OOIR: Observatory of International Research

Papers

(The median citation count of Communication & Sport is 2. The table below lists those papers that are above that threshold based on CrossRef citation counts [max. 250 papers]. The publications cover those that have been published in the past four years, i.e., from 2022-06-01 to 2026-06-01.)

Article	Citations
Immortal 38: How the Media Afterlife of Slovak Ice Hockey Legend Pavol Demitra Created a Marble Hero	55
“Crypt Keeper That She Is”: Mariah Bell and the Media Framing of Age in the 2022 U.S. National Figure Skating Championships	42
“The Media Answer”: How Athletes Conceptualize Their Relationship to the Press in the Players’ Tribune	25
Diving in a Virtual Reality: Investigating Technology Acceptance	24
Media Coverage of Sports Concussion: An Experimental Study of Framing Effects on Community Injury Perceptions	22
“At Augusta National, Not Talking About Race Is Tradition”: Race and Journalistic Repair Discourse at the Masters Tournament	21
Are Combat Sports Too Violent? Effects of Counter-Balancing Perceptions of Violence Through AR-Infused Gamification	20
‘Discursive Interpretations of Cultural Symbols in Mega Sporting Events: The Case of Messi’s Bisht at the 2022 World Cup’	19
Inspirational and Worthy of Charity: (Mis)Representations of Disability in Sport Media	18
A Scoping Review of Research on Online Hate and Sport	18
Soft Activism in Sport: Semantic and Sentiment Analysis of Well-Being Narratives Across Elite Multi-Sport Athletes	17
“Thug,” “Classless,” and the Policing of Black Womanhood in Sports: A Case Study of Racialized Language and Angel Reese	17
Understanding Chinese Weibo Users’ Frames of the LGBTQ+ Athletes During the 2024 Olympic Games: A Content Analysis	16
Task and Social Determinants of Coaches’ Reports of Leader-Member Exchange	16
Loved It, Miss It, Would Never Go Back: Why U.S. Local Television Sports Broadcasters are Leaving the Industry	16
Bridging the Virtual and the Real: The Impact of Metaverse Sports Event Characteristics on Event Marketing Communication Effectiveness	15
Reversing the Flow: Morocco’s Harnessing of Diasporic Talent and the Recent Success of the Atlas Lions in International Football	14
Forgiving the Foul: The Role of Moral Decoupling, Emotions, and Forgiveness in Fan Responses to Sports Crises	13
“I Used to Love Scheifele:” Dominant Narratives on Reddit About the Canadian Division of the Stanley Cup Playoffs	12
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly – Situational Crisis Communication and the COVID-19 Pandemic Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games	12
Competing Together, Nations Apart: Identity and Nationality at the 2023 World Baseball Classic	12
Golden Girls, National Heroes and Resilient Champions: An Intersectional and Computational Analysis of Social Media Commentary During the 2024 Paralympics	12
Embrace Methodological Breadth in Communication and Sport Research – A Response to Cummins and Hahn	12
“Go and Wash up!”: Gender Violence in Female Refereeing and Its Media Coverage in Brazil and Spain	12
Azeem Rafiq, an Object or a Subject? “Can the Subaltern Speak?”	11

The Construction of Human Rights Narratives in the 2022 World Cup: A Critical Examination of US and Qatari News Coverage	11
Is the Whole Greater Than the Sum of its Parts? Aggregation of Sports Events as a Driver of Coverage of (the) European Championships on German TV News Shows	11
Soft Media, Hard Borders: Football, Media Framing, and Ethnonational Tensions in Wartime Israel	10
Show HBCU Referee Bias the Red Card: Testing Communication Theory in Division I Women’s College Soccer	10
“We’ve … had to Make Ourselves more Visible Because … the Media hasn’t Done it for us”: Theorising a Visibility Bind in Relation to the Growing Prominence of Women’s Sport	9
Signing Off: An Examination Into Female Journalists Leaving Legacy Media	9
Shifting Time Zones, Shifting Narratives: NBC’s Primetime Broadcast Portrayal of Men and Women Athletes During the 2020 Tokyo and 2022 Beijing Olympic Games	9
Feminist Media Scholarship in Communication & Sport : A Response to the 10-Year Review	9
War and Peace, Freeze and Thaw: Regional Narratives of North Korea and the 2018 Winter Olympics	9
Introduction to the Special Issue: Mediating the East Asian Era of the Olympic Games (2018–2022)	8
