Hugh O'Donnell

Mapping the Mythical: A Geopolitics of National Sporting Stereotypes

This article examines a number of stereotypes of national character which appear regularly in the sports reporting of 15 European countries. Having documented the major stereotypes, it argues that, though apparently independent, they should be seen as local entry-points into a much larger discursive network. This network constitutes a macrodiscourse which is geopolitical in scope, its ideological function being to further local elite interests by placing responsibility for existing coreperiphery imbalances on the periphery itself. The article investigates the possible origin of such a macro-discourse, as well as its links with racist discourse in general. Lastly, it examines the ways in which more recent reworkings in the form of local discourses have emerged, on the one hand, to account for imbalances operating within individual countries, and, on the other, to present certain advanced-peripheral nations as the bearers of alternative cultural values to those of the historic centre.

Telling it like it is? Social and linguistic realism in Scottish and Catalan soaps

Those involved in the production of soap operas frequently make strong claims regarding the particularly close relationship between their products and ‘reality’, simultaneously distancing themselves from any suggestion of ‘construction’. Perhaps the best-known such claim (in the UK at least) was the assertion made by Julia Smith, then producer of the English soap EastEnders, to the effect that ‘we don’t make life, we reflect it’ (Geraghty, 1991: 32), though as we shall see later in this article, such claims are by no means restricted to England. The question of ‘realism’ in both its broad (‘realistic’) and its narrow (‘realist’) meanings is a vexed one, and indeed what counts as realism can be highly culture-specific (O’Donnell, 2007). However, serials located within a social-realist paradigm – which is the case with the ones analysed here – must attempt to reproduce a series of elements (urban and rural landscapes, fashion and culinary patterns, linguistic behaviour, moral values) which viewers will accept as ‘proximate’. The crucial point here is not that such features should closely reproduce elements whose proximity to real-life counterparts can be empirically demonstrated, but that they are located within discourses of Scottishness, Catalanness and so on which are recognizable to viewers throughout the society in question. EastEnders is not in any sense about the London working class, it is in fact entirely possible to argue that it is not even

HIGH DRAMA, LOW KEY: VISUAL AESTHETICS AND SUBJECT POSITIONS IN THE DOMESTIC SPANISH TELEVISION SERIAL

This paper is the (no doubt provisional) result of an attempt to analyse the longrunning serials recently and currently available on Spanish television* in both its state-wide and its ‘‘autonomous’’ institutional forms*on the basis of what seemed at first sight to be relatively obvious, and straightforward, stylistic differences. Programmes like Goenkale in the Basque Country, El cor de la ciutat in Catalonia or Arrayán in Andalusia seemed for the most part to adopt a relatively low-key visual narrative style featuring many of the characteristics which we in the UK would identify as common in our own mainstream soap operas: limited camera and lens movements, predominantly eye-level shooting, relatively sedate editing, a more or less complete absence of ‘‘tampering’’ with narrative time, a refusal*whether conscious or otherwise*of the artful or the symbolic. TVE’s productions, on the other hand, seemed somehow more highly-strung. Much of this, it is true, appeared to be more a function of the mise en scène (broadly defined) than anything else: more grandiose interiors and occasionally exteriors, more beautiful actors and actresses, more flamboyant and more quick-change fashions, more overstated acting, even more saturated colours. Other programmes such as the Madrid-Andalusia co-production Vidas cruzadas or the Galician Rı́as Baixas could be at times extravagantly adventurous with their filming with rooftop shots, high-speed car chases shot from the point of view of the pursuing driver, and so on. HUGH O’DONNELL

Developing Evidence for Football (Soccer) Reminiscence Interventions Within Long-term Care: A Co-operative Approach Applied in Scotland and Spain

Loneliness is a common experience within long-term care and, to promote well-being and quality of life among people with dementia, it is important to draw upon a repertoire of strategies that provide social stimulation, companionship, and enjoyment. This paper describes and reflects on a program of co-operative social participatory research that sought to introduce football-focused (ie, soccer-based) reminiscence based in 4 community settings within Spain and Scotland. Findings are reported and inform an original conceptual model that supports the introduction of sustainable approaches to the development of football-focused reminiscence with and for people with dementia.

Putting a Face on It

In journalism studies, the discussion of objectivity as a strategic ritual is long stand-ing, while the impact of subjectivity and emotion upon journalism has received much less attention. During t ...

Olympic Media: Inside the Biggest Show on Earth by Andrew C. Billings. Abingdon: Routledge, 2008. 184pp., £26.99, ISBN 978 0 415 77251 8

The title of this book confirms one of its own hypotheses, namely that American culture (here academic culture) assumes an American frame: the book is not about ‘Olympic media’, focusing instead solely on NBC’s coverage of the summer and winter Games between 1996 and 2006. Within this (at times slightly claustrophobic) frame, it sets out to examine (1) the production decisions and routines involved in televising the Olympics through a series of interviews with (very) highly placed individuals in the production process; (2) the extent to which their views of the coverage compare with the results of a very detailed content analysis (CA) of the primetime telecasts; and (3) the extent to which this coverage affects how a sample of viewers understand the following issues: the heavy focus on American athletes; representations of gender; and representations of ethnicity.These three issues form the backbone of the entire project, structuring the inquiry in each of its phases. The interviews with the production personnel are truly illuminating, highlighting the sheer complexity of the undertaking.The producers feel that: (1) while they have to privilege American athletes to meet audience expectations and maintain ratings – a recurrent theme – they do their best to be fair and scrupulously avoid any ‘us v. them’ approach; (2) great strides have been made in avoiding sexist language and stereotypes; and (3) ethnicity is largely a non-issue, or one that ‘speaks for itself ’ via the visuals. The figures relating to the CA are extremely impressive: 347 hours of coverage analysed, 200+ coders used, 17 taxonomic categories, and so on. How impressive the reader finds the results depends on his or her confidence in a relatively blunt analytical tool such as CA – complete with c, expected frequencies and ANOVA – to capture the complexities of cultural phenomena of this kind. In any case, the results show that coverage of American athletes is in the main structured around positive ideals, and that of female athletes more often includes comments on physical appearance than that of men. The chapter on ethnicity is perhaps the most compelling, largely because the author comes at it from a broader perspective than CA alone. The audience questionnaire is disappointing: a convenience sample with no information given on demographics and which tells us little of real value. Despite the occasional nagging feeling that the mountain has moved to produce a mouse, there is much of interest in this book, in particular the interviews and the finding that the less scripted the commentary is, the more likely it is to reproduce negative stereotypes.

What can Gaelic teach us about effective policy through planning?: Strategies in Gaelic language planning

This chapter presents focuses on the area of language policy in business. It discusses the relevance and effectiveness of strategies aiming toward bilingual Gaelic/English practices in workplace environments that address the need for capacity to work in two languages. The strategies under consideration are: translation services, as well as training & development. This chapter concludes with general recommendations for how the example of strategies used in Gaelic language policies can inform the development of policies in other areas.