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 2021-11-01 to 2025-11-01.)

Article	Citations
Major League Missteps: How MLB Mishandled the Astros Cheating Scandal	40
Inspirational and Worthy of Charity: (Mis)Representations of Disability in Sport Media	34
“Crypt Keeper That She Is”: Mariah Bell and the Media Framing of Age in the 2022 U.S. National Figure Skating Championships	22
Immortal 38: How the Media Afterlife of Slovak Ice Hockey Legend Pavol Demitra Created a Marble Hero	22
“The Media Answer”: How Athletes Conceptualize Their Relationship to the Press in the Players’ Tribune	21
Media Coverage of Sports Concussion: An Experimental Study of Framing Effects on Community Injury Perceptions	17
Olympics During the Pandemic: Predictors of Olympics Viewing Across Platforms During the Tokyo Games	17
Diving in a Virtual Reality: Investigating Technology Acceptance	17
A Scoping Review of Research on Online Hate and Sport	17
‘Discursive Interpretations of Cultural Symbols in Mega Sporting Events: The Case of Messi’s Bisht at the 2022 World Cup’	17
Understanding Chinese Weibo Users’ Frames of the LGBTQ+ Athletes During the 2024 Olympic Games: A Content Analysis	16
Forgiving the Foul: The Role of Moral Decoupling, Emotions, and Forgiveness in Fan Responses to Sports Crises	15
Task and Social Determinants of Coaches’ Reports of Leader-Member Exchange	15
Loved It, Miss It, Would Never Go Back: Why U.S. Local Television Sports Broadcasters are Leaving the Industry	15
Show HBCU Referee Bias the Red Card: Testing Communication Theory in Division I Women’s College Soccer	14
Golden Girls, National Heroes and Resilient Champions: An Intersectional and Computational Analysis of Social Media Commentary During the 2024 Paralympics	13
“I Used to Love Scheifele:” Dominant Narratives on Reddit About the Canadian Division of the Stanley Cup Playoffs	13
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly – Situational Crisis Communication and the COVID-19 Pandemic Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games	13
Soft Media, Hard Borders: Football, Media Framing, and Ethnonational Tensions in Wartime Israel	13
“Go and Wash up!”: Gender Violence in Female Refereeing and Its Media Coverage in Brazil and Spain	11
Competing Together, Nations Apart: Identity and Nationality at the 2023 World Baseball Classic	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
The Construction of Human Rights Narratives in the 2022 World Cup: A Critical Examination of US and Qatari News Coverage	10
Embrace Methodological Breadth in Communication and Sport Research – A Response to Cummins and Hahn	10
Bridging the Virtual and the Real: The Impact of Metaverse Sports Event Characteristics on Event Marketing Communication Effectiveness	9

Introduction to the Special Issue: Mediating the East Asian Era of the Olympic Games (2018–2022)	9
Azeem Rafiq, an Object or a Subject? “Can the Subaltern Speak?”	9
Middle Aged Men in Lycra and the Performative Irony of Watching Tour de France	9
War and Peace, Freeze and Thaw: Regional Narratives of North Korea and the 2018 Winter Olympics	8
Shifting Time Zones, Shifting Narratives: NBC’s Primetime Broadcast Portrayal of Men and Women Athletes During the 2020 Tokyo and 2022 Beijing Olympic Games	8
Signing Off: An Examination Into Female Journalists Leaving Legacy Media	8
Shifting Sports Gambling Terrain: New Factors Within an Age-Old Activity	8
Feminist Media Scholarship in Communication & Sport : A Response to the 10-Year Review	8
“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	8
A (Meta) Picture is Worth a Thousand “Likes:” An Analysis of Engagement with Sports Network Images on Instagram	7
“You Don’t Want Us to Solve This”: Agenda Setting in the Federal Hearings on Name, Image, and Likeness	7
Media Framings of the Transgender Athlete as “Legitimate Controversy”: The Case of Laurel Hubbard at the Tokyo Olympics	7
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	7
“It Feels Like It’s in Our Back Yard”: Centering “Place” in Local Women’s Sports Media Coverage	7
Decolonial Storyworking and Gender “Misfits”: Transforming Selves, Scholarship, and Systems	7
The Role of Gender in Evaluating Athletes’ Endorsements of Corporate Social Advocacy Initiatives	6
Gender, Sports, and Cultural Barometers: The State of Play in the Year 2022	6
Girl Power and Brand Power: Postfeminist Sensibility in News Coverage of Tokyo’s Girl “Prodigy” Skateboarders	6
Why Do People Collect Sportscards? Fan Motivations for Collecting Miniature Sports Media	6
Questioning Sports Journalists: Stereotypes, Work Routines, and Color-Blind Racism in Sports Press Conferences	6
