In order to understand the modern sports, we can't ignore the commercialization of sports and the domination of capitalism that appeared in the industrial society. The domination of sports through capitalism turned the athletes into entertainers while...
In order to understand the modern sports, we can't ignore the commercialization of sports and the domination of capitalism that appeared in the industrial society. The domination of sports through capitalism turned the athletes into entertainers while neglecting their satisfaction and the companies try to maximize the profit using the sports.
During the process, the sports stars are rising as the center of the sports industry and such appearance of sports stars is connected to the star system of show business. The media dramatize and edit the sports games before delivering the story to the readers so the news only concentrates on popular sports stars and star players. Therefore, it can be said that today the sports stars are becoming the new heroes of the time.
The stories of today's sports newspapers focus on specific sports and athletes. Especially, the picture of a sports star only gives an ideological message that is supplier-centered so it is totally different from the true photo journalism that forms public opinion by delivering the truth itself.
Therefore, we need to take more interests in the message given by the first-page picture, which is the face of the sports newspaper. The pictures of sports newspapers misinterpretate the truth, draw out the dominative ideology of the vested power, and are used as a way to make money.
The study analyzed the sports journalism focusing on the sports stars which are the biggest issues of sports news paper and the message given by the main picture of the article in order to figure out the inner meaning, and how it is structured and expressed. Also, the study looked into the problems and trends of the first-page picture as well as how the first-page picture should be developed in the future.
When the influence of sports newspapers on the readers' information life was analyzed, we could see that 53.7% of the people watch TV and 32.9% use internet which had gotten ahead of newspaper a long time ago.
The sports newspapers have the most influence on people in the 40s and the next was the people in the 10s and 20s. People in the 30s were least influenced.
An analysis was done on the images of sports stars displayed on the first page of a newspaper to find out different characteristics of the images and the followings show the results of the analysis.
The common features of the main sports stars such as Chan-Ho Park, Seri Park, Jung-Hwan Ahn, and Seung-Yup Lee were analyzed and 44.3% generally answered that these people have special talents, 29.5% said that they are the winners, 14.8% said that they are accumulating riches, and 6.7% answered that they are heroes.
The study analyzed how the readers respond against the images of sports stars on the first page of a newspaper and the followings show the results of the analysis.
As for the familiarity which the readers get from the pictures of the sports stars, readers in the 20s and 40s showed higher level of familiarity than the readers in the 10s and 30s. This shows that the picture in the newspaper has relatively big influence on formation of the real image.
The message given by the pictures in the newspapers create modern sports heroes such as Chan-Ho Park and Seri Park. They are led to be the role models that have become financially and socially successful with the supports of the people. Also the sports stars who have had pictures on the first page of a newspaper emphasizes ideology of success. In this point of view, the first-page picture of a sports newspaper promotes the hegemony of the society and has the role of reproduction. Based on the results of the study, it can be analyzed that the message given by the frist-page picture of a sports star in the sports newspaper has the followings meanings.
First, victory becomes the center of the message.
Second, male-centered messages are produced.
Third, the news on training and practice that perfectize the athletes' skills and techniques is limited.
As you can see, the first-page picture of a sports newspaper has a big influence on dramatization of a sports star.
Henry Cartier Bresson that created the 'Decisive Moment' looked at a picture for about 2 minutes and said that the picture is wrong. Like this, the message given by a picture should be selected exactly.
The misinterpreted journalism of sports newspapers that use revealing and offensive images can accelerate the declination of the mass culture. Therefore, there need to be efforts to construct and improve the structure and expression of sports journalism so that the sports newspapers can protect the mass culture.