Journal articles on the topic 'Apparel sponsorship'

Gaining exclusive sponsorship rights to international football club apparel has become increasingly competitive, resulting in larger deal values. The first objective of this study was to analyze the effect of kit sponsorship announcements on the underlying value of sponsoring firms. Utilizing event study analysis, we found that firms announcing kit sponsorships experience negative abnormal returns. This finding may not be surprising given the fierce competition for obtaining valuable, scarce marketing space and the well-known winner’s curse. The second objective was to shed further light on the value of kit sponsorship deals by conducting a novel test in which we analyzed a subset of sample observations where the kit sponsorship changed to a new sponsor. We found that firms may be willing to overpay for sponsorships to pre-empt their direct competitors from obtaining valuable, scarce marketing space. Firms losing a pre-existing sponsorship to a direct competitor experience large negative abnormal returns.

Purpose – Due in large part to the proprietary nature of costs, there is a dearth of academic literature investigating the factors influencing the costs for sport marketing investments, such as sponsorship. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to provide an analytical framework for market intelligence that enables managers to better predict and forecast costs in today’s ever-changing sport marketing environment. Design/methodology/approach – Given the dynamic and ultra-competitive nature of the athletic apparel industry, this context was chosen to investigate the influence of four distinct factors on sponsorship costs, including property-specific factors, on-field performance, and market-specific factors. A systematic, hierarchical procedure was utilized in the development of a predictive empirical model, which was then utilized to generate predicted values on a per property basis. Findings – Results demonstrated that both property-specific and performance-related factors were significant predictors of costs, while variables reflecting the attractiveness of the property’s home market were non-significant. Further analysis revealed the potential for agency conflicts in the allocation of resources toward properties near the corporate headquarters of sponsors, as well as evidence of overspending by challenger brands (Adidas, Under Armour) in their quest to topple industry leader Nike. Originality/value – Though the context of apparel sponsorships of US-based intercollegiate athletic programs limits the generalizability of the results, this study represents one of the few in the literature to empirically investigate the determinants of sponsorship costs, providing much-needed guidance to aid decision making in a highly volatile, unpredictable industry.

This paper examines corporate sponsorship as an additional source of funding for college recreational facilities and programs. The purpose of the study was to: (a) examine current sources of funding for campus recreation, (b) estimate the percentage of institutions currently involved with corporate sponsorship in their campus recreation programs, (c) identify the types of businesses sponsoring campus recreation centers as well as what these companies receive in return for their sponsorship, and (d) identify the reasons various institutions give for their lack of involvement with sponsorship. Questionnaires were mailed to campus recreation directors at 140 randomly selected universities representing four regions of the United States. Results indicated that primary sources of funding for campus recreation programs currently include student fees (63.5 percent), private donations (23.5 percent), and state funding (13 percent). The use of corporate sponsorship to supplement funding was indicated by 46 percent of responding institutions. The most common types of businesses currently sponsoring campus recreation programs included athletic equipment/apparel, soft drink, insurance companies and restaurants. Slightly over half of the companies identified in the sponsorships were national chain corporations, while almost 40 percent were local businesses. In regard to what sponsoring companies received in exchange, results of the study indicated that use of company names in recreation center literature was most common. In addition, 20 percent of respondents reported that sponsoring corporations were given advertising space on the recreation center website. The two primary reasons given by campus recreation directors for lack of involvement with sponsorship were: (a) institutional policy prohibiting sponsorship involvement, and (b) uncertainty of how to pursue sponsorships. There are several implications of the study for campus recreation directors. These include the following: 1. Corporate sponsorship represents a significant opportunity for obtaining additional funding for campus recreation. 2. Knowing the types of companies currently involved in campus recreation sponsorship provide a starting place for those recreation directors who are exploring sponsorship as a source of funding. 3. Recreation center directors should closely examine what sponsors are currently receiving, or will receive in exchange, so that the sponsorship is not perceived as purely philanthropic.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of brand associations and the formation of attitudes towards a new sponsor. Specifically, the paper evaluates the Under Armour brand and its anomalous position in the Barclay’s Premier League. Design/methodology/approach – The research design is longitudinal, qualitative and interpretivistic, utilising 26 online focus groups with 213 participants over a 24-month period encompassing the 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 Premier League seasons. Findings – The results indicate that Under Armour’s lack of football (soccer) presence in the context of the Premier League offered significant differentiation, as it diminished “common ground” with other fans, offered the opportunity to create personal identities beyond the club and the consumption of kit apparel, and was seen as positive given the articulation that brands such as Nike and Adidas were “forced” onto fans. Additionally, for the first time in the sports sponsorship literature, the findings reveal fans engaging with brands in a utilitarian manner, expressing concerns relating to cost, durability, functionality and value for money. Research limitations/implications – This study is exploratory in nature and highly contextualised, and a larger-scale study of the phenomenon is desirable. This study extends the literature on fans’ perceptions of sponsoring brands and shows that a new sponsor, without prior league or club associations, can generate significant brand interest and elicit consumption behaviours beyond team apparel. Practical implications – The findings suggest that there are considerable opportunities for “outside” brands to garner a market share and instigate loyalty through sponsorship. Subsequently, kit manufacturers should consider strategies that encompass entry into new sporting areas. Originality/value – The study reveals that fans seek uniqueness and differentiation in a sponsoring brand, with brand image paramount in relation to the club and to both social and personal identity.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the post type of the official account of the Korean fashion brands on Instagram and to analyze the images and keywords according to the use of the hashtag in it. This study also will provide data of how fashion brands use the new media of Instagram and how they promote it. Design/methodology/approach This study investigated the types of postings and keywords of hashtag(#) of fashion brand’s official Instagram account in order to analyze the post type and keyword. In total, six apparel brand companies were selected, with two in each of three categories (classic casual brand, outdoor sports brand and designer character brand), and seven types of postings were classified (lookbook and product, collection, broadcasting ads, brand issue, sensibility pictures, sponsorship and event). The frequencies were collected according to their types that were confirmed by four fashion major specialists. Findings First, the proportion of the types of postings varied according to the characteristics of the brand. Second, the six brands used keywords of a symbol because it is important to convey brand identity. Third, the sensibility keywords of each brand were investigated, and one of the designer character brands used only practical keywords without sensibility keywords. Fourth, this study examined the number of Instagram hashtags and hearts to determine if the reaction was in alignment with the marketing trends of the company’s official Instagram account and consumers. One of the classic casual brands, one of the outdoor sports brands and both designer character brands showed a high proportion of types of posts on Instagram that well matched with consumer response. As a hypothesis of this study, it was supported that the posting types of images and hashtags will be different according to the characteristics of brand. Originality/value Instagram is the fastest growing social network service (SNS) globally, especially among young adults. Instagram is noted for its strong SNS marketing but it has not been well researched in the apparel industry. The study results will help improve the brand image and promotion by using official Instagram account in the apparel industry.

Scholars have frequently examined sponsorship effectiveness via survey instrument; however, no efforts have been made to gauge sponsorship effectiveness via social networking sites. As a medium for consumer activity and interaction, scholars and industry professionals can leverage social media to monitor the effects of sponsorship in real time, as consumers experience a sporting event. In this exploratory study, we employed a mixed methods study design to examine Twitter users’ discussion of 2013 French Open sponsors during the tennis tournament. We found a weak positive relationship between sponsor-event functional fit and positive sponsor-related sentiment, and a weak positive relationship between a sponsor company’s social media presence and event-related buzz. Through case study analysis, we discovered unintended misrepresentation and activation were apparent drivers of sponsor-related social media conversation during the 2013 French Open. As an emerging area for sponsorship research, we provide suggestions for future research into sponsorship and social media.

