Introduction to “Mapping the Terrain”

Abstract

In this introduction to a Communication and Sport special issue on “Mapping the Terrain: Shaping the Landscape of Communication and Sport Scholarship,” guest editors Michael Butterworth and Jeffrey Kassing situate the need for broadening research on communication and sport beyond media studies and media-centric analysis to be inclusive of the breadth of lenses and concerns seen in communication studies. It is noted that this special issue features a wide range of concerns and approaches, from reframing the agenda for the communication of sport and disability, to how understandings of environmental communication help contextualize debates over building athletic facilities and sports stadia, to the dynamics of whistle-blowing amid communication about breaches in ethics in athletic settings, to how discourse about events such as the “Tough Mudder” can be better understood through a Foucauldian lens on ideology and capitalism, and how leader–member exchange theory can help better understand communication between coaches and athletes in the sport setting.