I explored the ways in which the media overshadow women’s basketball and portray men’s basketball as the dominant driving force behind the game. Methods I engaged with included social mapping of men and women’s basketball games at the University of Washington, what were the demographics of the crowd, who was present and what did this tell me about who was attending the games. I observed various photographs (photo analysis) that featured in magazines, newspapers such as Sports Illustrated, who was featuring on the cover and who was featured as the ‘main star’? Another method was interviewing, I spoke with ushers at men and women’s games, I listened to their views and what they said were the main differences between the two games, and how the University presented or advertised them. On a professional level, the NBA is the driving force behind professional basketball, yet is reserved specifically for males, therefore portraying males as sporting leaders. WNBA is a separate entity and I feel if women wish to be seen playing the sport they need to be in an entirely different league and can’t be seen playing the ‘main’ sport (through the NBA). This is just one example of the divide that is driven between these two genders and people’s eyes need to be opened as to why this exists.

The question that I am researching is," Does social media shape the public's perception in ways that can negatively impact the ability of college athletes to be drafted by professional teams?" I am interested in this project because I want to find out if negative social media has an influence on an athlete's chance to get drafted by professional teams and impacts their ability to achieve a top draft status. For my project, I decided to focus on the Manti Te'o girlfriend hoax, a recent case of a star athlete caught in the social media crossfire. With Manti all over the social media I was able to utilize photovoice and discourse analysis to critically examine news coverage, comments, interviews and other types of social media including facebook, twitter and instagram. I also conducted interviews with my teammates to find out how they think Manti's hoax will affect his draft stock or player earnings. A player's draft stock is determined not only by how good the player is, but how a player can sell their image. In other words, social media directly impacts a player's draft stock or how much money they could make. This work has important implications for a career of success of college athletes.

I was interested in exploring the relationship between women athletes and the media. I focused particularly on how women athletes are portrayed by the media. Over the years, I have noticed a big discrepancy between how men are represented within the media compared to women. Men are depicted as very masculine and are praised as great athletes, almost as if males are the only gender capable of excelling in sports. While women were depicted more as sex symbols and models. However, this contrast between men and women did not match my life experience. I was raised in a very active and athletic family; my sisters are all athletes and good at their respective sports. Having known that women are more than just sex symbols and swimsuit models, I thought it would be interesting to do some research on this topic. My research focuses on the hyper-sexualization of women in the media, and its position within sports. The question I will explore through my research is: "How much does the sexuality of women involved in sports matter to the media?" This connects to an article written by Richard Deitsch, et al., called, "Q + A Lisa Guerrero." In this article Lisa Guerrero, a female sports broadcaster, is interviewed about the role sexuality plays in sports broadcasting. To conduct my research, I used the methods of interviewing, participant observation, and discourse analysis to analyze my research question. First I interviewed two student athletes, one male and one female, to get both ends of the spectrum for my topic. I then engaged in participant observation by attending both a men's and a women's basketball game, and observed the different media messages and depictions at each game. Finally, I analyzed four different articles for the discourse analysis method. This topic is important because it sheds light on issues in the media today, like the hyper-sexualization of women. Everyone has access to the media, so it is very difficult to miss these media messages. I believe that my research will not only expose the media of their false advertisement of women athletes, but also provide the public with a new respect for women in sports.

The question that I am researching is as follows: what is the culture of recruiting high school football players to Division-1 colleges, and how does the experience vary depending on the rating of each individual recruit? I am interested in this question because I feel there is little known about recruiting high school football players, except for what is displayed in the media. The way in which recruits are portrayed creates an image for highschool football players everywhere, and leaves them stereotyped as non-academics. I will use different research methods to pursue my question. Through interviews with teammates and former recruits of varying backgrounds I will gather first hand accounts of their experiences. Through the use of photovoice I will find images that best define what society thinks of recruits today. I anticipate that I will find players experiences with recruiting to vary greatly . I also anticipate that I will be able to show that there are many aspects of recruiting that are still unknown to the public. I hope to show how every recruit is held to a standard that the public is oblivious to, and to eliminate the stereotypes built up by pop culture.