Purpose This paper aims to provide a systematic review of evaluations of public health and social marketing campaigns reporting the use of sports sponsorship. Sports sponsorship is a key health promotion strategy, yet academic literature on the use of sponsorship in social marketing and public health is surprisingly limited. Design/methodology/approach Seventeen studies were identified following systematic literature review procedures. Findings Coupling of social marketing and public health sponsorship with changes in policies in sporting clubs and associations offers an effective means to achieve desired outcomes, e.g. behaviour change. Research limitations/implications The analysis presented in this review included information that was reported in the identified studies, which might be an incomplete representation of work undertaken but not reported. All of the studies identified in this review were conducted in English-speaking countries. Considerable opportunity for future research is apparent, and areas for future research are outlined. Practical implications Limited evidence was available, and additional research examining the effectiveness of sponsorship in attaining behavioural change is urgently needed. Future studies should assess the role, scope of involvement in, aims and benefits of non-government sponsors of public health and social marketing campaigns; use methods that do not rely on self-reporting, such as observations; and explore the influence of health sponsorship on attitudes, social norms and behaviours. Originality/value This is the first study to provide a systematic review of the use of sports sponsorship in public health and social marketing.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is show how sponsors in a major sponsored event may react when facing a potential doping affair. The Tour de France cycling competition is a premier global sporting event – broadcast worldwide – and thus attracts very significant sponsorship. Cycling teams are named after their team sponsors. Recent global news has, however, shown that there are doping scandals involved in this event which impact both teams and team sponsors. When a doping scandal occurs in a team, the sponsors have to react rapidly and expeditiously to protect their brand reputation. Design/methodology/approach – To ascertain potential reactions, team sponsors are interviewed in depth and their reactions to a doping affair assessed. The sponsors represent different brands and their commitment as team sponsors also varies. Findings – Research shows that sponsors react similarly when a doping scandal occurs in their team and adopt similar communication strategies in that situation. While best practice is apparent, doping policies put into place by sponsors nevertheless differ. These practices are more than just preventative in nature, i.e. they anticipate and try to prevent doping affairs. Practical implications – The teams and sponsors are engaged in a long-term relationship to build brand heritage. Undoubtedly, doping is taken very seriously, as consequences can be severe. In this sense, the sport, the teams and the sponsors share the same vision and objectives. Originality/value – Team sponsors reactions while facing a potential doping affair have not yet been assessed. Best practices become visible which might serve as guidelines in other global sporting events, also generating significant sponsorships.

This paper addresses the phenomenon of globalization, which has also spread to sports, in terms of its economic, social and cultural aspects; while discussing the concept based on examples from the discipline of football in the premier league of Turkey. In this framework, sports labor emigration mobility is handled, and sponsorship and the effects of globalization in Turkey’s sport is examined in terms of relationships between media and sports. The paper also provides concrete examples from the national and international sports circles by framing the fields where globalization becomes apparent in sports. In this framework, this article addresses the sport labor migration, and studies the effect of globalization in Turkish sports within the relations among sponsorship, media and sports.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore consumer attitudes towards ambush marketing and official event sponsorship through the lens of sentiment analysis, and to examine social media users' ethical responses to digital event marketing campaigns during the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Design/methodology/approach The study employed a sentiment analysis, examining Twitter users’ utilization of sponsor and non-sponsor promotional hashtags. Statistical modelling programme R was used to access Twitter’s API, enabling the analysis and coding of user tweets pertaining to six marketing campaigns. The valence of each tweet – as well as the apparent user motivation underlying each post – was assessed, providing insight into Twitter users’ ethical impressions of sponsor and ambush marketer activities on social media and online engagement with social media marketing. Findings The study’s findings indicate that consumer attitudes towards ambush marketing may be significantly more positive than previously thought. Users’ attitudes towards ambush marketing appear significantly more positive than previously assumed, as users of social media emerged as highly responsive to creative and value-added non-sponsor campaigns. Originality/value The findings affirm that sentiment analysis may afford scholars and practitioners a viable means of assessing consumer attitudes towards social marketing activations, dependent upon campaign objectives and strategy. The study provides a new and invaluable context to consumer affect and ambush ethics research, advancing sponsorship and ambush marketing delivery and social sponsorship analytical practice.

The progressive movement of the Catholic Church that flourished after the Second Vatican Council (1962–5) continues to exert a strong influence on Latin American politics and society. Moreover, we can now observe this movement’s influence in new areas: no longer apparent only in a strictly ecclesiastical sphere, its influence can now be felt within the ambit of civil society. This article analyzes and explains the evolution of ‘the church of the poor’ in Oaxaca from its sponsorship by the Catholic hierarchy starting in the early 1960s through its transformation into civil society organizations beginning in the 1990s.

This paper examines the nature of authenticity labour in personal lifestyle blogging through a case study of travel bloggers. Specifically, it looks at how participants in the blogging anti-fan community Get Off My Internets (GOMI) identify and deconstruct lifestyle bloggers’ efforts to perform an ‘authentic’ persona. Within the broader context of online micro-celebrity, self-branding, and persona, I examine authenticity as a kind of labour that is necessary for lifestyle blogging ‘success,’ where success is measured by metrics like heavy website traffic and brand sponsorships. Lifestyle bloggers perform authenticity partly by narrating the process of cultivating personal authenticity through the ongoing process of selfimprovement towards an idealized goal. This personal authenticity is based on existentialist notions of ‘being true’ to one’s essential nature and personal commitments. In the GOMI community, bloggers’ representations of the inner life are frequently viewed with suspicion, and interpreted as ‘staged,’ and therefore inauthentic, performances of authenticity. Bloggers are also expected to demonstrate a commitment to ethical authenticity, and, subsequently, attempts to monetize their content through sponsorships and affiliate links are viewed with suspicion. Lastly, authenticity work in lifestyle blogging involves emphasizing one’s ordinariness alongside one’s extraordinariness, resulting in what I call ‘aspirational extra/ordinariness.’ By observing trends in how travel bloggers perform authenticity and how anti-fans deconstruct these performances, it becomes apparent that critical publics identify inauthenticity in moments where the constructedness or performedness of authenticity is most apparent, indicating that while micro-celebrities rely on authenticity labour for their popularity, this very labour can detract from a persona’s perceived authenticity when it becomes obvious to publics.

The idea of forming a new scholarly association has been generated in the lonely study of scholars hungry for supportive contact, in the interaction of kindred seekers in convention bars or bull sessions, and no doubt, in many other kinds of circumstances. The Social Science History Association began as an exercise in transmogrification, and although, in retrospect, its origin may appear to have been an act of secession, it was not intended as such. Institutional manifestation of what came to be called the “New Political History” was apparent as early as 1957 when a small group of historians interested in the political history of the American early national period met at Rutgers under the sponsorship of the Social Science Research Council to discuss the methodology of political history. The draft report of that conference, prepared by Richard P. McCormick (1957), rather accurately forecast significant developments during the next decade.

