Emerging Sports as Social Movements: Disc Golf and the Rise of an Unknown Sport [Paperback]

This volume examines the rise of an emerging sport as a grassroots effort (or new social movement), arguing that the growth of non-normative sports movements occurs through two social processes: one driven primarily by product development, commercialization, and consumption, and another that relies upon public resources and grassroots efforts. Through the lens of disc golf, informed by the authors experience both playing and researching the sport, Joshua Woods here explores how non-normative sports development depends on the consistency of insider culture and ideology, as well as on how the movement navigates a broad field of market competition, government regulation, community characteristics, public opinion, traditional media, social media and technological change. Throughout, the author probes why some sports grow faster than others, examining cultural tendencies toward sport, individual choices to participate, and the various institutional forces at play.

Introduction.-  Chapter 1: The Disc Golf Movement.- Chapter 2: The Professional Disc Golf Association Pushes for Legitimacy through Competition.- Chapter 3: The Mixed Bag of Disc Golf Culture: Disc Golf as Lifestyle.- Chapter 4: The Framing of Disc Golf in News Media.- Chapter 5: The Associations Between Traditional and Social Media and the Growth of Disc Golf.- Chapter 6: Neglect, Trivialization and Stigmatization: The Framing of Disc Golf in Popular Films and Television.- Chapter 7: Disparities in Disc Golf Course Distribution in the United States.- Chapter 8: Disc Golfer Demographics.- Conclusion.

Joshua Woods is Professor of Sociology at West Virginia University, USA.