What factors influence the evolution of media depictions of female athletes, particularly in soccer, running and basketball? I’m going to look at factors surrounding the time period as well as the factors attributed to the changes in the athlete that could influence the way the media decides to represent them. Helene A Shugart wrote a paper, entitled She Shoots She Scores: Mediated Constructions of Contemporary Female Athletes in Coverage of the 1999 US Women’s Soccer Team, which connects to my current research in that, it explores the different ways female athletes are displayed in the media while connecting it to the ideas of the time period. There has also been research done by Vikki Krane and Michelle T. Helstein. Both authors wrote articles about how companies are shaping the public’s view of what a female athlete is and how this view affects women, both athletes and non-athletes. I will use photo voice, discourse analysis, participant observation, and social media analysis to further research this subject. Because I am researching these three very different sports, I believe my findings will all be diverse. However, I believe there will be a common need to reform the way the media represents female athletes whether its lack of media attention, a sexualized form of media attention, or reinforcing gender norms. I think my findings will be important because in further understanding the factors behind media’s representation of female athletes, we can find better ways of promoting and reshaping the public’s view of female athletics so there is more focus on the competition rather than the politics surrounding it.  

In my research I wanted to find out how women’s and men’s professional soccer in the United States is portrayed by the media which has a big influence on the popularity of the sport. The media, especially social media, is growing and expanding immensely all over the world. All of the promotion and interaction with millions of people over social media has a high potential to grow the sport and over the past couple of years soccer in America has become increasingly popular (mostly women’s soccer). In the article “The ‘Olympianization’ of Soccer in the United States,” Markovits talks about how soccer used to be a marginal sport in America and the ways in which it has gone through a huge metamorphosis, attracting many more to the game. The methods I used to conduct my research were photovoice, social media, and discourse analysis. I used photovoice to look at billboards that portrayed womens soccer in a positive way. I also used discourse analysis and photovoice to analyze different aspects of social media on certain professional womens and mens soccer players, such as their number of Twitter followers. Lastly, using discourse analysis I viewed articles promoting different upcoming mens and womens soccer games to see how they were advertised differently. My results showed that mass media is a key factor in the popularity of soccer in the United States because it has such a big influence on our lives through advertising, televised events, and personal interactions through social media. My work contributed to understanding this influence by depicting specific examples from the media that could have an impact on gaining supporters of the game.

What does Nike expect of their athletes, and how does the behavior of athletes outside of sports affect the company's endorsement deals? I feel that this research question should be shared because I feel that it is important to know how endorsement deals affect athletes financially and culturally by having or losing these deals from companies such as Nike. I believe Nike chooses to hand out million dollar endorsements to "Hot Commodity" or "Supernatural" athletes. Nike, having a money-making mentality, exploits the use of athletes as investments in order to make money for themsleves as a company, whereas pro athletes have the motive for a reputation and fame opposed to money, seeing that they are making millions already. I have examined how Nike punishes the athletes they sponsor by stripping them of their sponsorship and consider the types of actions Nike finds intolerable off the field of play, as well as the impact that it has on the athletes. For my research, using the methods photo analysis, interviews, and also social media analysis, I examined different Nike ads, multiple articles based on Nike, and also watched documentaries on the company. I found these methods to be very effective in my study because Nike powerfully shapes the sports industry. By continuing my research, I found that Nike bases its decision on the athlete and what they have accomplished athletically, rather than the person they truly are.

I am interested in how female collegiate and professional athletes portray themselves to society to avoid negative stereotypes. Female athletes are expected by society to act tough like a man when they are in the sports arena and elegant like a women when they are not. How do these women react to these expectations and how do they choose to portray themselves to avoid being put into these harmful categories? Whether they are avoiding being portrayed as overly masculine or too feminine to participate in sports, female athletes face these challenges on a day-to-day basis. I will use the methods of photovoice, interviewing, and discourse analysis to gain further insight on this topic. Sally Ross and Kimberly Shinew wrote an article titled Perspectives of Women College Athletes on Sport and Gender that relates to my research. They interviewed college softball players and gymnasts about how they felt about the different stereotypes placed upon them and if they fit the label. They discussed with the athletes what kinds of social settings they chose to embrace different images to conform to social norms. This research matters to society because female athletes should not have to constantly worry about the image that they are portraying. They should be respected for their athletic ability as well as their feminine qualities. All women are unique regardless of their participation in sports and should not be categorized into a label that is often incorrect. The pressure to act a certain way also negatively affects young girls who are aspiring to be athletes. As a society, we want young female athletes to be able to grow up comfortable in their own skin.