Abstract Abstract 1632 GMI-1070 is a pan-selectin inhibitor that targets E-, P-, and L-selectins and has shown activity in multiple animal models of disease. Sickle cell disease (SCD) is characterized by periodic vaso-occlusive (VOC) episodes in which cell adhesion and aggregation play a crucial role. GMI-1070 has previously been shown to restore blood flow and improve survival in a mouse model of VOC, and safety and PK have been evaluated in normal, healthy volunteers in phase 1. Here we report clinical, safety, and PK results from the first study of GMI-1070 in individuals with SCD. Methods: An open-label phase 1/2 study was performed, enrolling adults with SCD at steady state. GMI-1070 was administered in two IV doses given on the same day: 20 mg/kg in the first dose, followed 10 hours later by 10 mg/kg. Patients were evaluated for safety on days 0, 1, 2, 7 and 28, including adverse events (AEs), routine clinical labs, and clinical exam. Plasma and urine concentrations of GMI-1070 were measured on days 0, 1, and 2, and PK parameters calculated and compared with those from healthy volunteers. Results: Fifteen adults were enrolled at three centers; 13 with HbSS, 2 with HbSB0thal. All were African-American, 9 were male, mean age was 32 years (range 18–50), mean weight was 64.7 kg; 4 were on hydroxyurea. In the past year, 6 had experienced VOC requiring medical care; 2 had ACS; 2 required transfusions; and 1 had an episode of priapism. Five were hospitalized in the past year; 12 were hospitalized in the past 5 years. All subjects received both doses of study drug; all but one were followed for 28 days. The PK in adults with SCD was in good agreement with that in the controls. The elimination half-life of GMI-1070 averaged 7.73 ± 2.45 hours (Figure). Renal clearance averaged 18.0 ± 7.93 mL/min and accounted for essentially all elimination. Physical exam parameters after dosing were unchanged, and all infusions were well tolerated. Four subjects reported headache within 24 hours of dosing, all of which were mild or moderate and resolved within 24 hours. Two subjects experienced VOC not requiring hospitalization, at 2 and 4 weeks after dosing. One subject had worsening anemia requiring transfusion 5 days after dosing. Other adverse events typical of SCD were reported without apparent association with study drug; none were serious adverse events. Routine labs demonstrated no changes from baseline (Hb, reticulocytes, platelets, electrolytes, glucose, ALT, LDH, BUN, Cr, bilirubin, urinalysis) with the exception of white blood cell counts (WBC) and absolute neutrophil counts (ANC). At 24 hours, mean WBC change from baseline was 1.9K/mm3, or 20% (p=0.076, using parametric test with mixed model); mean ANC change was 2.7, or 67% (p=0.019); all returned to baseline by 7 days. One individual had marked leukocytosis 24 hours after dosing (from 10.4 to 28K/mm3), returning to baseline by day 7; no other effects were observed in this subject. Mean C-reactive protein (CRP) increased at 24 and 48 hours, returning to baseline by day 7. Two subjects had marked increases in CRP: one exhibited leukocytosis with dosing and the other had a high baseline WBC count. There was otherwise no apparent correlation between PK, WBC/ANC, hydroxyurea use, or adverse events. In conclusion, GMI-1070, a pan-selectin inhibitor, when administered to adults with SCD at steady state, has a similar safety and PK profile to that in healthy volunteers. However, SCD patients had moderate WBC and ANC increases at 24–48 hours after dosing, which return to baseline without other observed symptomatic adverse events. This study supports further evaluation of GMI-1070 for the treatment of vaso-occlusive crisis. Disclosures: Styles: GlycoMimetics: Consultancy, clinical trial sponsorship. Wun:GlycoMimetics: Consultancy, clinical trial sponsorship. De Castro:GlycoMimetics: clinical trial sponsorship. Telen:GlycoMimetics: Consultancy, clinical trial sponsorship. Kramer:GlycoMimetics: Consultancy. Flanner:GlycoMimetics: Employment, Equity Ownership. Magnani:GlycoMimetics: Employment, Equity Ownership. Thackray:GlycoMimetics: Employment, Equity Ownership. Off Label Use: This drug (GMI-1070) has not been approved for any clinical indication.

Abstract High-resolution aeromagnetic data have recently been acquired for most of Minnesota under the sponsorship of the Minnesota Future Resources Commission, which also provided funds for test drilling of selected anomalies. The new data show that northwest-trending dikes and fractures are much more common in the Archean terranes than previously believed, and several epicenters are near such faults. The northeast-trending Great Lakes tectonic zone (GLTZ) was thought to be the chief source of seismicity in the state, because several epicenters were aligned with it. However, more recent seismic reflection profiling has demonstrated that the GLTZ has a moderate dip to the north. This dip is not compatible with the previously favored focal plane solution for a relatively large earthquake, which apparently confirmed the seismogenic role of the GLTZ. The alternative focal plane solution for this earthquake, however, is compatible with some northwest-trending structures in the region. We propose that the apparent alignment of epicenters with the GLTZ is related to stress buildup at places where it is intersected by northwest-trending faults, with subsequent movement occurring upon release. A similar model may explain seismicity along the northeast-trending Colorado lineament to the southwest.

Lithoprobe's sponsorship has led to the acquisition of paleomagnetic data from ~20 units throughout the Paleoproterozoic Trans-Hudson Orogen (THO) of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, essentially the first such data for the region. Discussed summarily in this paper, they provide an initial framework for the THO's tectonic evolution. They show that the Archean Hearne and Superior cratons were at subtropical and subpolar paleolatitudes, respectively, at ~1875 Ma, with the Lynn Lake – LaRonge arc midway between them in the Manikewan Ocean. By ~1855 Ma, this ocean was still ~5500 ± 700 km wide, and its seafloor was subducting northwestward under the Hearne craton and pericratonic Peter Lake domain margin with the coeval development of an Andean-type continental magmatic arc, the Wathaman–Chipewyan batholith. Between ~1855 and ~1810 Ma, coalescing apparent polar wander path (APWP) segments record closing of the ocean at a rate of ~12 cm/a, trapping and accreting the several separate intervening terranes (Flin Flon, Hanson Lake, Lynn Lake – LaRonge, Rottenstone, and presumably also other THO terranes). From ~1815 to ~1775 Ma, the assembled terranes drifted as a coherent craton, yielding a stillstand and hairpin in the APWP.

Over the past twenty years, the Canadian television landscape has come to increasingly resemble the market-driven television of the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, to name only the other major English-language industries. Sports, reality TV, and sci-fi drama dominate, and the public elements of the system are increasingly under siege. How did this happen? A look back over the decisions of the past two decades makes it apparent that Canada’s regulatory agency the CRTC has repeatedly enabled the system we now see. These changes are the direct result of NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Deal, signed in 1994), which drastically altered the cultural industries in Canada and led to an entrepreneurial approach to television. Since then, there has been a concerted shift toward an export-oriented industry, provoking a new emphasis on the global trade of cultural products (Edwardson 2008). In effect, even before the impact of the Internet, as the cable dial expanded, and sponsorship was diluted, production costs were pushed down and new, cheaper formats were created. At the same time, ownership became more consolidated and the telecommunication industry merged with the broadcast industry hoping to cash in on the promises of digital and wireless technologies. The CRTC enabled these shifts with the stated intention of increasing Canadian television’s competitiveness at an international level (CRTC 1999).

