Purpose: Your first two papers explored sweating outdoors and inside through bicycles and gymnasiums. For your final paper you will explore a more conceptual form of sweating: in the media. In addition to playing and practicing sports on our own, we also watch professionals play them through various types of media—paintings, newsprint, films, social media, and more. The purpose of this paper is to practice balancing different scholarly perspectives around a singular topic: sports media. For class, we will use the example of the 2017 boxing match between Connor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather.
Task: For over a hundred years, in paintings, newsprint, films, and social media, images of boxing have turned the sport into a popular spectacle in American culture. Guy Debord argues, among other things, that the spectacle is "the heart of the unrealism of the real society." In this sense, Debord seems to suggest the possibility that spectacle media images of boxing might depict more falsehoods than truth. What, then, can we learn from boxing images and depictions?
To grapple with Debord's concept of the spectacle, use the text and images from our class readings and sources to craft an argumentative essay that explores Connor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather's social media presence (Instagram, Facebook) and compares and contrasts them to historical images of boxing. What do the boxer's internet-based images tell us about boxing? About media? About spectacle?
Logistics:
· 5-7 pages in length
· Title
· Double Spaced
· 12 point font
· Chicago style citations (footnotes AND bibliography)
· Separate figures section with captions
· Numbered pages
Concepts and Questions to Consider
· How does Debord define the term "spectacle"?
· What does Dan Barry believe the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight tell us about boxing audiences? Does he agree with Debord?
· What do images of Mayweather and McGregor on their official Facebook and Instagram pages tell us about boxing culture?
· Do the historical depictions of painting and film share anything in common with modern social media depictions? Differences?