It is no secret that men’s sporting events rule mainstream sports media while women’s sports seem to have less prestige. The media’s focus on men’s sporting events generally is about the talent level, or success of the team while in women’s sports there is an emphasis on the sexual appearance of the athletes as well as the performance aspect. In contemporary culture, biases and prejudices are formed through media representations and marketing of female athletes. With sports being as popular as they are, media is able to use female athletes in a way that deters the consumer from viewing her as an athlete. This leads me to my question: Does the media’s portrayal of women athletes as sexual objects rather than athletes influence their performances and thus, sexualize their accomplishments? While research, participant observation and social mapping helped gain a better understanding of the differences between male and female sports coverage and cultural involvement, an interview with a former Division 1 volleyball player was the greatest insight to how the media really portrays women athletes. After the interview it was clear to see that the media puts an enormous amount of added pressure on women to look good as well as perform at the highest level. I predict that through my research and observations there in a correlation between media coverage of sports and the stereotypes surrounding women athletes and that these stereotypes do in fact add societal pressures on the athletes.

My research question is: do media portrayals of female professional volleyball players affect teenage girls' perceptions of gender norms and athletics? This research directly relates to Elizabeth Daniel’s study titled, Sex Objects, Athletes, and Sexy Athletes. She explored how misrepresentations of female athletes' impacted adolescent girls and college women's self esteem. I will use methods such as: photo analysis, survey, focus groups, and interviews to conduct my research. I hypothesize that media’s emphasis on appearance and beauty of female athletes perpetrates stereotypes that can be detrimental to young girls' interpretations of athletics, specifically volleyball. This research matters because many adolescents are involved in athletics and athletics has the ability to create a positive atmosphere for young girls to build confidence. With awareness to media’s impact we can challenge and become sensitive to gender stereotypes and the ways in which young girls identify with athletics.

It is important to see how the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) handles situations of illegal contact and improper benefits between agents and student athletes. Such situations include players being contacted before they are eligible for the draft, as well as money stipends to entice players to sign with them when they are eligible. As a result of these incidents, the NCAA’s regulations affect players' families and institutions, as well as the fans. The implications of these infractions produce institutional sanctions such as loss of scholarships, bowl bans, and the possibility of coaches getting fired. To sufficiently unveil my research, I will use discourse analysis looking at how media responds to players that have been accused of or found guilty of accepting improper benefits. I will also use qualitative interviews of other student athletes to reflect on how they have been contacted by various people to accept benefits and how they have responded. I also include my own positionality as a student-athlete to reveal how I have been approached by runners, which can be anyone who mediates interaction between a player and a booster or agent such as a friend, family, or significant other. I anticipate my research will reveal that agents have been bribing players early in their collegiate careers so that when the time comes for them to enter the NFL draft they are inclined to choose those particular agents to represent them. Through my research, I hope to inform student athletes to be more cautious before making decisions because they may be pressured when influenced by money. My research will also give insight to fans that the players they love to watch on Saturdays do not always go looking for these offers that are presented to them frequently.

It was estimated in 2012 that over 30 million Americans watched National Football League (NFL) football each week. At the same time, over 65% of American households play computer or video games. It is no wonder then, that video games like Electronic Arts (EA) Sports’ Madden NFL has developed what could be called a cult following. Madden has produced multiple editions over the last 25 years, with the recent addition of thousands of virtual media sites dedicated to it. In the last two decades, this has allowed fans new and ever-increasing access. Does this increased access through video games like Madden NFL and the virtual media sites dedicated to them lead to the commodification of players and the perpetuation of historically entrenched stereotypes? To answer this question,  I am building off of Thomas Patrick Oates’ work in his article: New Media and the Repackaging of NFL Fandom, particularly what he refers to as “vicarious management”. Vicarious management is the “presentation of athletes as commodities to be consumed selectively and self-consciously by sports fans”. I used many of the ideas expressed by Grossman and Andrews. Throughout my research I employed the methods of participant observation, discourse analysis, photo analysis, semi-structured interviews, and surveys. The purpose of this research is to gain a better understanding of how vicarious management affects public perception and what steps can be taken to address the ways in which “authority, dominance and social inequality are constructed, sustained, [and] reproduced” through the platforms of video games and virtual media.