ABSTRACT: The past decade has seen the publication of a number of new proposals for the design of phase I trials of anticancer agents. The purpose of these proposals has been to address ethical concerns about treating excessive numbers of patients at subtherapeutic doses of a new agent and to increase the overall efficiency of the process while enhancing the precision of the recommended phase II dose. In early 1998, a workshop of phase I investigators was held under the sponsorship of Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute (Wallingford, CT) to review the experience to date with novel phase I methodologies, with a particular focus on their efficiency and safety. This report summarizes the material presented. It was concluded that for phase I trials of antineoplastics (cytotoxics), which begin at 0.1 mouse-equivalent LD10 doses, evidence to date suggests that the historic approach of using a modified Fibonacci escalation and three patients per dose level is not necessary and is seldom used. One patient per dose level and more rapid escalation schemes, both empirically based and statistically based, are commonly used with apparent safety. There remain questions, however: Which of the dose escalation schemes is optimal? Are there alternatives to toxicity as a phase I end point, and will these end points be reliable in defining active doses? Answering these questions in a reasonable time frame will be important if new anticancer agents are not to suffer undue delays in phase I evaluation.

The widow of Gleb Vseslavich of Minsk outlived her husband by 40 years. Upon her death in 1158 AD, the Kievan Chronicle inserted a long eulogy where manifold details of her death and burial are given, and where her generous sponsorship of the Caves Monastery is repeatedly highlighted. This unusually (for a woman) long and thorough eulogy is the catalyst for this piece of research. In order to cast light on why her death attracted so much attention, we study what the circumstances of the last forty years of Gleb's widow's life might have been. We do so by merging the partial conclusions that the research in different disciplines have made available. Syntactical and semantical analysis lead to the proposition of a new interpretation of the eulogy: that the Kievan Chronicle is, in fact, telling us that she ruled Minsk for the forty years of her widowhood. In support of this theory, a study of chronicle entries on Minsk and Polotsk during those decades reveals an apparent vacuum of power in Minsk. Finally, sphragistical data provide indirect evidence of some kind of princely female rule in the north-west of Rus’ in approximately the same time period. Although no part of the research provides undeniable evidence, all parts point towards the same plausible answer: the combination of the results of linguistic analysis, of chronicle data, and of sphragistics favors the hypothesis that the widow of Gleb Vseslavich acted as the ruler of Minsk between the death of her husband and her own death.

Background: The CrossFit Open is a physical activity competition that allows athletes from across the world to compete in fitness challenges online, whereby participants document their progress via an event website. No apparent studies have examined participant event sponsorship in a case where sponsor messages are delivered primarily via an event website. Furthermore, current research has yet to consider the differential impact of audience athletic identity on sponsor messaging in such a context. Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between CrossFit Athletic Identity (CAI) and the ability to recall and recognize official sponsors of a participant event conducted on an online platform. Methodology: A cross-sectional research design was used with a convenience sample (n=170) of CrossFit Open participants from 36 affiliates in the South Central United States. A concurrent treatment validation with a subset of four participants utilized laboratory eye-tracking to evaluate the attention and viewing patterns within the CrossFit online platform. Results: CAI was not a significant predictor for sponsor recognition or recall (α = 0.05). Only one of the case study participants had a recorded brand image fixation (0.29 seconds) during the eye-tracking assessments of their typical website interaction. Conclusion: While CAI was not associated with improved sponsor recognition and recall, the assessment of the participant website interactions suggest that participants in this study were not likely exposed to sufficient sponsor images. This highlights the need for critical evaluation of event website designs using eye-tracking or some other metric of visual exposure.

The rise in consumer and corporate interest in action sports, also known as extreme sports, has been phenomenal. The apparent popularity of action sports, when combined with the sponsorships, endorsements, and advertising dollars they have quickly garnered, lends itself to scientific inquiry regarding the level and nature of public interest. The purpose of this study was to examine Generation Y's perceptions of action sports, with a specific focus on the expressed popularity of action sports and the relationship between action sports interest and use of the media. The 39-item Action Sports Questionnaire (ESQ) was constructed to examine Generation Y perceptions of action sports, sports related viewing preferences, and sports related media usage among middle and high school aged students. The present findings suggested that these members of the Generation Y(n= 367) niche market preferred action sports over the traditional sports of basketball and baseball. Respondents also indicated stronger preference for soccer, but would prefer to watch the X-Games over the World Cup. There is an indication that soccer and action sports are more popular among the younger generation than some traditional team sports. Males were slightly more supportive that action sports would become more popular in the future, and the male respondents were likewise more familiar with action sports. More members of Generation Y watch action sports than their predecessors, and they likewise tend to be optimistic about the future of action sports if they watch events on television.

Introduction. The emergence and global spread of antimicrobial resistance genes, such as genes for extended-spectrum beta-lactamases and carbapenemases in Klebsiella pneumoniae strains, poses a significant threat to public health. The reason for this is that carbapenems are the latest therapeutic agent used to treat diseases caused by multi-resistant gram-negative bacteria. The detection of carbapenemases is epidemiologically important because ESBL-genes are plasmid-mediated and can be transmitted horizontally among different bacterial species. The aim of this research was to assess the spectrum of antibiotic resistance of carbapenemase-producing strains of K. pneumoniae circulating in hospitals in St. Petersburg using phenotypic and genotypic methods. Materials and methods. The susceptibility of K. pneumoniae strains (n=182), isolated from samples from patients admitted to hospitals in St. Petersburg in the period from 2016 to 2018, was assessed with 16 antimicrobials. Resistance to antibiotics was assessed by the gradient diffusion method. Carbapenemase genes were detected by molecular (PCR) and phenotypic (CIM) methods. Results. Most of the strains demonstrated a high percentage of resistance to ticarcillin/clavulanate (96.7%), quinolones (nalidixic acid (91.8%), norfloxacin (91.2%), ciprofloxacin (90.1%), ofloxacin (89%)), III and IV generation cephalosporins (cefotaxime (92.9%), ceftazidime (88.5%), cefoperazone (87.9%), ceftriaxone (86.8%), cefepime (91.2%)), netilmicin (83.5%) and gentamicin (80.2%). The investigated strains showed moderate resistance to amikacin (74.2%), meropenem (72.5%) and imepenem (65.9%). The main type of carbapenemases produced by the studied isolates of K. pneumoniae were NDM metallo-beta-lactamases (60.4%) and OXA-48 serine carbapenemases (49.5 %). KPC carbapenemases were found in only 1.1% of the strains. Discussion. The results of the study demonstrate a high resistance level of K. pneumoniae nosocomial isolates to various antibiotics. Therefore, the range of antimicrobials for treatment of Klebsiella infections is significantly reduced, which can lead to a decrease in the effectiveness of clinical therapy. Acknowledgments. The study had no sponsorship. Conflict of interest. The authors declare no apparent or potential conflicts of interest related to the publication of this article.

