Mass Media Portrayal of Extreme Sports

[airborne31582 0]

I have to do a paper in my Mass Media Research class, I decided to study the ways the extreme sports (esp. skydiving, base jumping, surfing, mountaineering and snowboarding) are portrayed in the media, is there anyone out there who would like to put their two cents in? Now is the time to bitch!!

Chris
I thought of the odds of me succeeding, versus the odds I was doing something incredibly stupid, and I went ahead anyway.

[Rdutch 0]

Umm Real Tv makes skydivers look like intelligent, safe, super experienced hero's!

NOT!

Ray
Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

[Schroeder 0]

Well, Since there will be a few skydiving posts, I'll put in my 2 cents about streetluging. I streetluge, and have been for about 6 or 7 years now. Whenever I mention it to someone, I get the wow, you must be crazy look/comment. I think that just to satify the people's desire for recklessness, 'extreme' sports are portrayed in a light which omits the immense training and technical knowledge the vast majority of it's participants hold. It's discouraging from a conversational stand point, because just like in skydiving, you spend all your time answering the same 20 questions.

And another thing; I ski alot, in ways/places that may be considered 'extreme', but when I go out and drop a new line, or throw down a rodeo540, it's not like I just learned how to ski last week. It takes _alot_ of practice to do this stuff well (and safely). nothing is 100% safe, but it's important to limit yourself to the things you can surely do without allowing your safetly level to fall to an eye-brow raising level.
I guess the 'reckless' portrayal is what gets me the most, although it's understandable that that angle is used to get viewers.

If I ventured in the slipstream; Between the via-ducts of your dreams.......could you find me?

[Push 0]

Just watch any hollywood movie with a jumper. The hero usually picks up a brand-spanking new Odyssey that just happens to be lying around a cropduster Cessna. He/she then proceeds to jump, pull (if we're lucky), and a tiny elliptical opens over his/her head. Then the hero lands it on a moving target, like a truck or a boat.

These movies usually kind of imply that that person had some sort of training, but it is heavily deemphasized. It looks like he just grabbed a rig and jumped.

Some ideas are Charlies Angels and The Transporter.

-- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo
Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

[scottbre 0]

Yep, I saw a totally routine crew tangle and cutaway on RealTV. No big deal if your a crew dog but they sure tried to make it sound exciting. "Crisis at 10000 feet" I'm sitting there thinking there is nothing to be worried about if they are at 10k when it happened. Hehe.

"Your mother's full of stupidjuice!"
My Art Project

[quade 4]

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I'm sitting there thinking there is nothing to be worried about if they are at 10k when it happened.

That's not -always- true.

I saw some -spectacular- footage of a CRW problem the other night that happened very high at Rantoul this last year. I think the issue started at about 11k or so and it was very dicey to a very, very low altitude because one person was tangled so badly he simply couldn't get all the lines and crap off of him. He eventualy landed in a head down attitude with a foot still trapped in lines above him.

So, anyway, "crisis at 10,000 feet" definately would have applied in this case.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Zenister 0]

you should note that in most cases "extreme sport" is defined by what can be marketed to the younger generation as 'cool'.

snowboarding, skateboarding and its varients are 'extreme' because companies can sell knock-offs in kmart to 12 year olds who wanna be Tony Hawk. this applies to the large majority of 'extreme sports' of which skydiving and skysurfing (one of the original marketing Extremes) are no longer listed or even really shown other than brief glimpses (or when something goes wrong) in the mass media.

