| Televised professional football has become a pervasive part of American public life. It presents a special rhetorical problem, however, because it is not intended or accepted as serious discourse.;This criticism examined several professional football games during the 1979-80 season focusing on the commentary and the advertisements in an attempt to identify the scheme of interpretation that is projected to the television audience.;The imagery of death and killing dominates televised professional football and the model of combat is used as an interpretive frame. Through the metaphor of warfare televised professional football enacts an archetypal mythic pattern: The Quest-The Struggle-The Kill. The mythic form of the agon imbues the game with the ultimate significance of a life and death struggle and simultaneously encourages a playful attitude.;The myth also provides a symbolic context for a social ideology. Football is presented as an inspiration to the ideal of success: teams and individuals strive to overcome a hostile environment through the skillfull imposition of strength, intelligence, strategy, and sacrifice. This clear and simple picture is complicated by the potential for active interpretation. Televised professional football exaggerates one facet of American social experience. It is clearly separated from the "real" world, it is said to be less important, it is manifestly playful, and its forms of action are sometimes presented ironically.;Previous studies have conceptualized mass spectator sport in one of two ways. Most researchers see sport as a part of the social system and explain football as a "reflection" of society. A second approach emphasizes the ritualistic character of sporting events and conceives of sport as a pure world risking corruption from the outside society. Rhetorical criticism offers a productive alternative because it encourages a consideration of audience, context, presentation, and judgment.;In contrast to explanations that posit a direct relationship between the forms of action in football and its social effect, this study concludes that televised professional football is a complex symbolic form whose influence depends upon the presentational choices of the networks and the interpretive choices of the audience. Through interpretation viewers can make their experience more meaningful, more ethical, and more humane. |