<p><strong>Aim</strong>. To test the hypothesis that anatomical optimisation of radiofrequency renal denervation (RDN) by redistribution of treatment to segmental branches of the renal artery causes a durable increase in the efficacy of the intervention.<br /><strong>Methods</strong>. A double-blind randomised control study in parallel groups with a 3-year follow-up was performed in patients with apparent resistant hypertension (office systolic BP ≥160 or diastolic BP ≥100 mmHg despite stable treatment with ≥3 drugs, including a diuretic). Exclusion criteria were secondary hypertension, mean 24-h systolic BP &lt;135 mmHg, eGFR &lt;30 <!-- x-tinymce/html-mce_4595809011604631814436 -->mL/min/m² and severe comorbidity increasing procedural risks (investigator’s assessment). Eligible patients were randomised 1:1 into distal RDN or RDN in the main trunk of the renal artery. Treatment assignment was done in the operation room immediately before the procedure. For the duration of the study, the assigned treatment was unknown to patients, physicians and other outcome assessors. Long-term efficacy of the procedure was measured by changes in BP (office and ambulatory), whereas safety was assessed by changes in the 24-h protein excretion, serum creatinine and eGFR 3 years post-procedure.<br /><strong>Results</strong>. Of the 55 randomised patients, 39 (71%) completed a 3-year assessment (21 after distal RDN and 18 after RDN in the main trunk of the renal artery). Compared to baseline, the mean 24-h BP remained significantly lowered in the distal RDN group by −16.9 (95% CI −27.3;−6.5)/−8.5 (95% CI −14.2;−2.9) mmHg, p = 0.002/0.004 (systolic/diastolic, respectively). The lowering of the mean 24-h BP was almost twofold less and non-significant in the group of RDN in the main trunk of the renal artery: −8.7 (95% CI −19.6;2.2)/−5.8 (95% CI −11.8;0.1).<br /><strong>Conclusion</strong>. Anatomical optimisation of endovascular renal denervation produces a powerful and sustained increase in the efficacy of the intervention.</p><p>Received 19 May 2020. Revised 10 July 2020. Accepted 7 September 2020.</p><p><strong>Funding</strong>: The study did not have sponsorship.</p><p><strong>Conflict of interest</strong>: Authors declare no conflict of interest.</p><p><strong>Clin.Trials.gov Identifier</strong>: NCT02667912.</p><p><strong>Author contributions</strong><br />Conception and design: S.E. Pekarskiy<br />Data collection and analysis: S.E. Pekarskiy, A.E. Baev, A.Yu. Falkovskaya, E.S. Sitkova, I.V. Zyubanova, V.A. Lichikaki, V.F. Mordovin<br />Statistical analysis: S.E. Pekarskiy<br />Drafting the article: S.E. Pekarskiy, A.E. Baev<br />Critical revision of the article: S.V. Popov<br />Final approval of the version to be published: S.E. Pekarskiy, A.E. Baev, A.Yu. Falkovskaya, E.S. Sitkova, I.V. Zyubanova, V.A. Lichikaki, V.F. Mordovin, S.V. Popov</p>

The purpose of this study was to extend previous literature on student-athlete college choice by examining part of the recruitment process as a precursor to student-athlete decision-making. More specifically, this exploratory study aimed to empirically examine the extent to which apparel sponsorships affect student-athlete recruitment. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten football players at a state-supported NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) institution in the Rocky Mountain region. An inductive approach was used in identifying three emergent themes. These themes suggest that football players at this institution did not hold the apparel and equipment sponsorship as a deciding factor for the commitment to a school, though they did hold strong opinions towards New Balance, and the other three brands referenced during the interviews. The values expressed by these participants can provide a basis for future apparel and equipment contracts at this institution. As this study was exploratory in nature, the findings lay the framework for similar research across gender, sport, school, and conference.

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to offer a conceptual assessment of a contemporary consumer boycott of a global sports brand. A critical commentary is offered of the “Boycott PUMA” campaign with an examination of the positions and motivations of the different parties involved, specifically PUMA, the “Boycott PUMA” campaign, the Israeli Football Association and UEFA/FIFA.Design/methodology/approachThis article is a position and conceptual paper, designed to generate a discussion on what is an emotive consumer boycott campaign. A distinction is made between political boycotts and consumer boycotts, whether it is possible to separate sport from politics, and if PUMA's claimed position of neutrality in this conflict can be achieved.FindingsThe focus here is on PUMA's corporate social responsibility statement in which they claim that sport and politics do not mix, with their response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 undermining this claim. PUMA's commitment to social justice is being used by the “Boycott PUMA” activists to expose the disconnect between PUMA's stated vision and its actions.Practical implicationsPUMA's brand has been built on creating a particular type of brand image, with a positive image and brand awareness essential for this sports apparel company. If the company finds itself in a media spotlight their brand equity can become damaged.Originality/valueWith very little research available on the Israel/Palestine from a sport sponsorship and marketing perspective, this article offers an original and much needed assessment of a potentially significant campaign.

PurposeThe purpose of communicating with your esteemed magazine is your continuous support with Arab researchers and your sponsorship of research on the Arab world.Design/methodology/approachThe research design was based on the APA style, and the methodology used in this research study is statistical and applied analysis to reach the desired results.FindingsThe results of this study provide an interesting perspective on the factors that influence changes in variables in Iraq: The prevailing patterns of temperature in Iraq are characterized by a clear pattern, and it is noticeable that they are linked to patterns of distance connection, but it is affected by some local influences, including the different terrain in Iraq. The highest values recorded by the correlation relationship were for the oscillation NAO and EA-WR with −0.812, −0.805, respectively. It is clear from the results that the correlation values are different between the northern and southern stations regions, and that the most influential appeared during the month of January, meaning that the effects of the remote correlation patterns are clearer during the winter season. Most of the correlation values of temperature were at the significance level of 0.5 and 0.1, in addition to that, the correlation was inverse, meaning that when the values of the distance correlation patterns rise, the temperature rates drop above the study stations and vice versa. The effect of SOI appeared during the months of December, April and May, and it recorded a strong correlation with the temperature variable. Most of the oscillations showed different effects with temperature, and it cannot be inferred that the effect is subjected and affected by the oscillation without reference to the extensions of pressure systems and their effects on the local conditions over Iraq.Research limitations/implicationsThere are no restrictions.Originality/valueThe topic of the research is one of the modern topics that researchers have not taken up in a large way, and the apparent thesis in the research is one of the effects of the newly observed climate changes with the aim of addressing and limiting the effects of these phenomena on the Arab world.

Abstract Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Private grant(s) and/or Sponsorship. Main funding source(s): Abbott provided some software to perform special maps Introduction Voltage mapping of atrial tissue may be influenced by the direction of the activation front. Omnipolar electrograms may result in better characterization of the atrial tissue. However, little is known about characterization of the pulmonary vein (PV) antra with omnipolar mapping in patients with recurrent atrial fibrillation (AF) following PV isolation (PVI). Purpose To study differences in voltage between regions with (Gap) and without (No-Gap) conduction recurrence at the PV antra by both omnipolar and conventional bipolar mapping in redo PVI procedures. Methods Single centre prospective study of consecutive patients who underwent a redo PVI procedure for AF ablation. Activation and voltage bipolar maps were developed on a electroanatomical system (Ensite Precision) by a steerable catheter with a 16 grid-patterned electrode configuration (HD-Grid) during coronary sinus pacing at both 500 and 300 ms. Precise location of conduction gaps in the PV antra was attempted by atrial and PV pacing. Only conduction gaps that were ablated by ≤3 focal radiofrequency applications were included in the analysis. Electrograms recorded within 1 cm at both sides of the RF application site were considered related to the gap region. Off-line omnipolar voltage maps were developed with a dedicated experimental software after the procedure . Results 11 patients were included in the study and 18 gaps were found in 9 patients. 6762 (2688 Gap and 4074 No-Gap) electrograms were analyzed. Compared with No-Gap PV regions, Gap regions showed significantly (P &lt; 0.0001) higher voltages by omnipolar mapping (0.3 ± 0.6 mV vs 1.1 ± 1.4 mV) and by absolute (0.2 ± 0.5 mV vs 0.8 ± 1.2 mV), grid-along (0.3 ± 0.5 mV vs 0.8 ± 1.2 mV) and grid-across (0.3 ± 0.5 mV vs 0.8 ± 1.1 mV) bipolar mapping. Omnipolar mapping resulted in higher voltage electrograms when compared with absolute bipole, longitudinal and horizontal bipolar electrograms (P &lt; 0.0001). ROC curves (figure) to differentiate between Gap and No-Gap regions were slightly better for omnipolar electrograms (AUC 0.79) than for conventional grid -along or grid-across bipolar mapping (AUC 0.76 and 0.77) with the best discrimination value of 0.3 and 0.2 mV respectively. Conclusion: There are significant differences in voltage between conduction Gap and No-Gap regions at the PV antra which are more apparent with omnipolar than with conventional bipolar mapping. 0.3 mV and 0.2 mV values are the best to differentiate between PV conduction Gap and No-Gap regions with ominpolar and conventional mapping respectively

Abstract Introduction The GARFIELD-AF registry is a prospective, multicentre, observational study of adults with recently diagnosed non-valvular atrial fibrillation (AF) and at least one risk factor for stroke. In GARFIELD-AF the absolute risk reduction of mortality associated with anticoagulation is far greater than the apparent absolute risk reduction in (ischemic) stroke. One potential explanation is improved treatment, with the use of comprehensive guideline-directed medical therapies (GDMT), in patients with AF receiving oral anticoagulant (OAC) therapy. The objectives were to identify the potential relationships between anticoagulation status, GDMT use and clinical outcomes. Methods Use of GDMT was determined on the basis of published European Society for Cardiology guidelines operative between 2010 and 2016. We explored the use of GDMT in patients enrolled in GARFIELD-AF (March 2010-Aug 2016) with CHA2DS2-VASc ≥2 and with one or more of five comorbidities–coronary artery disease, diabetes mellitus, heart failure, hypertension and peripheral vascular disease. Association between GDMT use and clinical outcomes events was evaluated with Cox-proportional hazards models. The models included stratification by all possible combinations of the five comorbidities used to define GDMT eligibility. Results The study population comprised of 39,946 patients who had one or more comorbidities (3238 [8.1%] received none of the GDMT, 17,398 [43.6%] received some, and 19,310 [48.3%] received all of the GDMT for which they were eligible). Patients on OAC tended to receive all the GDMTs more frequently compared to patients on no OAC (50.2% vs 44.8%, respectively). Comprehensive GDMT was associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality (HR: 0.89 [0.80–0.99]) and non-cardiovascular mortality (0.80 [0.68–0.95]) compared to inadequate or no GDMT but was not associated with a lower risk of stroke (HR: 1.04 (0.88–1.24)] (Figure). The effect of OAC was beneficial for mortality and stroke risk whether receiving comprehensive GDMT or not. Conclusion OAC therapy is associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality, non-cardiovascular mortality and stroke/SE in comparison with no OAC, irrespective of GDMT use in patients with CHA2DS2-VASc ≥2. Although the use of GDMT is associated with a significant reduction in mortality, there is little evidence that this explains the decrease in mortality with the use of OAC. GDMT use at two years of follow-up Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding source: Private grant(s) and/or Sponsorship. Main funding source(s): The GARFIELD-AF registry is funded by an unrestricted research grant from Bayer AG.

Abstract Background PCSK9 inhibition has emerged as a potent pharmaceutical approach to lowering LDL cholesterol (LDL-C). Monoclonal anti-PCSK9 antibodies have been shown in recent clinical trials to reduce cardiovascular events in patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, but the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. Meanwhile, circulatory inflammation markers were not reduced with PCSK9 inhibitors, thus their effects on plaque inflammation remain elusive. Vessel wall imaging with magnetic resonance (VW-MRI) has enabled serial monitoring of changes in carotid plaque lipid content and inflammation noninvasively that correlates with coronary and carotid vascular events. Purpose Using serial VW-MRI, we studied the effects and time course of PCSK9 inhibition with alirocumab on carotid plaque lipid content and inflammation. Methods Patients with LDL-C ≥70 mg/dl on ≤70 mg per week atorvastatin or an equivalent (due to statin intolerance or treating-physician discretion) and soft carotid plaque(s) identified on ultrasound underwent carotid VW-MRI. Those with confirmed lipid-rich plaque(s) on VW-MRI received alirocumab (150 mg subcutaneously every other week) and were re-scanned at 3, 6, and 12 months after treatment. Carotid VW-MRI included pre- and post-contrast images for measuring percent lipid-rich necrotic core volume (%LRNC) and dynamic contrast-enhanced images for measuring the extravasation rate of gadolinium contrast (Ktrans, reflecting tissue blood flow, endothelial surface area, and microvessel permeability), a marker of plaque inflammation. The co-primary endpoints were changes in %LRNC and Ktrans at 12 months from baseline. Results Of 31 patients enrolled, 27 completed the study (mean age: 69±9; male: 67%; on statins and/or ezetimibe: 41%; median LDL-C: 120 mg/dl [interquartile range: 99, 158]). Alirocumab induced a 59% reduction in LDL-C (p&lt;0.001) on average at 3 months to a median of 54 mg/dl (interquartile range: 29, 69), which was maintained at later time points. From 9.8% at baseline, %LRNC was progressively reduced to 8.4% at 3 months, 7.5% at 6 months, and 7.2% at 12 months, representing a rapid 14% reduction (p=0.032) at 3 months and a total reduction of 20% (p=0.019) at 12 months. From 0.07±0.02 min-1 at baseline, Ktrans was not reduced at 3 or 6 months but was significantly reduced by 17% (p=0.029) at 12 months to 0.06±0.02 min-1. No significant changes in lumen or wall area were observed during the study period. Conclusions Serial VW-MRI documented plaque-stabilizing effects of PCSK9 inhibition with alirocumab, including plaque delipidation and attenuation of plaque inflammation. The reduction in plaque lipid content was apparent as early as 3 months. The reduction in Ktrans was not seen until 12 months of treatment and may indicate a later effect on microvascular structure and/or function. This observation represents the earliest time course of plaque morphology modification by non-statin therapy reported to date. Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding source: Private grant(s) and/or Sponsorship. Main funding source(s): The study was funded by an investigator-initiated grant from Regeneron and Sanofi.

