Lexington Books Mediatization of Physical Activity: Media Saturation and Technologies

This book demonstrates how media technologies shape amateur sports and how some of these sports are modified. The author uses an innovative measuring approach to analyze how people use media technologies in conjunction with sports and how their relationship with physical activity is affected by the ever-present influence of the media. The research used includes a meta-theoretical analysis of the current mediatization theory, as well as quantitative and qualitative empirical research. The author integrates these aspects into the new concept of media saturation, supplementing the current theory and contributing to the wider body of knowledge in the field of media and physical activity. The book analyzes different perspectives in an interdisciplinary examination, ranging from media and sport researchers to scholars in culture studies, sociology, and psychology. Review In a timely and intellectually sophisticated account, Mediatization of Physical Activity makes a distinctive contribution to scholarship on mediatization. By exploring our growing reliance on media, Katarzyna Kopecka-Piech displays an impressive breadth of knowledge in her assessment of key debates on mediatization. The author explains levels of media saturation through an empirical account of young people's uses of media technologies to monitor their physical activities in amateur sports. This important book is a welcome and significant addition to research on mediatization. This book will be invaluable to scholars and students fascinated by the multiple and subtle ways that media technologies affect our everyday lives.--Deborah Chambers, Newcastle University This book's emphasis upon areas of 'elevated' physical activity in sports and recreational activities as well as the engagement of younger people in those activities gives its analysis an enhanced relevance and intensity. It is highly recommended to those interested in the uses of technology in sports and recreation as well as to all scholars and researchers examining connections between the fields of communication and information and media technology.--Peter Dallow, Western Sydney University This study traces the complexities and paradoxes of embodied life online, including the intricate interplay between mediatization and demediatization: general media saturation of everyday life, but with situations of de-saturation where people retreat and abandon certain media technologies. Fascinating findings derive from the well-chosen focus on sports- and health-related micro technologies that link social media connectivity to individual bodily experience.--Johan Fornäs, Södertörn University About the Author Katarzyna Kopecka-Piech is assistant professor and new media researcher at the University of Wroclaw.