Role Models or Inferior Participants? Chinese News Portrayals of Gender and Disability in the 2022 Winter Paralympic Games	6
Displaced and Diminished: How the Placemaking Value of “Being there” Influences Play-By-Play Broadcasters’ Professional Identity	6
A Smarter and Greener Olympics: Mediatization and Public Reception in the Preparation Stage of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics	5
Auditory Cuteness in Sports Podcasting: A New Lookism?	5
In the Wake of a ‘Racial Reckoning’: Resistance… or Persistence in Sporting Representations?	5
The Local Perspective: Regional Television Framing of Name, Image, and Likeness	5
Monsters and the Sports They Play: Squaring the Circle of Fan Allegiance and Cognitive Dissonance	5
(Re)Coding the “Black Quarterback”: A 20-Year Critical Quantitative Analysis of Racial Stacking and the Mediated Dichotomy Between “Pro-Style” and “Dual-Threat”	5
Revisiting the Relationship Between Sports Fandom and the Black Criminal Stereotype: A Replication and Extension Study	5
Mediatized Engagements with Technologies: “Reviewing” the Video Assistant Referee at the 2018 World Cup	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 View From the Boundary: How County Cricket is Covered Amid the Digital Mediatization of Sport	5
Towards Normalization of Women’s Football in Spanish Sports Journalism: Analysis of 2021 UEFA Women’s Champions League Final Broadcasts	5
Finding Teammates on a Messy Playing Field: Continued Thoughts on 10 Years of Theory & Method in Communication & Sport	5
The Olympic Games and Judo Diplomacy: An Exploratory Discussion on Country Image in Tokyo 2020	4
“I’m Worried They Will Come Back to Haunt Me”: Examining How Retired National Football League Players Make Sense of Concussion Risks	4
“It’s Your Whole Life:” Navigating Identity and Mental Health in Life after Sports	4
Between Hype and Reality: The Promises and Pitfalls of Predicting Sports Media Technological Innovation	4
It’s Okay to be Not Okay: An Analysis of Twitter Responses to Naomi Osaka’s Withdrawal due to Mental Health Concerns	4
Fear of Missing Out: An Antecedent of Online Fan Engagement of Sport Teams’ Social Media	4
Telecasting Tokyo to a Locked Down Nation: Australian Broadcast Coverage of the 2020 Olympic Summer Games	4
Mediatization and Doping: Investigating the Interplay in News Framing of Rider/Doping Suspicion During the Tour de France	4
On Creating a Place, Space and Time for the Trans Athlete	4
Visions of Maradona: A Liar, a Cheat, Un Cocaïnomane, Un Dealer. UK and France Regarding a Latin American Player	4
Media Framing of the International Paralympic Committee’s WeThe15 Disability Inclusion Campaign During Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022: A Comparative Analysis	4
Friends or Foes: Predicting Chinese Basketball Viewers’ Attitudes Toward Naturalized Athletes	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
The There that is There and the There that is Not: Reflections on Taking Stock of Communication & Sport as a Disciplinary Project	4
“I Feel Qatari Today […] I Feel Disabled Today, […] I Feel Like a Migrant Worker Today…”: On Sport, Leadership, and Moral Legitimacy	4

Enhancing Our (Global) Understanding: Reflections on the Need for Reaching Beyond Boundaries	4
Individuals’ Motivations and Engagement With Paralympic Content on Social Media: A Longitudinal Analysis Across Six Summer and Winter Games	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
“Putting His Off-Field Issues Aside…”: Exploring Online Sport Fan Community Response to Allegations Against Deshaun Watson	4
Sports Identification in Situational Problem-Solving: A Framework for Understanding Fans’ Communicative Behaviors in Sports Crises	4
A Fracturing Profession on Shifting Terrain: Challenges and Directions for Sports Journalism	4
Competing as the First Out Transgender Female Olympian: A Twitter Network Analysis of Laurel Hubbard During the 2020 Tokyo Games	4
Representatives, Reflection, Roles, and Responsibilities: The Metajournalistic Discourse on the Press Boycott of Naomi Osaka	3
A Magic “Bullet”: Exploring Sport Fan Usage of On-Screen, Ephemeral Posts During Live Stream Sessions	3
This Means More: Branded Solidarity at Liverpool’s Soccer Clubs	3
“Perjurers, Rapists, and Zealots are Ending Abortion”: Sports Journalists’ Symbolic Annihilation of Women Athletes on Social Media During the National Loss of Abortion Rights	3
Collegiate Student-Athletes as Health Advocates: The Role of Issue and Source Involvement in Students’ Information Processing about Binge Drinking	3
Exclusion in the Name of Dissuasion: Framing Moral Panic, Disposable Gamers, and Esport Regulation in China	3