Song dedications are among commercial radio’s most enduring formats. Yet those very few studies which address music radio rarely consider its role within a consumer economy. As John Patrick noted when analysing ABC broadcaster Christopher Lawrence’s popular (and commercially exploited) Swoon genre as a form of nostalgic Utopianism, many music analysts view music listening as constructing a cultural space of other times and places, when romantic love held sway, when the certainties of religion vanquished doubt, and when authentic folk culture gave a sense of belonging to traditional ways of thinking and feeling (133). This “emotional, largely imaginary” space is explicity constructed outside the pragmatic focus and urgent stylings of commercial sponsorship. Patrick cites Flinn on the capacity of music to seemingly transcend social institutions and discourses. But here I will argue that commercial music-radio practice clearly operates within them. More significantly, it does so by very virtue of this capacity for offering transcendence: Music ... has the peculiar ability to ameliorate the social existence it allegedly overrides, and offers in one form or another the sense of something better. Music extends an impression of perfection and integrity in an otherwise imperfect, unintegrated world (Flinn). This study suggests that it is precisely this lack of any perceived connectedness into the social discourses of the day which marks music as available for the occupancy of individual desires, and which targets its various genres for integration into selected sets of social practice. What we do while listening to the radio… Willis (1990), investigating music as a key element of the “symbolic cultural creativity and informal artistry in people’s lives”, discovered multiple appropriations, creolisings and re-accentuations within social use of broadcast music (85). His empirical work provides accounts of the various uses made of broadcast music, including the audio-taping of new music tracks; planned social listening to particular shows or DJs, often combined with extended phone-call discussions with friends; the use of broadcast music as company in periods of social isolation, or its use in structuring daily living or working routines; the preparation of personal master-mixes and exchange of taped compilations or transcribed song lyrics. To these should be added more contemporary updates: digital sound-bite downloading and re-editing via Internet broadcasts; the burning of personally tailored CDs; MP3 collection-building through web-exchange, and the construction of a personalised virtual sensorium for asserting private space in public through the use of the Sony Walkman or Discplayer (Hosokawa, Chambers, Bull). The capacity music broadcast gives for personal engagement within various music sub-cultures needs further work at exactly this active-reception level. Nor has the activity of broadcasters in constructing technologies of reciprocity around mediated intimacy been fully explored. The social formational power, over 75 years, of the song-dedication formula, in compensating what Thompson described as the “non-reciprocal intimacy” of electronic media, is incalculable. Instead of opening spaces for “free association” working pre-discursively on the “physicality of the listening experience”, music-radio talk has been operating to structure those exact spaces: to create regulated activity, and interactivity, where none has been thought to exist. Fixing a self to a favourite track: music and memory From the 1930s to the 1960s, vastly popular “music request programs” encouraged radio listeners to write in to presenters, not only selecting a favourite music play, but describing in detail the social relation mediated for them by the music and lyrics, and the uniquely individualised expressive weight it was claimed was carried – ironically yet significantly, a reference often immediately generalised by the attachment of several other requestors to the particular track. More recently, Richard Mercer’s evening program of Lovesong dedications on Sydney’s MIX 106.5 connected this drive towards social identity work with the escalating sexual-emotional confessionalism of Australian radio talk. Mercer’s format: extended play of the staple love ballads of the “easy listening” mode – carefully selected to highlight the sexual arousal elements of the breathy female performer or the husky-voiced male balladeer – operated from the centre of the newly reciprocal expression of intimacy, made possible by the live call-in capacity of contemporary radio. Listener-callers can now model their identification techniques directly – or so it is made to appear. In fact, the emotional expressiveness and the centrality of the equation between direct listener-caller comment and emotional-interpretive link into music tracks remains problematic, for a number of reasons. How to construct loving sincerity – through the precision of digital editing Firstly, the apparent spontaneity and direct interface which underlie radio’s “live call-in” relations as a discourse of authenticity, are today heavily, if not obviously, compromised, by the production techniques used to guarantee the focus on caller concerns. This is phone-in but not talkback radio – a distinction not made often enough, in either professional production literature or academic analysis of radio practice. While talkback is relatively raw radio, centring on live-to-air talk-relations between callers and hosts (and thus fostering the highly confrontational hosting persona of the “shock-jock”), phone-in radio seeks briefer, more focused comment on topics pre-selected, constantly monitored and re-themed by both host and call-screening staff, who choose which caller comments get to air, and in which order. Lovesong dedications not only follows this more restrictive practice, but intensifies its commodification of the resultant calls, by a consistent top-and-tail editing of caller contributions before broadcast. This acts to heighten the expressiveness of each segment, and to insert the program ident. into the pivotal “bridge” position between caller-voice and music play. The host is thus able to present to listeners a tautly emotional sequence of seemingly spontaneous sentimental expression; but to his sponsors, a talk-flow which interpolates the show’s name fluently into the core of the fused private/public moment. With all the hesitations, over-explanations, initial embarrassment and on-air inexperience of the average caller cut away, what remains looks like this: Host: Hello Carly - I believe you want to dedicate a lovesong to Damien? Caller: Yes that’s right ... it’s our anniversary? Host: How many years ... Caller: Well actually it’s just our first! Host: And you’ve had a great first year together? Caller: Sure have: I love you more than ever Damien ... Host: And Damien: here’s Carly’s Lovesong dedication to you. The perversity of the practice lies in the way the host’s “prompt” cues, with their invitational suspensions, actually direct the caller contributions, not only to their moment of “personalised” emotion, but to the powerful agency of the program itself, always positioned between caller and dedicatee. Further: the fluency of the talk exchange, and especially its expert segue into the music track, conceal the fact that calls are very often being held before broadcast. Between the average call and its broadcast, a listener-caller’s phoned-in experiences and expressed feelings – even their peak-moment of address to their loved one – may be digitally edited, to remove awkward hesitations and intensify the emotionality. A 24-hour call line operates, highly promoted in other programming, allowing selection and sequencing of requests around music availability – including station play-rotation regimes. Even calls received during broadcast can be delayed, edited, and clustered around the – actually quite limited – availability of music tracks (some callers have reported being offered a playlist of only three tracks through which to “personally address” their loved one). Sincerity is fabricated, at the very moment of promoting its authenticity, and absorbed into the “seamless” flow of MIX106.5’s “easy listening” format. “Schmalzy like Oprah: almost Sleepless in Seattle” The Lovesong dedications host – busy elsewhere – plays a very restrained on-air role: often only three dedications per half-hour of programming. While back-to-back music play dominates, Mercer’s vocal performance marks the show with notably atypical radio qualities. The tone is low and subdued, without ranging into the close-in microphone huskiness of the “late-night listening” mode, which usually performs intimacy. Mercer is closer to the “serious music” style of ABC Classic FM announcers, with the male voice remaining in a medium-to-light vocal range. This is tenor rather baritone, with a clear suppression of its stressing, to produce a restrained authority, rather than a DJ exuberant enthusiasm (Montgomery) or an unassailable certainty (Goffman). Mercer and his interstate colleagues use a normal conversational level, with no electronic enhancement into “fullness of tone” as employed by both DJs and talk hosts to amplify their authority. In contrast, the Lovesong dedications voice is carefully, if naturally, dampened in tone – by which I mean as a result of physical voice-production control, rather than by sound-mixing in the broadcast console. Not only is the pitch slightly subdued and intonations compressed rather than stretched, as in the familiar DJ hype, but the dominant intonation is a very unusual terminal rise/slow fall. This provides a male host’s speech with an interestingly tentative note, which deflects or at least suspends power. Under-toned rather than over-toned, it invites sympathetic listening and increased attentiveness, while its suppression of the sorts of powerful masculine authoritativeness more common in male broadcasting (see Hutchby) cues listeners for conversational participation on their own terms, rather than on those dictated by the host. This structured tonal diffidence in the Lovesong hosts’ self-effacing vocality acts as an invitation to self-direction: a pathway to participation. No surprise then that its careful constructedness has been read as the exact opposite: sincerity. What is more surprising is that it has been read as sexually alluring – given its quite marked deviation from norms of high masculinity in relation to vocalisation. Other attempts to render a desirable masculinity at the level of voice have tended to the over-produced baritones of the traditional matinee idol: the “swoon” voice of lush-toned actorly excess, with deep pitch, slow pace, fruity vowels, and long glides – the vocal equivalent of TV comedy’s “Fabio” as kitsch or camped hyper-masculinity. This vocal problem in radio hosting is also endemic to operatic performance, where male vocal range is read as age. Patriarchy reserves deep voices for authority, therefore also reserving the most powerful roles for “older” characters, performed as baritone and base. Lovesong dedications are far more suitably presented by a male host whose vocality matches the sexually-active age profile suited to romantic seduction – and this calls for the tenor voice of a Richard Mercer. The Daily Telegraph’s Sandra Lee (1998) was among many who succumbed to that “mellifluous voice which drips with genuine sincerity, yes genuine, not that contrived radio fakeness, and is soothing enough to make you believe he really care”. Even when Mercer actually shifted in a phone conversation with Lee from his ordinary voice to “The Loooooovvvvve God with a voice so smooth it could be butter”, she remained a believer. No surprise, then, that as the format is franchised from state to state on the commercial networks, much the same vocalisations are reproduced. The host’s performance formula and the callers’ sentimental witness are both safely encoded as “sincere sentimental expressiveness” – while actually audio-processed and digitally edited to produce those qualities. Here, as elsewhere, Lee’s loathed “contrived radio fakeness” continues to work unseen and unexamined, producing in the service of its own commercial imperatives a surprising yet vastly popular reputation for sentimental expressiveness among “ordinary” Australians. Where music-radio analyst Barnard (2002) considers music-request shows as a cynical commercial device for “establishing a link with the audience” (124) – a key requirement of the sponsorship system of commercial broadcasting from its origins to the current day – Lee’s tabloid populism endorses every detail of Lovesong dedications’ techniques for acting upon and reproducing the lush romanticism it sets out to evoke. Between the two views the cultural work of this programming: the mediation and commodification of interpersonal emotional expressiveness in the homes, workplaces, bedrooms and parked cars of listener-callers around the nation, goes unnoticed. Works Cited Barnard, Stephen. Studying radio. London: Arnold, 2002. Barnard, Stephen. On the radio: Music radio in Britain. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1989. Bull, M. “The dialectics of walking: Walkman use and the reconstruction of the site of experience.” Consuming culture: power and resistance. Eds. J. Hearn and S. Roseneil, Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1999. 199-220. Chambers, I. “A miniature history of the Walkman.” New formations, 11 (1990): 1-4. Flinn, C. Strains of Utopia. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992. Goffman, Erving. Forms of talk. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981. Hosokawa, S. “The Walkman effect.” Popular music, 4 (1984):165-180. Hutchby, Ian. Confrontation talk: Arguments, asymmetries and power on talk radio. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1996. Lee, Sandra. “When Love God comes to town.” The Daily Telegraph, 30 November 1998: 10. Montgomery, M. “DJ talk.” Media, culture and society, 8.4 (1986): 421-440. Patrick, John. “Swooning on ABC Classic FM.” Australian Journal of Communication (1998) 25.1: 127-138. Thompson, John B. The media and modernity: A social theory of the media. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995. Willis, Paul. Common culture. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1990. Willis, Paul. Moving culture – an inquiry into the cultural activities of young people. London: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1990. Links http://acnielsen.com/ For information on commercial radio ratings Useful site for watching music radio trends http://www.radioandrecords.com/ Ever wondered where radio presenters get that never-ending supply of historical trivia? Now their secrets can be Yours. http://www.jocksjournal.com/ APRA The Australian Performing Rights Association monitors Australian music content on radio – here’s how they do it. http://www.apra.com.au/Dist/DisRad.htm Two Internet broadcast sites offering online music streaming with an Australian bias. http://www.ozchannel.com.au/village-cgi-... http://www.thebasement.com.au/ FARB: The Federation of Australian Radio Broadcasters – a useful site for the organisation of commercial radio within Australia. http://www.commercialradio.com.au/index.cfm Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Cook, Jackie. "Lovesong Dedications" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.6 (2002). Dn Month Year < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0211/lovesongdedications.php>. APA Style Cook, J., (2002, Nov 20). Lovesong Dedications. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 5,(6). Retrieved Month Dn, Year, from http://www.media-culture.org.au/0211/lovesongdedications.html

