Arthur A. Raney

A cognitive approach to understanding university image

This study employed a cognitive psychological approach to examining a little studied phenomenon – university image – among two groups of evaluators. The study found that different groups used different criteria when rating ten major US universities. Found to significantly predict the image of the universities among a sample of current university students were three factors: academic factors, athletic factors, and the extent of news coverage of the university. Found to significantly predict the image of the same universities among an adult, non‐student sample were four factors: a combined factor including all university attributes (including academic and athletic); the extent of news coverage; the education level of respondents; and the respondents’ level of sports fanship. Recent research in attitude structure is used to explain how different image criteria are recalled and employed by the different groups.

An Experimental Investigation of News Source and the Hostile Media Effect

This study examined the interaction among different news sources, individual levels of partisanship, and the hostile media effect in sports news. Two hundred and three participants read a balanced story about their home-town college football team in one of three newspapers: the home-town, the cross-state rival universitys town, or a neutral-town paper. The study found differences in the hostile media effect across conditions, suggesting the importance of news source in the phenomenon. Further, findings indicate strong support for the hostile media effect among sports news consumers.

Handbook of sports and media

Contents: Preface. Part I: The Development of Sports Media. T.F. Scanlon, Sports and Media in the Ancient Mediterranean. J. Bryant, A.M. Holt, A Historical Overview of Sports and Media in the United States. L.A. Wenner, Sports and Media Through the Super Glass Mirror: Placing Blame, Breast-Beating, and a Gaze to the Future. Part II: The Coverage and Business of Sports Media. R.V. Bellamy, Jr., Sports Media: A Modern Institution. D. Brown, J. Bryant, Sports Content on U.S. Television. W. Wanta, The Coverage of Sports in the Print Media. J.W. Owens, The Coverage of Sports on Radio. D.B. Sullivan, Broadcast Television and the Game of Packaging Sports. C. Wood, V. Benigni, The Coverage of Sports on Cable TV. M. Real, Sports Online: The Newest Player in Mediasport. R.G. Cummins, Sports Fiction: Critical and Empirical Perspectives. H.J. Lenskyj, Alternative Media Versus the Olympic Industry. A. Tudor, World Cup Worlds: Media Coverage of the Soccer World Cup 1974 to 2002. M.C. Duncan, Gender Warriors in Sport: Women and the Media. A.C. Billings, Utilizing Televised Sport to Benefit Prime-Time Lineups: Examining the Effectiveness of Sports Promotion. M.A. Krein, S. Martin, 60 Seconds to Air: Television Sports Production Basics and Research Review. M. Mondello, Sports Economics and the Media. L. Kinney, Sports Sponsorship. Part III: Sports Media Audiences. A.A. Raney, Why We Watch and Enjoy Mediated Sports. D.L. Wann, The Causes and Consequences of Sport Team Identification. B. Gunter, Sports, Violence, and the Media. W. Gantz, S.D. Bradley, Z. Wang, Televised NFL Games, the Family, and Domestic Violence. R.G. Lomax, Fantasy Sports: History, Game Types, and Research. D. Leonard, An Untapped Field: Exploring the World of Virtual Sports Gaming. J.E. Mahan, III, S.R. McDaniel, The New Online Arena: Sport, Marketing, and Media Converge in Cyberspace. Part IV: Critical Perspectives on Sports Media: Cases and Issues. J. Maguire, Sport and Globalization: Key Issues, Phrases, and Trends. A. Grainger, J.I. Newman, D.L. Andrews, Sport, the Media, and the Construction of Race. D.W. Houck, Couching Tiger, Hidden Blackness: Tiger Woods and the Disappearance of Race. D. Baroffio-Bota, S. Banet-Weiser, Women, Team Sports, and the WNBA: Playing Like a Girl. M.G. McDonald, Thinking Through Power in Sport and Sport Media Scholarship. D. Leonard, A World of Criminals or Media Construction?: Race, Gender, Celebrity, and the Athlete/Criminal Discourse. D.W. Houck, Sporting Bodies. C.R. King, L. Davis-Delano, E. Staurowsky, L. Baca, Sports Mascots and the Media. M. Hardin, Disability and Sport: (Non)Coverage of an Athletic Paradox.

Moral Judgment as a Predictor of Enjoyment of Crime Drama

The goal of the study is to better understand the relationship between factors involved in moral judgment of entertainment and the enjoyment of crime drama. After completing numerous social-justice measures, the 139 participants viewed one of two clips from a crime-punishment movie and then responded to survey items regarding their enjoyment of the clip. The clips differed in the type of crime presented. It was predicted that the different crimes would elicit different levels of moral judgment about the punishments for those crimes, which would then impact enjoyment. Although the levels of enjoyment reported for the two clips were similar, enjoyment was predicted by different factors of moral judgment in each condition, as predicted. The results lend further support to disposition theory and the integrated model of crime-drama enjoyment, as well as identify factors of moral reasoning that consistently serve as predictors of crime-drama enjoyment.

