Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2022, History

Hockey holds a central place in Canadian national identity. Despite the traditional dominance of Canadian teams in the pre-war and immediately post-war years, European nations such as the USSR, Sweden, and Czechoslovakia developed their hockey programs quickly in the post-war years, challenging Canadian dominance, and thus jeopardizing, in the eyes of Canadians, one of the most central aspects of their national culture. This loss of hockey supremacy compounded an already challenging period in which Canadians struggled to define what it meant to be Canadian in the US-led Cold War world. This thesis examines the Canadian cultural dynamics of Canadian participation in international hockey competitions during the 1960s and 1970s. These tournaments and exhibition tours played against foreign teams were commonly detailed by the Canadian press using no uncertain terms to express their contempt for their opponents. This thesis suggests the public focus on international hockey during this period reflects the uncertainty of Canadian culture and politics at home. Faced with trouble defining Canadian national identity in the Cold War world, Canadians looked to their national sport as a means of reaffirming their identity, rooted in northern masculine toughness and “Canadianness.” This work uses sports periodicals from the period between 1955 and 1975, to assess the shifting attitudes towards Canadian hockey in international competitions, and how Canadians viewed themselves in relation to the wider Cold War world when confronted with a domestic cultural crisis. This work expands on the diligent work of scholars of Canadian culture and those in the expanding subfield of hockey studies by providing a look at the thoughts of Canadians, and how their attitudes towards hockey reflect their attitudes towards Canadian culture.

Committee: Benjamin Greene Ph.D (Advisor); Rebecca Mancuso Ph.D (Committee Member) Subjects: Canadian History; Canadian Studies; History

MA, Kent State University, 2017, College of Communication and Information / School of Media and Journalism

Because of the popularity of sports blogs that create content tailored to the fan perspective, sportswriters now have to compete with a multitude of online-only outlets for readers. These individualized blogs – many of which are owned by legitimate digital media organizations – provide fans the ability to read coverage through the lens of other like-minded individuals in a community dedicated to a specific team, whether at the professional or collegiate level. While the public still views sportswriters as working for a newspaper's “toy department” for their tendency to produce overly positive fluff pieces about the team on their beat, they have generally remained objective in their reporting during this transitional news dissemination period. But since part of the job requires the ability to maintain professional relationships with sources, they are sometimes fearful of being too harsh of those they cover. Fan bloggers, on the other hand, are typically not credentialed media members, enabling them – in theory – to frame their articles any way they chose without fearing the same repercussions. Therefore, to examine the partiality of hometown newspapers and niche sports blogs, a textual analysis of college football game stories written by sportswriters and Sports Beat (SB) Nation bloggers was conducted. The results indicate that sportswriters and SB Nation bloggers portray opposing players, the hometown coach, and games that the hometown team won by a significant margin in a similar manner. However, it was also found that sportswriters are more critical in their coverage of losses. As a result, this finding suggests that the “toy department” moniker is not fully applicable to the sports journalism profession when it is compared to blogging.

Committee: Jeff Fruit M.A. (Advisor); Danielle Coombs Ph.D. (Committee Member); Paul Haridakis Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Journalism; Mass Communications; Mass Media

Bachelor of Science of Journalism (BSJ), Ohio University, 2015, Journalism

This thesis examines the comparative relationship between ESPN and Fox Sports One through the content of their original programming. A laboratory experiment showing participants stimuli from the ESPN program SportsCenter and the Fox Sports One program Fox Sports Live is used to generate statistical evidence that viewer attitudes of the two programs are equivalent. This finding is surrounded with a general analysis of the empirical components of the other original programming broadcast by both networks. The vast economic power of both entities are viewed through both competitive marketing theory and the lens of political economy to situate these findings within the economic sphere they reside in.

Committee: Carson Wagner Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: Communication; Experiments

Master of Arts in Education, Defiance College, 2005, Education

Eight small market newspapers with circulations of 20,000 or less per day in northern Ohio were surveyed about their coverage of local high school graduates participating in athletics at the collegiate level. The purpose of this project was to determine if the amount of print media published about the female varsity volleyball players at a small liberal arts college increased when the sports information office communicated updated information about the team via electronic media at least once per week to the players' hometown newspapers. Through this project this researcher learned that: (a) stewardship of positive relationships with journalists could lead to increased coverage by print media; (b) journalists embraced email and the Internet more and more as means of communication and research; (c) newspapers regularly covered high school graduates participating in sports at the collegiate level, mostly using materials submitted by sports information directors; and (d) coverage of the volleyball team increased considerably with the use of electronic press releases over research by the newspapers.

Committee: Tim Rickabaugh (Advisor); Suzanne McFarland (Committee Member) Subjects: Journalism; Physical Education

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2013, Mass Communication (Communication)

College athletic departments are expanding a trend of hiring professional journalists to improve their content and grow their audiences. This positioning of the professional journalist in the arena he used to cover creates unique dynamics for the professional journalist, for the department, and for the audience. This dissertation adds to the literature by identifying the dynamics, roles, and routines of an athletic department communication worker at a major athletic conference university. It examines how those dynamics, roles, and routines influence content for the department's website and how this content upholds the athletic department's position of political and economic power in its geographical region and sustains the cultural hegemony of college football. I employed a month-long observation prior to and at the start of the 2012 University of Washington Huskies football season. A mixed-methods approach generated ample empirical data as collection procedures included participant observation, unstructured interviews, and document review. The results of this dissertation find the athletic department communication worker negotiating three roles: The roles of "Traditional Journalist" of "PR Practitioner" and of "Subordinate." This structure ultimately is utilized to exploit college football players, to place material interests ahead of human interests, and to maintain and strengthen the cultural hegemony of big-time college football.

Committee: Aimee Edmondson Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Courtney Cole Ph.D. (Committee Member); B. David Ridpath Ed.D. (Committee Member); Michael Sweeney Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Journalism

Master of Fine Arts, University of Akron, 2011, Communication

This paper explores space allocated by daily newspapers to coverage of similar boys and girls high school sports. The study examines coverage in four daily newspapers of varying circulation. The sports (soccer, basketball and baseball/softball) were chosen because of their cross-gender similarity. The newspapers chosen are in the same market, Northeast Ohio, meaning they often had the same events from which to choose. Stories and photographs were counted and also measured in column inches. Other considerations were placement of stories and whether they were staff written or covered by stringers/freelance writers. To determine whether coverage was actually “equal,” the number of teams participating was considered. Similar studies have been conducted, with the universal conclusion that men's/boys sports receive more, often much more, coverage and/or space than women's/girls sports. The findings here are that in terms of the number of participating teams, boys get slightly more coverage, though not in all sports.

Committee: Kathleen Endres Dr. (Advisor); Val Pipps Dr. (Committee Member); Heather Walter Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication