Media-Broadcasted Sports and Signifying Practice of Audience

in High School Baseball Games

Abstract

When we study audiences who watch high school baseball game on TV, It is useful to apply the concept of Verisimilitude.
Steve Neale makes two useful distinctions, helpful in understanding the working of reference in genre. First, he distinguishes between Verisimilitude and realism. Verisimilitude refers not to what may or may not actually be the case but rather to what the dominant culture believes to be the case, what is generally accepted as credible, suitable. Neale distinguishes between Cultural Verisimilitude and Generic Verisimilitude. Whereas Generic Verisimilitude allows for considerable play with fantasy inside the bounds of generic credibility, Cultural Verisimilitude refers us to the norms and common sense of the social world outside the fiction.
Watching a high school baseball game on TV, audiences underlie varying signifying practices. Parents who have sons in high school know that high school baseball is close to Generic Verisimilitude. But, they watch it as Cultural Verisimilitude. High school girls also know that high school baseball is close to Generic Verisimilitude, yet they watch it as Cultural Verisimilitude. On the other hand, a certain type of high school boys watch it as Generic Verisimilitude.