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Popular Culture Review
regular time, creating discrete scheduling of time together, and the host and
producers manage the creation of narratives over the time period. Rome will
generally lay out the schedule of events—when there will be an open phone time
for listeners to call in, when certain guests are scheduled to appear—throughout
the show. The show closes with the “huge call of the day,” with the replay of the
call that Rome and his staff have deemed most notable, and the traditional
“bumper” music that closes out the show. There are also the boundaries that are
associated with the sporting events that are covered. As listeners follow and
await major events, there is considerable discussion with the anticipation of the
event, in addition to the actual coverage and wrap-up after the event.
The concept of the shared valent event hypothesis—^that the more the
members assign importance to their shared events, the stronger the bond is likely
to be—illustrates precisely how sports talk radio is designed. Although critics
might argue that spectator sports are a meaningless distraction, unimportant in
the larger scope of political and social life; popular culture clearly argues in
support of the role sports play in conveying cultural values, and the many
bridging and bonding possibilities have already been discussed (Putnam, 2000).
Yet even without awareness of these contributions, sport’s importance as a
cultural phenomenon is continually reinforced and heightened by the media. The
media creates hype around athletic events such that this coverage often
dominates the social landscape and hence, importance becomes attached to these
events. Sports talk radio will spend weeks, sometimes months, building to a
major event and dedicating entire shows to the analysis of a single game.
Rome’s use of language—“epic” calls and listener “legends”—also begins the
sense of the mythological proportions of the narrative (Reffue, 2006).
Additionally, there are issues that arise on or around the playing field which
become topics of greater social significance, and The Jim Rome Show has not
shied from covering these issues. Concerns around spousal abuse,
discrimination, and illegal substances have all populated the world of sport in
recent years, and it is not difficult to assign importance to these topics. However,
in addition to covering these, at times, controversial subjects. The Jim Rome
Show takes the shared valent event theory to another level by generating a sense
of importance about the show itself As Rome often states, the biggest topic on
the show is the show. Rome and the callers often refer to the “karma” of the
show, whereby athletes who give interviews on the show before a big game are
rewarded with a win. The various callers/characters are promoted as part of the
lore of the show, and the significance of their contributions culminates in the
annual “smack-off.” This competition heightens the sense of magnitude
attributed to the show, as callers are screened in weeks beforehand, attempting
to gain entry into this exclusive field. The “smack-off’ is regularly lauded by
Rome and other listeners as the most anticipated event of the year.
As already discussed, investment refers to the idea that the level to which
one invests in the group—in terms of time, energy, or even emotional
investment and risk—^will increase the sense of community. Even the casual