Still Battling for Equity: Examining Biological Sex Portrayals Through the Lens of the Gold Coast During Australian Prime Time Coverage of the 2018 Commonwealth Games	8
From Seasoned Vet to Space-Taker: Gendered Ageism in Coverage of Professional Basketball Player Diana Taurasi’s Final Season	8
Shifting Sports Gambling Terrain: New Factors Within an Age-Old Activity	8
Middle Aged Men in Lycra and the Performative Irony of Watching Tour de France	8
“You Don’t Want Us to Solve This”: Agenda Setting in the Federal Hearings on Name, Image, and Likeness	8
‘National Warriors’ and ‘Solo Celebrity’: Gender and Sport Nationalism in Media Representations of Chinese Women’s Volleyball and Li Na	8
A (Meta) Picture is Worth a Thousand “Likes:” An Analysis of Engagement with Sports Network Images on Instagram	8
“It Feels Like It’s in Our Back Yard”: Centering “Place” in Local Women’s Sports Media Coverage	7
Gender, Sports, and Cultural Barometers: The State of Play in the Year 2022	7
Displaced and Diminished: How the Placemaking Value of “Being there” Influences Play-By-Play Broadcasters’ Professional Identity	7
Girl Power and Brand Power: Postfeminist Sensibility in News Coverage of Tokyo’s Girl “Prodigy” Skateboarders	7
Decolonial Storyworking and Gender “Misfits”: Transforming Selves, Scholarship, and Systems	7
Media Framings of the Transgender Athlete as “Legitimate Controversy”: The Case of Laurel Hubbard at the Tokyo Olympics	7
Questioning Sports Journalists: Stereotypes, Work Routines, and Color-Blind Racism in Sports Press Conferences	6
Silence, Signals, and Split-Second Meaning: Nonverbal Communication and Collective Sensemaking in Elite Team Sports	6
Communication Scholars Should Help Uncover the Causes and Consequences of Mobile Sports Gambling: A Call for Research and Theory Development	6
Narratives of Naturalization of Foreign-Born Football Players in Vietnamese Mainstream Media: The Critical Case Study on Rafaelson Bezerra Fernandes	6
In the Wake of a ‘Racial Reckoning’: Resistance… or Persistence in Sporting Representations?	6
Between Opportunity and Scrutiny: Female Winter Olympians Navigating Sports Mediatization	6
Role Models or Inferior Participants? Chinese News Portrayals of Gender and Disability in the 2022 Winter Paralympic Games	6
Why Do People Collect Sportscards? Fan Motivations for Collecting Miniature Sports Media	6
Towards Normalization of Women’s Football in Spanish Sports Journalism: Analysis of 2021 UEFA Women’s Champions League Final Broadcasts	6
The View From the Boundary: How County Cricket is Covered Amid the Digital Mediatization of Sport	6
The Role of Gender in Evaluating Athletes’ Endorsements of Corporate Social Advocacy Initiatives	6
Hybrid Identity in Motion: Eileen Gu’s Cross-Platform Visual Self-Presentation on Weibo and Instagram	6
Revisiting the Relationship Between Sports Fandom and the Black Criminal Stereotype: A Replication and Extension Study	6
(Re)Coding the “Black Quarterback”: A 20-Year Critical Quantitative Analysis of Racial Stacking and the Mediated Dichotomy Between “Pro-Style” and “Dual-Threat”	6
Auditory Cuteness in Sports Podcasting: A New Lookism?	6
Toward a Measurement Tool for Sports Diplomacy in the News: The Case of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022	6
A Smarter and Greener Olympics: Mediatization and Public Reception in the Preparation Stage of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics	5
When Dialogue Backfires: Economic Stratification and Engagement Paradoxes in English Premier League Clubs’ Dialogic Communication on X	5
Monsters and the Sports They Play: Squaring the Circle of Fan Allegiance and Cognitive Dissonance	5
Social Identity Can be a Team Game: Social Identity and Other Factors that Widen and Bridge Partisan Gaps in Political Perceptions of Sports Media Topics	5
The Olympic Games and Judo Diplomacy: An Exploratory Discussion on Country Image in Tokyo 2020	5
Friends or Foes: Predicting Chinese Basketball Viewers’ Attitudes Toward Naturalized Athletes	5
The Local Perspective: Regional Television Framing of Name, Image, and Likeness	5
Finding Teammates on a Messy Playing Field: Continued Thoughts on 10 Years of Theory & Method in Communication & Sport	5
On Creating a Place, Space and Time for the Trans Athlete	5