Motherhood in the Olympic Context: An Analysis of News Published on the Most Accessed Sports Websites in Brazil and Spain	3
Is It a Private Issue? Exploring Chinese Fans’ Perceptions of Manchester City’s Crisis Response to the Kyle Walker Sexual Harassment	3
“A Beautiful Experience”: The Cultural Transitions of Latin American Minor League Baseball (MiLB) Players	3
Media Framing of Women’s Football During the COVID-19 Pandemic	3
Embracing Computational Approaches to Social Media Research: Implications for Theory and Praxis in Sport Communication	3
Carrying Two Flags? How Social Media Users Perceive the Identity Negotiation Process of Third Culture Athletes	3
Racing With a Purpose: Sustainability in Formula E	3
“Posting More than Just a Black Square”: National Collegiate Athletic Association Student-Athletes’ Perceptions of the Athletic Department’s Role in Social Media, Racial Justice, and the Black Lives M	3
#Selfies With a Mask On: Comparing Self-Presentation of Athletes From the U.S. and China in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics	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
“A Pillar of all HBCUs”: Deion Sanders, Aspirational Prophecy, and the Divine Promise of Jackson State University Football	3
1,001 Manuscript Data Points: The State of Communication & Sport in 2025	3
Sports Media Research in the Slovenian Context: Mapping Trends and Suggestions for the Future	3
Politics for Losers: The Rhetoric of Sports Tanking as a Practice of Liberal Citizenship	3
‘Your Strength Is Inspirational’: How Naomi Osaka’s Twitter Announcement Destigmatizes Mental Health Disclosures	3
Systematic Sexism: Women’s Sports News in a Circle of Gatekeepers and Users on Twitter	3
Online Engagement in the Sports Industry: Leagues, Athletes, and Sponsoring Brands	3
“If Those Stats Make You Mad, Then You’ve Come to the Right Place”: Theorizing a Women’s Sports Media Counterpublic	3
Examining Sports Media Credibility, Bias, Political Identification, and Fandom Using a Repeated Cross-Sectional Survey	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
Playoff Losses, Mayoral Politics, Image Repair, and Inoculation: Open Letter Sport Communication	2
Super “Soul” Parties: Building Civic Inclusion Through Fandom	2
Depersonalized Harmony and Sustained Belonging: Shaping Online Collective Identities in a University Sports Team	2
Communication, Disability, and Sport: The Paradox of Increasing Visibility	2
Cheating or Fair Competition? A Structuration Analysis of Social Media Responses to Lia Thomas’ NCAA Swimming Championship	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
Alternative Media in Alternative Sport: Platforming Working Conditions in Professional Skateboarding	2
Getting the Pay Gap on the Board: Female Athletes’ Demands for ‘Equal Pay’ in German Media Narratives	2
Sports Journalism as Both Practice and Industry: New Research and Ideas to Understand Dynamics and Impact	2
Reclaim Pride and Dignity within Neoliberal and Olympic Ideals: An Analysis of Olympic Refugee Athletes' Self-Presentation on Instagram	2
A Reasoned Action Approach to Parent-Child Concussion Communication in Youth Sports	2
Celebrating a Decade of Intellectual Development—and a Vision for the Future of Communication and Sport	2
Beyond Crisis? Institutionalized Mediatization of the Refugee Olympic Team at the 2020 Olympic Games	2
Core and Catalyst Criteria Motivating CrossFit Athletes to Reveal or Conceal Their Non-Visible Health Conditions	2
The Beginning of a Reckoning: An Application of Situational Crisis Communication Theory and Image Repair to the National Women’s Soccer League	2
“Save Our Spikes”: Social Media Advocacy and Fan Reaction to the End of Minor League Baseball	2
On Advancing to Decade Two: Editorial Insights on Submission Congruence, Review Quality, and an Eye Toward the Future	2
Informing Future Paralympic Media Approaches: The Perspective of Canadian Paralympic Athletes	2
Stay Woke: An Analysis of How Referees Evaluate the In-Game Communication of a Historically Black College and University that Competes in a Predominantly White Institution Conference	2
Kim Mulkey, The Washington Post , and a Stealing Thunder Pseudo-Event During the 2024 NCAA Tournament	2
A Public Service? Mediatization of the Olympic Games in Croatia and Slovenia	2
On the “Basketball Africa League”: Framing Analysis of the Broadcast Commentary of an African Professional Basketball League	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
Northwestern’s Lack of Direction: A Mishandling of Hazing Allegations	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