Students in the Sport, Media & Culture minor complete one of two foundational courses: Sport & Media or Sports and American Culture. While distinct in emphasis, both courses introduce students to the core intellectual commitments of the minor and provide shared analytical tools for studying sport as a powerful cultural force.
Sport & Media centers the relationship between athletic competition and the media industries that shape how we experience it. From early newsreels to livestreaming platforms, students examine how media do more than transmit sport — they construct its meanings, values, emotions, and conflicts. The course analyzes the convergence of corporate sport and corporate media, asking how questions of race, gender, labor, nationalism, and globalization shape both production and consumption.
Sports and American Culture focuses on sport’s role in shaping and reflecting American life from the late nineteenth century to the present. Through historical and cultural analysis, students examine sport as physical performance, as an expression of identity, as a form of labor, and as a cultural narrative. The course explores how athletes, fans, journalists, and institutions attach meaning to sport — and how those meanings reflect and contest broader social values.
Across both courses, students learn to:
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Analyze sport as a site of power, identity, and cultural conflict
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Understand media as an active force in shaping public meaning
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Connect historical developments to contemporary debates
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Examine sport as labor, industry, and embodied performance
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Evaluate how narratives about sport influence public discourse
Through sustained reading, discussion, analytical writing, and research projects, the foundational course equips students to approach sport not simply as entertainment, but as a central arena in which social values are produced, challenged, and reimagined.