Social media has had a history of creating facades of cultures, and this is especially true in the scope of sports. My question then is what is the effect of social media’s portrayal of Pacific Islander athletes on the cultural image of Pacific Islander students? For many higher education campuses, Pacific Islander (PI) student populations are vastly underrepresented in the general population spectrum. Yet there exists on sports teams a vast overrepresentation of Pacific Islanders, especially in football. The issue then is the effect this has on the image of Pacific Islanders, where we are seen as either "savage" or "barbaric" but rarely academic. My research will address this issue and see if the underlying misperception stems from social media. I will also analyze the effect this portrayal has on PI student athletes. The methods I chose to analyze the issue are interviews of PI athletes, photovoice and social media analysis. Through photovoice I will contrast how social media interprets the image of PI’s as and how PIs themselves view their cultural heritage. From these methods I anticipate a qualitative understanding of how social media has propagated a false image of PI culture to the general public. Then I hope to address how we as a society can oppose this image through more accurate education of PI culture.

What cultural norms do the Rat City Rollergirls challenge and what are the implications of creating these new norms? Women and sports have by and large been at odds in America because of societal pressures and cultural norms that hyper-sexualize athletic women and undervalue their athletic achievements. Conversely, many women who challenge this are considered unwomanly and become unjustly labelled as a “beast” and often times their sexual identity becomes questioned. I will be exploring how women, specifically the all female roller derby league, the Rat City Rollergirls are challenging and creating new cultural norms by employing research methodologies such as, photo analysis, discourse analysis, ethnographies, and observations in order to answer these inquiries. It is important to study these cultural norms to elucidate a seemingly complicated and elusive societal bias towards women athletes and identify the root causes, what types of actions or behaviors continue the standard cultural norms, and how action can be taken to further challenge these long standing biases. To properly answer this inquiry I examined my own positionality regarding sports to uncover any hidden biases and then used this insight to remain open minded and unbiased while conducting further research. By analyzing the social media surrounding the Rat City Rollergirls I will be able to answer, in part, much of this inquiry. Using the Seattle Times’ online database I will deconstruct the hidden associations and meanings behind the pictures that I analyze. Furthermore, I will analyze the discourse used within these articles, as well as other social media sites, such as online forums, to see if my results are congruous with the dominant cultural norms regarding women in sport within America. The Rat City Rollergirls are challenging and changing these norms in new and exciting ways through the use of naming strategies, imagery, and events.

For my research, I was interested in the growing popularity of belly dancing in the United States, with a focus on misconceptions, stigmas, stereotypes, and the benefits that have attracted women (and some men who take classes and perform) to belly dance. I  researched these ideas that contribute to and surround belly dancing because of my personal experience as a local Seattle Belly Dancer. I was interested in both the reasons for the increase of interest and the stereotypes that need debunking. My question is: why have cultural perceptions of belly dancing shifted from a stereotype of sexualized dance to one of female empowerment and growing popularity? In order to answer this question I used participant observations, discourse analysis, photovoice and articles from both the media and scholarly. Rachel Kraus’s article titled “We are not Strippers: How Belly Dancers Manage a (Soft) Stigmatized Serious Leisure Activity” was useful in quoting and comparing her research on the stigma’s of belly dancers. From my research I found female empowerment about their bodies to be one of the core reasons for the growing popularity and also found stigma’s of the dance form being for male entertainment, which is a fallacy. The research  helped me become more aware of my community and its complexities.

I am interested in understanding how the impact of media portrayals on African American quarterbacks. I chose to look at the discourse used by sports analysts and spectators. Through social media and main stream sports news outlets, I began to gain an understanding of: how sports analysts and writers describe Black and White quarterbacks and how they differ? Hundley and Billings directly link this line of analysis in their article, "A Content Analysis of Racial Representations of NBA Athletes on Sports Illustrated Magazine Covers". Additionally, I looked at the research of Andrew Billings and Eugenio Mercurio in the differences of how White and Black players are characterized in terms of intelligence and athletic ability. I chose to use discourse, social media, and popular cultural analysis to answer my question. The importance and relevance of this work lies in the disproportionate perceptions created through hegemonic forces. The naturalization of these stereotypes discredits African American athletes’ achievement and may have residual effects on personal identity.

