannot see beneath my feet, I feel increasingly panicky and claustrophobic, and in a short time, must leave the water. Emphasis on behavioral interference (e.g., swimming)

Ill Never Have a Clown in my House: Why Movie Horror Lives On (Cantor, 2004)
I felt completely unaffected until I closed my eyesI couldnt sleep and left all the lights on in my apartment for three days. Emphasis on waking effects (e.g., home alone, camping, in dark places/woods)

Ill Never Have a Clown in my House: Why Movie Horror Lives On (Cantor, 2004)
I am now very conscious about who is home. If Im home alone, however, I am always listening for unknown sounds and where they are coming from. Emphasis on waking activities (e.g., home alone, babysitting)

Lingering Effects
Bedtime behavior effects (46%) Waking life effects (75%) No spill over effects (neither12%) Support for long term fright responses Reasons for these effects?

Lingering Effects
Developmental psychology Preschoolers inability to differentiate between fantasy/reality

Lingering Effects
Perceptually limited Dependent on strong visual images Difficulty with transformations

Lingering Effects
Fearing even knowing its fictitious Willingness to suspend disbelief Suspense/surprise features Reminder of real threats More sensationalized events Better recall Overestimation of chance of occurrence

Real Life Events

Lingering Effects
Fiction vs. Fantasy boundaries blurred Plausibility of supernatural events can be ambiguous

Explicit vs. Implicit Memory

Explicit: Conscious memory of fearinducing events Not always correct More likely to be malleable Implicit: Subconscious emotional memories Highly resistant to change

Explicit vs. Implicit Memory

Fear Conditioning e.g., Implicit fear reactions become conditioned to stimuli related to those in movies (conscious fear memories), triggering subconscious reactions.