This book traces the development and popularity of the sportscast highlight—the dominant news frame in the crowded medium of electronic sports journalism—as the primary means of communicating about sports and athletes. It explores the intricate relationships among media producers, sports leagues and organizations, and audiences, and explains that sportscast highlights are not a recent development, given their prominent use within a news context in every medium from early news film actualities and newsreels to network and cable television to today’s new media platforms.

Ray Gamache is a retired professor of journalism, having taught for more than 35 years. His articles have been published in American Journalism, the Journal of Sport Media, and Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature, among others.

Ray Gamache
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 255
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2010
pISBN: 978-0-7864-4997-2
eISBN: 978-0-7864-5664-2
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments      v
Preface      1
Introduction: The Highlight Mythmaking Machine      7

1. Knockout Rounds and Rounding Marks      19
2. The Habit of Highlights      49
3. Bad Habits      67
4. A Dream of Carnage and the Electronic Monster      82
5. The Agony and the Ecstasy of Communication      104
6. Sports Junkies, Junk Journalism and Cathode Ray Sterilization      129
7. The Little Shop of Highlights      155
8. The Real Virtuality for an Audience of One      176
9. Highlights and History      198

Chapter Notes      211
Selected Bibliography      225
Index      237