When the Sportswriters Go Marching In: Sports Journalism, Collective Trauma, and Memory Metaphors
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2010
Abstract
This critical essay examines the intersection of sports, journalism, and collective memory through a case study of media coverage of the National Football League's (NFL) New Orleans Saints' unexpectedly successful 2006 performance following Hurricane Katrina. I argue that sports journalism invoked and negotiated the memory of Katrina and produced a largely uniform media narrative—one which relentlessly employed a winning team as the trope for metaphorical recovery and a means of the collective simultaneously coping with and escaping from traumatic memory. Moreover, I problematize the fact that, at a time the city was still in need of real—not just mythic—solutions, a storyline of triumph was diffused with little critique.
Publication Title
Critical Studies in Media Communication
Repository Citation
Serazio, Michael, "When the Sportswriters Go Marching In: Sports Journalism, Collective Trauma, and Memory Metaphors" (2010). Communication Faculty Publications. 10.
https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/communications-facultypubs/10
Published Citation
Serazio, Michael. 2010. When the Sportswriters Go Marching In: Sports Journalism, Collective Trauma, and Memory Metaphors. Critical Studies in Media Communication 27 (2), 155-173.
DOI
10.1080/15295030903551009
Peer Reviewed
Comments
Copyright 2010 Critical Studies in Media Communications, Routledge Journals.
Link to full-text provided for authorized subscribers.