In this paper I will do a cross-cultural comparison of attitudes towards chess in the United States and Uzbekistan to answer the question: “is chess a sport or a game and how does this vary in the U.S. and Uzbekistan?” Chess is considered as an official sport in Uzbekistan, where chess players are considered athletes. Therefore they go through physical evaluation and drug tests before participating in upper level tournaments. Meanwhile the U.S.’s view on chess commonly assigns it a status of a game, not a sport. This attitude comes from a popular belief that sport can only be a challenging physical activity, nothing less. This evidence shows that popular culture dictates the way we view sports and activities. The media impacts what categories we assign them, the amount of coverage of the topic, or in case of chess, lack thereof, and stereotypes about chess and people who play chess competitively. Through my positionality, analysis of media coverage, participant observation, and interviews I will examine the differences in cultural attitudes towards chess in both countries. The outcome of the research will shed some light on the understanding of cultural differences and values put on human activities in the time of massive globalization. As a result the data produced and analyzed through the research will be helpful in creating new types of activities related to chess and intellectual engagement for school kids that will in turn transform certain views on sports.

In the past few years, there have been some prominent sexual assault scandals in American sports, such as the Pennsylvania State University football and Duke University lacrosse scandals, as well as a variety of lesser known cases. I am interested in how the mainstream and alternative media depict sexual assault in sports, and what values and social norms are revealed by these depictions. Do media portrayals of sexual assault in sports change depending on the race, gender, and age of the victim and perpetrator? I predict that these portrayals will follow common racial and gender discourses in America by vilifying black men accused of sexual assault more than white men, and minimizing or normalizing the rape of adult women. The rape of children, especially young boys, is more shocking and therefore elicits a stronger media response. I will investigate this question through discourse analysis of news articles, news websites, and blogs, and through analyzing the images that accompany the articles and blogs. My research will be linked to the feminist concept of rape culture. It will also build upon work such as the article Innocent Until Proven Innocent, a discourse analysis of the Duke lacrosse rape scandal written by David J. Leonard. In his analysis, he concludes that after the accusation of upper class white male athletes by a black woman, the mainstream media framed the case as showing unfair prejudice against white men and unfair credibility given to the black woman’s story just because of her race. By analyzing portrayals of sexual assault in sports, I hope to shed light upon cultural assumptions, values, and stereotypes that surround sexual assault in sports, and in the United States in general.

I am interested in the dynamics of injury in sports culture. Are there social consequences of injury for athletes undergoing treatment? If so, what are these social repercussions? In the culture of sports, athletes are many times expected to perform above a reasonable level. Mistakes, failure, and imperfection in sports are not accepted or supported. Injury is categorized as imperfection in our culture surrounding sports despite it being something that most individuals face at some point in their career. I expect there to be substantial social consequences for injured athletes. In a study looking at collegiate athletes who suffered a severe injury called "Transitioning out of Sport: the Phycosocial Effects of Collegiate Athletes' Career-Ending Injuries", positive and negative social consequences were found to be incredibly influential in the lives of the athletes involved in the research (Stoltenburg et al, 2011). My research methods include interviews, discourse analysis, and archival support. This subject is important because if there are negative consequences, coaches and advisers to athletes can be aware of these factors and emphasize the importance of pushing athletes to invest in multiple interests. More effort may be needed to create environments and systems that support injured athletes. Whether this research draws awareness and slowly changes social discourse on injury within an athletic arena, or initiates action and forms foundations for structures such as support groups for injured athletes, I believe it will implement positive change.