Media Framing of the International Paralympic Committee’s WeThe15 Disability Inclusion Campaign During Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022: A Comparative Analysis	4
Enhancing Our (Global) Understanding: Reflections on the Need for Reaching Beyond Boundaries	4

It’s Okay to be Not Okay: An Analysis of Twitter Responses to Naomi Osaka’s Withdrawal due to Mental Health Concerns	4
Telecasting Tokyo to a Locked Down Nation: Australian Broadcast Coverage of the 2020 Olympic Summer Games	4
Fear of Missing Out: An Antecedent of Online Fan Engagement of Sport Teams’ Social Media	4
The There that is There and the There that is Not: Reflections on Taking Stock of Communication & Sport as a Disciplinary Project	4
Competing as the First Out Transgender Female Olympian: A Twitter Network Analysis of Laurel Hubbard During the 2020 Tokyo Games	4
Racing With a Purpose: Sustainability in Formula E	4
Exploring Emotional and Cognitive Priming Effects in Mediated Sports Using Psychophysiological Measures: How Sport Program-Induced Emotions and Ad Schema Congruity Influence Effectiveness of Advertisi	4
Visions of Maradona: A Liar, a Cheat, Un Cocaïnomane, Un Dealer. UK and France Regarding a Latin American Player	4
“It’s Your Whole Life:” Navigating Identity and Mental Health in Life after Sports	4
“I Feel Qatari Today […] I Feel Disabled Today, […] I Feel Like a Migrant Worker Today…”: On Sport, Leadership, and Moral Legitimacy	4
“I’m Worried They Will Come Back to Haunt Me”: Examining How Retired National Football League Players Make Sense of Concussion Risks	4
Effects of Cohesion With Teammates on Division-I Student-Athletes’ Mental Health: An Application of the Human Need to Belong and Transactional Stress Frameworks	4
Alternative Versus Mainstream Media: Representing of Women’s Sport in Iranian Sports News and Users’ Comments	4
Sports Identification in Situational Problem-Solving: A Framework for Understanding Fans’ Communicative Behaviors in Sports Crises	4
Politics for Losers: The Rhetoric of Sports Tanking as a Practice of Liberal Citizenship	4
Individuals’ Motivations and Engagement With Paralympic Content on Social Media: A Longitudinal Analysis Across Six Summer and Winter Games	4
Between Hype and Reality: The Promises and Pitfalls of Predicting Sports Media Technological Innovation	4
“Putting His Off-Field Issues Aside…”: Exploring Online Sport Fan Community Response to Allegations Against Deshaun Watson	4
Constructing Eileen (Ailing) Gu’s Chineseness: Nationalism, Heroism and the Negotiation of National Belonging in Sport	4
Reimagining History and Solidarity: Nationalist Discourse in Chinese Self-Media’s Coverage of the Belarusian Champion’s Olympic Triumph	4
‘Your Strength Is Inspirational’: How Naomi Osaka’s Twitter Announcement Destigmatizes Mental Health Disclosures	4
“Perjurers, Rapists, and Zealots are Ending Abortion”: Sports Journalists’ Symbolic Annihilation of Women Athletes on Social Media During the National Loss of Abortion Rights	4
Carrying Two Flags? How Social Media Users Perceive the Identity Negotiation Process of Third Culture Athletes	4
Embracing Computational Approaches to Social Media Research: Implications for Theory and Praxis in Sport Communication	4
Collegiate Student-Athletes as Health Advocates: The Role of Issue and Source Involvement in Students’ Information Processing about Binge Drinking	3
Systematic Sexism: Women’s Sports News in a Circle of Gatekeepers and Users on Twitter	3
How to Calm the Storm and Recover Reputation? A fsQCA Analysis of Public Relations Effectiveness in Sports Organizations	3
Exclusion in the Name of Dissuasion: Framing Moral Panic, Disposable Gamers, and Esport Regulation in China	3
Online Engagement in the Sports Industry: Leagues, Athletes, and Sponsoring Brands	3
Representatives, Reflection, Roles, and Responsibilities: The Metajournalistic Discourse on the Press Boycott of Naomi Osaka	3
#Selfies With a Mask On: Comparing Self-Presentation of Athletes From the U.S. and China in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics	3
Examining Sports Media Credibility, Bias, Political Identification, and Fandom Using a Repeated Cross-Sectional Survey	3
“Drive to Survive” Drives New Fans to Formula 1? Studying Viewer Experiences of a Sports Documentary and Its Influence on the Sport’s Fandom	3