Punishing Media Criminals and Moral Judgment: The Impact on Enjoyment

In this study, I investigated the relation between moral judgment and the enjoyment of crime dramas by varying the relative severity of punishment levied for a crime. One hundred fifty-one participants rated their enjoyment of a video clip depicting a crime with the perpetrator being punished either excessively or not at all. In keeping with previous literature, I predicted that the different punishments would elicit different levels of moral judgment, which would then impact enjoyment. The results indicate that crime drama enjoyment was consistently predicted by certain social justice attitudes and resulting moral judgments about the content. The findings lend support to moral sanction theory and the integrated model of crime drama enjoyment and shed further insight into how viewer cognitions impact dispositional affiliations formed toward characters in media entertainment.

Equally Super?: Gender-Role Stereotyping of Superheroes in Children's Animated Programs

This study analyzes portrayals of female and male superheroes in childrens cartoons. Specifically, this study investigated whether or not animated superheroes were portrayed in gender-role stereotypical ways. Coders analyzed 70 characters from 160 hours of recorded programming. Surprisingly, the researchers found few instances of traditional gender-role stereotyping. However, a trend toward defining “superheroics” in strictly traditional masculine terms was noted. Various media theories are used to discuss the potential effects of these portrayals.

Reconceptualizing and Reexamining Suspense as a Predictor of Mediated Sports Enjoyment

Suspense is a driving force behind media entertainment consumption. However, previous explorations of the role of suspense in the enjoyment of mediated sports have not fully relied upon the richness of research from other genres. The current study seeks to correct this oversight by using the lens of fictional drama to reconceptualize and reexamine suspense as a factor in the enjoyment of sports programming. A total of 161 participants viewed and rated 1 of 7 mens basketball games. The results suggest that a measure of the unfolding nature of suspense is a stronger predictor of mediated sports enjoyment than those used previously.

The Effect of Viewing Varying Levels and Contexts of Violent Sports Programming on Enjoyment, Mood, and Perceived Violence

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the levels and contexts of sports violence and viewer enjoyment, mood, and perceptions of violence. To this end, 188 participants viewed clips in 1 of 3 viewing conditions: nonviolent play, unscripted violent play, and scripted violent play. Findings indicated that viewers enjoyed the violent play more than the nonviolent, enjoyed the unscripted violent play more than the scripted, and found the scripted violent play to be less suspenseful and more violent than the unscripted play. Furthermore, members of the scripted violent play condition reported less positive moods after viewing, especially female and nonsports-fan participants. Possible implications of the findings for entertainment researchers are discussed.

The Role of Morality in Emotional Reactions to and Enjoyment of Media Entertainment

This article examines the complex role that morality plays in emotional reactions to media entertainment. Morality no doubt influences and to a certain extent governs our emotional responses to media, with the stories we chose to consume, the characters we love and hate, the rationale behind those feelings, the emotions that we experience on their behalf, and the pleasure and meaning comes as a result. Specifically, as media consumers, we experience emotional reactions to characters (liking), to their plights (anticipatory emotions), and to their ultimate outcomes (enjoyment and appreciation). Each of these emotional reactions are regulated by morality: character liking by moral judgments about the behaviors and motivations of characters, anticipatory emotions by sense of expected justice restoration, and enjoyment by the moral evaluation of the actual outcome portrayed in relation to the expected outcome. These processes and relationships are discussed in light of recent work on moral intuition, moral emotions, and moral disengagement.

Examining Perceived Violence in and Enjoyment of Televised Rivalry Sports Contests

The scholarly attention paid to the ways in which television viewers perceive sports action as violent, how perceptions may differ across games, and how perceptions might impact enjoyment is limited. The current project extends the literature by investigating perceived violence and enjoyment across different intercollegiate (American) football contests between two heated rivals. A total of 568 individuals viewed one of four televised contests featuring the same hometown team: two against heated rivals, two against nonrivals. Results reveal that viewers clearly perceived rivalry games to be more violent than nonrivalry games. Moreover, games won by the hometeam were seen as more violent than those lost. Also, those perceiving high levels of violence reported greater enjoyment than those who perceived low levels of violence in all games. Finally, hierarchical regression analyses revealed that perceived violence contributes differently to the enjoyment of games won than to games lost. Possible explanations for and implication of the findings are offered.