The Collegiate Marching Band Experience: An Analysis of Marching Bands in the Media's Public Portrayal of Marching Bands
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Date
2016-06
Authors
Giardina, Hannah
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
In recent years, due to several significant events, the coverage of collegiate
marching bands in the news has became more relevant. Collegiate marching bands are
generally characterized by their sound, performances, and appearances at collegiate
level football games. Most bands perform a concert set before entering the stadium, a
pregame performance. halftime show, and songs throughout the football game.
Marching bands are also historic student groups at universities that carry many
traditions in membership and performance.
Collegiate marching bands are groups that perform publicly on an almost
weekly basis during the fall football season. As they are such a public entity. they also
receive media attention. Newspapers at the collegiate level, local level, and national
level run stories on these bands throughout the year, with most stories being published
in the fall months. Why newspapers feature the band varies depending on the story, but
the titles of those interviewed for the stories has little variation. These stories also show
the positive and negative attributes and aspects of collegiate marching bands. This
thesis seeks to analyze three specific collegiate marching band events to see how they were framed by local and national newspapers. The events are the firing of The Ohio
State Marching Band director, the performance of the South Carolina alma mater and
fight song by the Louisiana State University Marching Band, and the Kansas State
Marching Band’s Jayhawk field formation incident.
In examining the three events, it was found that the framing of collegiate
marching bands primarily featured the collegiate marching band director and a
university administrator or representative. These articles however, rarely include the
voice of the marching band member. It was found that local news articles frame the
events with more detail and community connections, while the national articles focus on
the facts and released statements. The language used amongst the articles was similar in
nature.
Description
74 pages. A thesis presented to the Department of Journalism and Communication and the Clark Honors College of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Bachelor of Science, Spring 2016.
Keywords
Marching band, Journalism, Media framing, College band, Framing theory, Marching band history, Band media anlysis