"Media Sport Stars" considers how masculinity and male identity are represented through images of sport and sport stars. From the pre-radio era to today's specialist TV channels, newspaper supplements and websites, Gary Whannel traces the growing cultural importance of sport and sportmen, showing how the very practices of sport are still bound up with the production of masculinities. Focusing on figures like Muhammad Ali and David Beckham, Whannel shows how growing media coverage has helped produce a sporting system, and examines how modern celebrity addresses the issues of race and nation, performance and identity, morality and violence.

Garry Whannel

Chapter 1 Introduction; Part 1 The tales they tell of men ...; Chapter 2 Discourses of crisis in masculinity; Chapter 3 The development of media sport; Chapter 4 Heroes and stars; Chapter 5 Narrativity and biography; Chapter 6 Sporting masculinities; Part 2 From sporting print to satellite ...; Chapter 7 The birth of the sport star; Chapter 8 Good boys; Chapter 9 Pretty boys, the 1960s and pop culture; Chapter 10 Bad boys and the work ethic; Part 3 The restless vortex of celebrity; Chapter 11 Celebration, punishment, redemption and self-discipline; Chapter 12 Moralities, masculinities and violence; Chapter 13 Identities; Chapter 14 Performances, appearances, identities and postmodernities; Chapter 15 Vortextuality and conspicuous consumption; Chapter 16 Conclusion;