I am interested in how new developments and understandings of degenerative brain disease in football players have influenced discourse and policy surrounding risk. A recent explosion of information regarding the long-term dangers of cranial trauma in contact sports has flooded the public conscience. The question I want to address is: has this new information impacted the way that risk is discussed and understood among football players, coaches, and fans? I will look at a combination of print and social media, conduct interviews, and use discourse, positionality, and archival research methods to understand the issue. Through these methods I hope to find that new developments and understandings of degenerative brain disease have cultivated discussion and promoted more stringent testing and policy towards cranial trauma in football players. At both the collegiate and professional level football is part of a multi-billion dollar industry; therefore, the serious, long-term health effects of the sport are discussed within a highly politicized, mediatized, and emotional arena. It is my hope that this research will illuminate these underlying issues, provide clarity, and enrich the discussion of risk in football.

The research question for my poster project will be, "Do media portrayals of the financial hardships NBA players endure impact youth who aspire to play at that level?" The thesis to go with the above research question will be that the media’s tendency to glorify materialism plays a direct role in not only influencing lavish spending among current NBA players, but also contributing to the prevalence in the cycle of former NBA players experiencing financial stress by sending a similar message to future NBA players. For the hypothesis of my research, I referred to the financial case study of Allen Iverson to make the prediction that expenses coming from taxes, supporting family members, child support, divorce, and lavish spending habits are the common factors that apply to the reported 60% of NBA players that struggle financially within five years after their professional basketball career is over. As means of conducting the research, the arguments presented by Todd Kendall’s Journal of Sports Economics were used to explain why it is prevalent for superstar athletes to struggle financially during or after their professional athletic careers. To list some of the common factors that often leads to NBA players filing for bankruptcy, the episode “Broke” from ESPN’s 30 for 30 series were also used as references. My third research method used were the discourse analysis from interviews of elite basketball players in both high school and college levels as means of determining whether or not these amateur athletes have been affected by the media's portrayals of professional basketball players. The findings from my research brought implications to the idea that the media plays a role in contributing to the apparent cycle of NBA players encountering financial struggles by glorifying materialism and affluence to these players from a young age.

Accessibility to sports is not equitable to all groups of people. Individuals living in low economic and homeless communities do not have the same opportunities to sports, as those of a higher socioeconomic standing. This disparity can reinforce negative stereotypes because children especially will follow the expectations set for them. Having inequitable accessibility to sports is a concern of physical health, for sports promotes exercise. What are the economic barriers in accessibility to sports in the lower economic population? The methods I will use to conduct my research are interviewing, discourse analysis, and social mapping. I will interview members of these communities to learn about their accessibility to sports, as well as attitudes revolving around sports. I will also analyze the overall discourse around homeless and low socioeconomic populations. The method of social mapping will help to illustrate the physical accessibility to sports for these groups of people. The anticipated results will demonstrate how economic barriers such as, the cost of housing, are too great of an impediment to overcome. The populations of higher economic standings are often not aware of the extensive economic barriers. It is important to raise awareness about the inequality to accessibility, for everyone should have equitable opportunity to basic recreation. By creating awareness of sports inaccessbility, I hope to ultimately bring about change on a governmental level. This is a health disparity that demands attention. 

I am interested in examining the importance and values that super sports fans hold towards their favorite teams through the cultural and linguistic norms that are created and reproduced through social media outlets. Cultural and linguistic norms are the commonalities found within the actions, behaviors, and language tendencies of a particular group of people. For the purpose of this research, I will be looking specifically at the Seattle Seahawks “12th Man,” a group of football fanatics that consider themselves to be the Seahawks’ most loyal supporters. Fan cultures can be difficult to understand if you are not part of one, and are often devalued. Research done by Harrington Lee and presented in the article "A Life Course Perspective on Fandom,” discusses the concepts of fandom and how these identities evolve throughout the course of one’s life and are influenced by many factors (i.e. family, location, media, etc.). Social media outlets such as online forums, blogs, internet memes, Facebook, and Twitter have become a large part of the super sports fan communities and how they interact and communicate with each other, as well as how they are perceived by outsiders. While using these social media outlets as my main method of research, I will also be utilizing photovoice (analyzing photographs that portray the community and have symbolic meaning) and discourse analysis (words and language used in media that shape identity). This research is meaningful because sports fans around the world hold a great amount of passion, dedication, pride, and emotional attachment to their teams, and the influence this has made among their identities and cultures outside of sports is essential to note. The super fan culture is important to every “12th Man” and it will be interesting to see how social media continues to perpetuate these norms within the community.

