Sports are ubiquitous in American society, and given their prominence in the culture, it is easy to understand how most youth in the United States face pressure to participate in organized sports. But what does this mean for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who live with one or more physical disabilities and, in particular, those in powered wheelchairs? Located at the intersection of sports and disability, this book tells the story of power soccer - the first competitive team sport specifically designed for electric wheelchair users. Beginning in France in the 1970s, today, over sixty teams compete within the United States Power Soccer Association (USPSA) and the sport is actively played in over thirty countries. Using ethnographic research conducted while attending practices, games, and social functions of teams from across the nation, Jeffress builds a strong case that electric wheelchair users deserve more opportunity to play sports. They deserve it because they need the same physical and psychosocial benefits from participation as their peers, who have full use of their arms and legs. It challenges the social constructions and barriers that currently stand in the way. Most importantly, this book tells the story of some amazing power soccer athletes. It is a moving, first-hand account of what power soccer means to them and the implications this has for society.

"With its primary focus on adult athletes in competitions, Disability Sport, Second Edition, contains in-depth coverage of essential issues, including the historical context of disability and sport; the organizations, competitions, and sport opportunities for athletes with disabilities; the international perspective; current challenges and controversies in disability sport; and the coaching and training of athletes with disabilities including sports medicine issues, activity modifications, equipment uses, and even management for both adults and children" --

The Second Edition of Communication and Sport: Surveying the Field offers the most comprehensive and diverse approach to the study of communication and sport available at the undergraduate level. Newly expanded to incorporate the latest topics and perspectives in the field, the New Edition examines a wide array of topics to help readers understand important issues such as sports media, rhetoric, culture, and organizations from both micro- and macro- perspectives. Everything from youth to amateur to professional sports is addressed in terms of mythology, community, and identity; issues such as fan cultures, racial identity and gender in sports media, politics and nationality in sports, and sports and religion are explored in depth, and provide useful, applied insight for readers. Practical and relevant, epistemologically diverse, and theoretically grounded, the Second Edition of Billings, Butterworth, and Turman’s text keeps readers on the cutting-edge.

The Routledge Handbook of Sport Communication is the only book to offer a fully comprehensive and in-depth survey of the contemporary discipline of sport communication. It explores communication within, through, and for sport in all its theoretical, conceptual, cultural, behavioral, practical and managerial aspects, tracing the contours of this expansive, transdisciplinary and international discipline and demonstrating that there are few aspects of contemporary sport that don’t rely on effective communications. Including contributions from leading sport media and communications scholars and professionals from around the world, the book examines emerging (new and social) media, traditional (print, broadcast and screen) media, sociological themes in communication in sport, and management issues, at every level, from the interpersonal to communication within and between sport organisations and global institutions. Taking stock of current research, new ideas and key issues, this book is an essential reference for any advanced student, researcher or practitioner with an interest in sport communication, sport business, sport management, sport marketing, communication theory, journalism, or media studies.

Sport is a global business. Now more than ever, sport communication professionals need to understand sport’s global reach in order to develop their full potential. This is the first textbook to introduce the fundamental principles and practice of sport communication from an international perspective. Combining business strategies with insights into social issues such as gender, disability and national identity, this is an accessible, practical and engaging guide to the essentials of sport communication. Aimed to enhance learning at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, each chapter contains special features tailored to meet the needs of students and instructors. These include learning objectives, chapter summaries, activities, reflections, discussion questions, recommended resource lists and original cross-cultural case studies that demonstrate sport communication theories put into practice. Its twenty chapters explore communication in sport across all levels, from interpersonal communication and team building to strategic communications, and in all forms of media, from print and broadcast to social media. Sport Communication: An International Approach is an essential text for any course on sport communication, sport business or sport management.

Using sources from a wide variety of print and digital media, this book discusses the need for ample and healthy portrayals of disability and neurodiversity in the media, as the primary way that most people learn about conditions. It contains 13 newly written chapters drawing on representations of disability in popular culture from film, television, and print media in both the Global North and the Global South, including the United States, Canada, India, and Kenya. Although disability is often framed using a limited range of stereotypical tropes such as victims, supercrips, or suffering patients, this book shows how disability and neurodiversity are making their way into more mainstream media productions and publications with movies, television shows, and books featuring prominent and even lead characters with disabilities or neurodiversity. Disability Representation in Film, TV, and Print Media will be of interest to all scholars and students of disability studies, cultural studies, film studies, gender studies, and sociology more broadly.

This volume of essays examines the ways in which sports have become a means for the communication of social identity in the United States. The essays included here explore the question, How is identity engaged in the performance and spectatorship of sports? Defining sports as the whole range of mediated professional sports, and considering actual participation in sports, the chapters herein address a varied range of ways in which sports as a cultural entity becomes a site for the creation and management of symbolic components of identity. Originating in the New Agendas in Communication symposium sponsored by the University of Texas College of Communication, this volume provides contemporary explorations of sports and identity, highlighting the perspectives of up-and-coming scholars and researchers. It has much to offer readers in communication, sociology of sport, human kinetics, and related areas.