Clay vs. Ali: Distant Reading, Methodology, and Sport History
| Autor: | Murray G. Phillips, Stephen Townsend, Gary Osmond |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: |
Cultural Studies
Value (ethics) History media_common.quotation_subject 05 social sciences Birth name Media studies 050801 communication & media studies Islam 06 humanities and the arts General Medicine Muhammad-Ali Newspaper 060104 history 0508 media and communications Reading (process) 0601 history and archaeology Period (music) media_common |
| Zdroj: | Journal of Sport History. 46:380-395 |
| ISSN: | 2155-8450 0094-1700 |
| DOI: | 10.5406/jsporthistory.46.3.0380 |
| Popis: | Muhammad Ali’s name is one of the most significant yet understudied aspects of the great boxer’s extraordinary life. Throughout his career, journalists used Ali’s birth name (Cassius Clay) and his Islamic name (Muhammad Ali) to transmit their attitudes toward him. This study interrogates trends in newspaper usage of Ali’s two names during the 1960s and 1970s as a way to understand changing public attitudes toward him during this period. It does so via a distant reading of 37,911 digitized newspaper articles obtained from ProQuest Historical Newspapers. By quantitatively visualizing trends and patterns in the usage of the two names, this study reveals that American journalists did not embrace Ali’s chosen name until 1971. Acceptance of the name in the press was not gradual but was instead characterized by intense shifts at key points in Ali’s career. Finally, this paper addresses the value of digital history—specifically, distant reading—for sport history scholars. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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