The media impacts sports in many ways by reporting stories as a way to distract an athlete. There are many stories in the sports industry where the media attacks an athlete and their personal life through outlandish stories. Some examples of this are how many athletes are targeted through their girlfriends. Manti Te’o and his hoax girlfriend, AJ McCarron’s girlfriend during the BCS national title game, Tiger Woods’ affair and Hope Solo and Jeramy Steven’s domestic abuse are some stories that the media has focused much of their attention on. Most importantly, how does the media shape cultural norms about significant others of athletes? I will be looking at popular culture and media to analyze what impact media has on an athlete’s relationship. From my personal experience I believe that the media propagates stories exponentially out of proportion. To challenge my hypothesis I will use the methods of photo voice, interview and discourse analysis of pop culture. An article written by Paul Husselbee and Kevin Stein shows an analysis of Tiger Woods’ scandal breaking down what exactly happened during his affair. This article focused on what was going on during trials and the aftermath. ESPN and other sports broadcasting companies made his affair a worldwide issue. Most media articles are written to get more people to tune into the story rather than laying out the complete truth. This research is important because people follow media and believe everything that is being broadcasted without looking at the fine print and details. I believe I will find that the media has a significant impact on fans when they view athletes. If more people realize there is more to a story than what is being shown, then stories would not be so extreme.

I am interested in discovering the effects of tough love motivation fed from coaches to athletes. I view "tough love" motivation as an expression used by one person (i.e. coach) to treat another person (i.e. athlete) harshly, with the underlying intent to benefit this person (i.e. athlete) in the long run. For my research, I will primarily focus on the mainstream college sports of men's basketball and football. I wonder to what extent tough love motivation from coach to athlete effects an athlete's performance, and what are the resulting repercussions for their coach-athlete relationship as well as for the athlete's future? To supplement my research, I relate to recent research conducted by Renata Baric and Valentin Bucik, entitled Motivational Differences in Athletes Trained by Coaches of Different Motivational and Leadership Profiles (2009). In investigating my research question, I will use the following anthropological methods: photovoice, discourse analysis, and interviewing. By my results, I intend to uncover the impact of tough love motivation in college level sports. I assume its effects are not only lasting but also detrimental for an athlete's performance and future. Depending upon my results, I hope to provide college coaches (present-day and future) with the encouragement to adjust their coaching profiles, if need be. Finally, I envision my research will serve as a resource for coaches to refer to, in their effort to shape, mend, and/or strengthen coach-athlete relationship(s), and consequently, in refining their athletes' performances not only in the game but also in their futures.

In society, there are different types of intelligence that are valued. However, football intelligence is being overlooked. Previous research has addressed  the perception of student athletes in the classroom based upon stereotypes and the damaging effects of elite culture. Our methods included: Focus Group, Discourse Analysis, Social Media Analysis, Participant Observation, Interviews, Social Mapping, and Photoanalysis. We will use perception of chess players, which society accepts as intelligent, as a comparison to football players. These methods wil help us find out people's perceptions about football athletes and we hope that our research can be used in the future in Universities around the word to help change the dynamic of the classroom and possibly increase the graduation rates of football players. 

For my research project, I am interested in how the media portrays injuries of male athletes compared with female athletes. I will be looking at the ways in which sports-related injuries are presented to the public and the accuracy of those presentations in representing the seriousness of the injury. This research uses ideas from Hundley and Billings’ Framing Identity in Sports Media, which brings to light gender differences in the athletic world, as well as several other articles discussing injuries and gender norms (2010). I will use methods of discourse analysis and interviewing to answer the question of what gender differences are prevalent in sport injury. Discovering whether there is a disparity in men’s and women’s injury portrayals will help to uncover why certain injuries are considered legitimate while others are not, and how that works to reproduce ideas of hegemonic masculinity in sports. Once this is recognized, inequalities affecting female athletes can begin to break down and reveal women as valid counterparts in the sports arena.