Media is marketing. if you cant sell it (or the life style associated with it) it doesnt exist. Thus the reason why i know former and current national champions that live in trailers and eat mac&cheese (or have get real jobs to support their 'hobby') while mediocre 16 year olds are given 80K and full sponsorships in the snowboarding industry

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[PhillyKev 0]

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Thus the reason why i know former and current national champions that live in trailers and eat mac&cheese (or have get real jobs to support their 'hobby') while mediocre 16 year olds are given 80K and full sponsorships in the snowboarding industry

On the plus side, there are plenty of opportunities for us lowly, average, weekend jumpers to get on loads with with those former and national champions. Don't see myself hitting LOVE park with Tony Hawk any time soon. (not that you can skate there anymore anyway)

[Luna 0]

As an example of what Real TV does for us, I had a co-worker ask me today if you cutaway and pulled reserve at 300 feet, would it open. He said he asked because he saw footage on Real TV of a first jumper who did just that because he was heading for some trees. And he said that they made it sound like he had reserve problems as well. I think he thought it was faked or something, because he didn't believe it would open that quickly. Well, I guess some whuffos have a little bit of sense, no thanks to Real TV!

I'm walking a marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Click Here for more information!

[Rdutch 0]

Funny I saw that episode and met the guy. He made a funny comment after when they asked him what happened he said "Black people shouldnt skydive". Oh yeah he was black. I met him in Deland about 6 months ago and he had over 200 jumps so I guess he proved himself wrong. I think it all happened in Zhills, but Im not sure.

Ray
Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

[billvon 2,989]

>I decided to study the ways the extreme sports (esp. skydiving, base
> jumping, surfing, mountaineering and snowboarding) are portrayed
> in the media,

Well, first you better define extreme sports. It used to mean very close to being impossible at all; BASE jumping certainly fell into this category, at least at first. Nowadays it means 'cool.' There are extreme skis, extreme amusement park rides, even extreme sports drinks. The original meaning has been lost.

If I were you I might do a paper on how the meaning of extreme has changed over the years, as driven by the media, the desire to sell stuff and the desire for spectator/participants to be seen as cool.

[blewaway5 0]

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Nowadays it means 'cool.' There are extreme skis, extreme amusement park rides, even extreme sports drinks. The original meaning has been lost.

I was gonna try to get this same point across until I saw you'd already written it. Thanks for saving me some thought processing time

Truman Sparks for President

[SpeedRacer 1]

I think an "Extreme Sport" is one where you are seen drinking a brightly-colored sports drink.

Speed Racer
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[Snowwhite 0]

I am the Public Relations Director for the WFFC. What I have seen in the media is extreme stupidity. For the most part, they are only focused on the danger of the sport, and they really don't want to even THINK of the possibility of the sport being something that intelligent, educated, employed people would consider doing. The last year that the convention was in Quincy, we made a conscious effort to eliminate the media from wandering inside tent city, because they were MAKING their own stories. Guess nothing gruesome enough was happening for the local media. They talked the ambulance drivers and a couple of skydivers into doing a mock emergency. What a stupid ploy. Can you imagine the locals sitting at dinner watching the tv on mute? 'hey Martha Look! Somebody went in at the WFFC today" by the time it has been through the coffee shop and the water cooler discussion, the locals are convinced we'd had a dozen fatalities, when there hadn't even been a broken bone. NO WONDER SO MANY PEOPLE HAVE A LOW OPINION OF THE SPORT. If you come to the WFFC this year, and you have an UPBEAT INTERESTING story that you think would make a great piece, look me up. I try to keep the media focused on all of the positive sides of the sport. Types of skydiving, Formations, Comraderie, training, skill, athleticism, family dynamics, diversity of people, distances travelled, number of conventions attended, etc. Last year at one point during the convention we had four different news outlets on site at the same time, trying to glean gruesome stories from people. Every one of them asked if we were going to close the convention because of the death the first night. My answer was, 'they didn't shut down Nascar racing when Dale Earnhardt went in, and he was one of a couple of dozen competitors. Here we have thousands of athletes, and they don't expect us to shut down the convention either." Each one of the press acted like "Man, I never THOUGHT of THAT!" I passed them from one group of skydivers to the next, and we kept the information HONEST, OPEN, and UPBEAT. Let me know if you want to be a part of the troops. It's lots of fun!

skydiveTaylorville.org
freefallbeth@yahoo.com