title: Blurring the boundaries of sports public relations: National stereotypes as sport announcers’ public relations tools

authors: Desmarais, Fabrice

subjects: sport announcers

abstract: Live media coverage is a key element of the relationship between a sport and its publics. The role of television producers, including announcers, is to connect effectively with the public, creating an entertaining and engaging package that keeps viewers watching. In considering this as an aspect of public relations, this paper explores how national stereotypes function to present a consistent and easily interpretable set of messages that capture publics by reinforcing their existing understandings and by providing resources for enhancing the drama and uncertainty that is such a desirable aspect of the sport audience experience. Mapping the elements of the stereotype of Frenchness in rugby union as a case study, our analysis is based on interviews with well-known French and New Zealand rugby union announcers and analyses of a decade of broadcasts of France versus New Zealand tests. We conclude that the use of stereotypes, based on the creation of differences between national teams, can be conceived of as an effective form of public relations which heightens interest and reinforces patriotic subject positions for viewers and therefore mobilises a national public.

text: Blurring the boundaries of sports public relations: National stereotypes as sport announcers’ public relations tools Live media coverage is a key element of the relationship between a sport and its publics. The role of television producers, including announcers, is to connect effectively with the public, creating an entertaining and engaging package that keeps viewers watching. In considering this as an aspect of public relations, this paper explores how national stereotypes function to present a consistent and easily interpretable set of messages that capture publics by reinforcing their existing understandings and by providing resources for enhancing the drama and uncertainty that is such a desirable aspect of the sport audience experience. Mapping the elements of the stereotype of Frenchness in rugby union as a case study, our analysis is based on interviews with well-known French and New Zealand rugby union announcers and analyses of a decade of broadcasts of France versus New Zealand tests. We conclude that the use of stereotypes, based on the creation of differences between national teams, can be conceived of as an effective form of public relations which heightens interest and reinforces patriotic subject positions for viewers and therefore mobilises a national public.

year: 2008

title: The sprout: Exploring a culture of co-operation and co-construction in year 9 science

authors: Taylor, Simon

abstract: This article explores opportunities in year 9 science classes, where teaching strategies of student cooperation and co-construction are considered. The term co-operation describes students sharing a task together, and having the opportunity to work and internet with their teacher and peers Co-operation depends on students knowing when it is appropriate to listen and when to speak, knowing how to show respect for cultural difference, and how to be open-minded to different ideas.

text: The sprout: Exploring a culture of co-operation and co-construction in year 9 science This article explores opportunities in year 9 science classes, where teaching strategies of student cooperation and co-construction are considered. The term co-operation describes students sharing a task together, and having the opportunity to work and internet with their teacher and peers Co-operation depends on students knowing when it is appropriate to listen and when to speak, knowing how to show respect for cultural difference, and how to be open-minded to different ideas.

year: 2016

title: Iwi cultural identity: The praxis of tūpuna narrative

authors: Williams, Amelia Amy Tuihana

subjects: Māori

abstract: This research is a narrative-based study of tūpuna narrative practices. As a privileged medium tūpuna narratives construct the conditions of iwi praxis which leads to mana-motuhake: the political independence and self-determination of Māori. This study explores how the Ngāti Koi applied ‘tūpuna narratives’ to challenge the hegemonic identity imposed on them that effectively alienated and silenced them erasing their memories of who they were and are. It is an auto-ethnography of an iwi, a whānau, a family it is a story about the writer. While this may seem a personal objective, the result indicates a cultural problematic in that the search for identity involves a critical kaupapa Māori investigation for an iwi to make sense of the act of colonisation, the colonial institutions that named them and the revitalization of their iwi identity in a Treaty of Waitangi context.  

This study has found that ‘tūpuna narratives’ represent identity conceptions that have implications for traditional normative practices. In narrative study there are no prescribed means for unearthing and creating meanings, research methods take the form of co-construction, the emphasis is on doing what is necessary to capture the lived experiences of iwi in terms of their particular-and-unique circumstances. Over time dominant theories have tended to align narrative practices with journalism, storytelling, myth and legend, tale and fable diminishing its conceptual role as the ‘epistemological other’ of the social sciences. 

The findings of this research illustrate the significant limitations of these theories. Narrative research is considered both a research method ‘in itself’ and also the phenomenon under study. In this study, narrative is applied as a conceptual metaphor to create interpreted descriptions, to understand and link causal historical and personal events to colonial institutional decision-making. Placed within the conceptual constellation of Kaupapa Māori narrative methodology becomes a powerful tool for change: creating the conditions of iwi praxis which is the making, the transformation and revitalisation of iwi cultural identity. 

As I write Hauraki enters a Treaty of Waitangi ‘settled world’ the settlement formulae premised on the falsified stories begat by nineteenth-century institutional decision-makers. These stories have created a legacy of unease as open inter iwi hostilities are unleashed. Treaty settlements should result in rangimarie-peace, justice and praxis for iwi both internal to, and external of its polity and cultural borders. Clearly, they do not and the need for tūpuna narratives, free of colonial-institutional storying, remains.

text: Iwi cultural identity: The praxis of tūpuna narrative This research is a narrative-based study of tūpuna narrative practices. As a privileged medium tūpuna narratives construct the conditions of iwi praxis which leads to mana-motuhake: the political independence and self-determination of Māori. This study explores how the Ngāti Koi applied ‘tūpuna narratives’ to challenge the hegemonic identity imposed on them that effectively alienated and silenced them erasing their memories of who they were and are. It is an auto-ethnography of an iwi, a whānau, a family it is a story about the writer. While this may seem a personal objective, the result indicates a cultural problematic in that the search for identity involves a critical kaupapa Māori investigation for an iwi to make sense of the act of colonisation, the colonial institutions that named them and the revitalization of their iwi identity in a Treaty of Waitangi context.  

This study has found that ‘tūpuna narratives’ represent identity conceptions that have implications for traditional normative practices. In narrative study there are no prescribed means for unearthing and creating meanings, research methods take the form of co-construction, the emphasis is on doing what is necessary to capture the lived experiences of iwi in terms of their particular-and-unique circumstances. Over time dominant theories have tended to align narrative practices with journalism, storytelling, myth and legend, tale and fable diminishing its conceptual role as the ‘epistemological other’ of the social sciences. 

The findings of this research illustrate the significant limitations of these theories. Narrative research is considered both a research method ‘in itself’ and also the phenomenon under study. In this study, narrative is applied as a conceptual metaphor to create interpreted descriptions, to understand and link causal historical and personal events to colonial institutional decision-making. Placed within the conceptual constellation of Kaupapa Māori narrative methodology becomes a powerful tool for change: creating the conditions of iwi praxis which is the making, the transformation and revitalisation of iwi cultural identity. 

As I write Hauraki enters a Treaty of Waitangi ‘settled world’ the settlement formulae premised on the falsified stories begat by nineteenth-century institutional decision-makers. These stories have created a legacy of unease as open inter iwi hostilities are unleashed. Treaty settlements should result in rangimarie-peace, justice and praxis for iwi both internal to, and external of its polity and cultural borders. Clearly, they do not and the need for tūpuna narratives, free of colonial-institutional storying, remains.

year: 2020