What are the barriers to fitness for Marshallese women living in the U.S.? Marshallese populations suffer from especially high rates of cancer and Type 2 Diabetes. It is common knowledge that exercise and overall fitness contributes to better health. I have explored the barriers through various research methods, including: Participant-observation, focus groups and field notes. This work is important for the long-term health of the community. Through research into discovering the barriers to fitness for Marshallese women I am helping the community to work towards breaking down some of those barriers and empowering  these women to take control of their fitness and their overall health. It is my intent to have a positive ongoing impact on the Marshallese women’s fitness level not just for current members of the community but also for future generations. Women that learn fitness skills now will be able to pass on those skills to the next generation of women.

My research focuses on Hanford, the former Cold War plutonium processing facility, located in southeastern Washington. Hanford produced plutonium for the nuclear bomb detonated over Nagasaki, Japan. Today, Hanford is a clean up site dealing with radiological and toxic waste challenges, and is considered the most contaminated site in the northern hemisphere. My independent research from 2012 focused on the dissemination of information on Hanford. I found that a majority of the people were unaware of the history of Hanford. This year, the focus of my research is the experiences of whistleblowers from Hanford, people who risked their jobs to make sure the public understood the real dangers that exist at Hanford. For the first part of the research I will conduct an interview with a whistleblower from Hanford and work on transcribing it for a book to be published on Hanford. When I  searched for sources I could use to find information on Hanford whistleblowers, I was surprised to find that what I was looking for did not exist yet. This vital information is often missing from the public discourse, and perhaps was the reason why many people were unaware of the issue. For the second part of the research, I chose to use the historical background, experiences, and the lessons we learned from the whistleblowers interviews and utilize them to address the current cleanup process and the potential nuclear accidents we could be prepared to avoid what Fukushima, Japan had to witness might potentially be the future of Hanford. I will investigate the issues at Fukushima and how it parallels the situation at Hanford. The health and safety violations that occurred at Fukushima continue to occur at Hanford and therefore need immediate attention. With Hanford located a mere three hours away from where we live, it is a shock that majority of people was not aware of this place. It is an issue that affects our health, the environment we live in, and moreover, our future generations.

Being the main entertainment of our everyday lives, athletes are constantly judged for their performance and behaviors during the games. One key criterion of athletic performance focuses on the shift from collective to individualistic gameplay by athletes. The main drive behind this shift hasn’t been discussed due to the overall change in the society, and the adaptation of people into this new manner. One of the fields where this shift is present and more visible is sports such as basketball, which is a collective game but the players and fans aim is seem to be more individualistic. To come closer to the main stimulant of this change, I have done research in the girls and boys basketball game in the U.S. and Europe. My research was based on interviews (email, and in person), participant observation in basketball games, photo voice, and analysis of media; of basketball players, fans, and children. By comparing two different cultures, that of Kosovo in southeastern Europe and Seattle in Washington, I found some of the main factors that are driving this shift. Those factors are: racial segregation, gender, country conflicts, and globalization. I related my research to Claudia L.Kernan and Patricia M. Greenfield, who did a research in the issue of individualism and collectivism in a girl’s high school basketball game. The researcher is focused on children, and how the culture and racial segregation plays a role in their world view. Likewise, my research shows that the shift to individualism is an effect of the above mentioned factors, while the cause of these factors differs in the culture of Kosovo and Seattle.

The mountain pine beetle (MPB) infestation in British Columbia (BC) forests ranks among the largest scale ecological disturbances recorded to date and thus presents a unique testbed for understanding forest dynamics and associated climatic feedbacks. Previous work has shown that BC MPB infestation affects the local surface energy balance, decreasing evapotranspiration and increasing surface temperature. Based on this study and related physics, we hypothesized that there may be greater cloud cover over affected areas of BC post-disturbance relative to pre-disturbance. To explore this hypothesis, we used forest inventory data together with data from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) imager to quantify the impact of the devastation on summertime cloud development. Using published calibrations, we transformed raw counts at visible and infrared wavelengths to reflectance and temperature, respectively. We then made cloud maps by applying threshold criteria to the derived reflectance and temperature. Visual inspection of the cloud maps compared to the forest mortality map suggests no obvious difference between the pre- and post-disturbance cloud scenes. Ongoing work is attempting to verify and quantify this qualitative result. Because cloud development processes can have an important influence on the local climate, our research will show whether climatic effects of this ecological disturbance could raise additional concerns about the MPB issue in BC.