The “Descendant of Dragon” or an “American Dreamer”? The Flow of Identity in the Media Discourse of Eileen Gu Between China and the US	3
1,001 Manuscript Data Points: The State of Communication & Sport in 2025	3
“A Pillar of all HBCUs”: Deion Sanders, Aspirational Prophecy, and the Divine Promise of Jackson State University Football	3
Motherhood in the Olympic Context: An Analysis of News Published on the Most Accessed Sports Websites in Brazil and Spain	3
Sports Media Research in the Slovenian Context: Mapping Trends and Suggestions for the Future	3
“If Those Stats Make You Mad, Then You’ve Come to the Right Place”: Theorizing a Women’s Sports Media Counterpublic	3
“Why You Speakin’ for Me?”: Hip-Hop Epistemology, Discursive Continuity, and Black Athlete-Led Media as Resistance to Hegemonic Whiteness	3
“A Beautiful Experience”: The Cultural Transitions of Latin American Minor League Baseball (MiLB) Players	3
Manufacturing Racialised Misogyny in China’s Digital Manosphere	3
Is It a Private Issue? Exploring Chinese Fans’ Perceptions of Manchester City’s Crisis Response to the Kyle Walker Sexual Harassment	3
Depersonalized Harmony and Sustained Belonging: Shaping Online Collective Identities in a University Sports Team	2
Inequitable by Design: Framing, Marxist Feminism, and Objections to House v. NCAA	2
Communication, Disability, and Sport: The Paradox of Increasing Visibility	2
Super “Soul” Parties: Building Civic Inclusion Through Fandom	2
Northwestern’s Lack of Direction: A Mishandling of Hazing Allegations	2
Skating, Loss, and Solidarity: Examining Media Framing of Post-Tragedy Figure Skating News Coverage	2
“Save Our Spikes”: Social Media Advocacy and Fan Reaction to the End of Minor League Baseball	2
Basketball Without Borders: Comparative Media Analysis of Joel Embiid’s Choice to Represent Team USA at the 2024 Olympic Games	2
On Advancing to Decade Two: Editorial Insights on Submission Congruence, Review Quality, and an Eye Toward the Future	2
Sports Journalism as Both Practice and Industry: New Research and Ideas to Understand Dynamics and Impact	2
Rob Manfred, Gambling, and Rearticulating “Baseball’s Best Interests”	2
A Reasoned Action Approach to Parent-Child Concussion Communication in Youth Sports	2
Exposing a Motherhood Penalty in Sport: A Feminist Narrative Inquiry of Media Stories of Canadian Athlete Mothers’ Journeys to the 2020 Tokyo Games	2
Journalistic Role Performance in Global Sports News: Comparing the Stability and Scope of the “Toy Department” Thesis in 36 Countries	2
How do Fans Respond to Athlete Migration in Social Media? The Cases of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo	2
Alternative Media in Alternative Sport: Platforming Working Conditions in Professional Skateboarding	2
Clark the Savior: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Caitlin Clark’s WNBA Rookie Season	2
Exploring the Dark Side of Esports Online Spectatorship: Passion as a Mediator and Collective Narcissism as a Moderator	2
‘I Would Pretend to be a Dude’: NBA 2K Gamers’ Motivations, Use of WNBA Features, and Experiences With Harassment	2
There is, Indeed, Much Ado About Sport-Based Social Media Research	2
Social Media’s Transformative Impact on Chinese Gen-Z Girls’ Gratifications in Physical Activity	2
Cheating or Fair Competition? A Structuration Analysis of Social Media Responses to Lia Thomas’ NCAA Swimming Championship	2
Kim Mulkey, The Washington Post , and a Stealing Thunder Pseudo-Event During the 2024 NCAA Tournament	2
Did Deadpool Save a City? The Social and Economic Impact of “Welcome to Wrexham”	2
Talking About Concussion and Getting It Right: Towards the Development and Psychometric Properties of a Checklist for Accurate and Responsible Sport-Concussion Commentary	2
Getting the Pay Gap on the Board: Female Athletes’ Demands for ‘Equal Pay’ in German Media Narratives	2
The Beginning of a Reckoning: An Application of Situational Crisis Communication Theory and Image Repair to the National Women’s Soccer League	2
On the “Basketball Africa League”: Framing Analysis of the Broadcast Commentary of an African Professional Basketball League	2
Core and Catalyst Criteria Motivating CrossFit Athletes to Reveal or Conceal Their Non-Visible Health Conditions	2
Beyond Crisis? Institutionalized Mediatization of the Refugee Olympic Team at the 2020 Olympic Games	2