BackgroundIn the centuries since Odysseus entrusted his son Telemachus to Athena, biographical, literary, and historical accounts have cemented the concept of mentorship into our collective consciousness. Early foundational research characterised mentors as individuals who help us transition through different phases of our lives. Chief among these phases is the progression from adolescence to adulthood, during which we “imagine exciting possibilities for [our lives] and [struggle] to attain the ‘I am’ feeling in this dreamed-of self and world” (Levinson 93). Previous research suggests that mentoring can positively impact a range of developmental outcomes including emotional/behavioural resiliency, academic attainment, career advancement, and organisational productivity (DuBois et al. 57-91; Eby et al. 441-76; Merriam 161-73). The growth of formal mentoring programs, such as Big Brothers-Big Sisters, has further strengthened our belief in the value of mentoring in personal, academic and career contexts (Eby et al. 441-76).In recent years, claims of mentorship uptake have become widespread, even ubiquitous, ranging from codified components of organisational mandates to casual bragging rights in coffee shop conversations (Eby et al. 441-76). Is this a sign that mentorship has become indispensable to personal and professional development, or is mentorship simply in vogue? In this paper, we examine uses of, and corresponding meanings attached to, mentorship. Specifically, we compare popular news portrayals of mentoring with meanings ascribed to mentoring relationships by academics who are part of formal mentoring programs.MethodsWe searched for articles published in the New York Times between July and December 2015. Search terms used included: mentor, mentors, mentoring or mentorship. This U.S. national newspaper was chosen for its broad focus, and large online readership. It is among the most widely read online newspapers worldwide (World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers). Our search generated 536 articles. We conducted a qualitative thematic contentan alysis to explore the nature, scope, and importance of mentorship, as depicted in these media accounts. We compared media themes identified through this analysis with those generated through in-depth interviews previously conducted with 23 academic faculty in mentoring programs at the University of Calgary (Canada). Data were extracted by two authors, and discrepancies in interpretation were resolved through discussion with a third author.The Many Faces of MentorshipIn both interviews and New York Times (NYT) accounts, mentorship is portrayed as part of the “fabric” of contemporary culture, and is often viewed as essential to career advancement. As one academic we interviewed commented: “You know the worst feeling in the world [as a new employee] is...to feel like you’re floundering and you don’t know where to turn.” In 322 NYT articles, mentorship was linked to professional successes across a variety of disciplines, with CEOs, and popular culture icons, such as rap artists and sports figures, citing mentorship as central to their achievements. Mentorship had a particularly strong presence in the arts (109 articles), sports (62 articles) business (57 articles), politics (36 articles), medicine (26 articles), and law (21 articles).In the NYT, mentorship was also a factor in student achievement and social justice issues including psychosocial and career support for refugees and youth from low socioeconomic backgrounds; counteracting youth radicalisation; and addressing gender inequality in the workplace. In short, mentorship appears to have been taken up as a panacea for a variety of social and economic ills.Mentor Identities and RolesWhile mentors in academia were supervisors or colleagues, NYT articles portrayed mentors more broadly, as family members, employers, friends and peers. Mentoring relationships typically begin with a connection which often manifests as shared experiences or goals (Merriam). One academic interviewee described mentorship in these terms: “There’s something there that you both really respect and value.” In many NYT accounts, the connection between mentors and mentees was similarly emphasized. As a professional athlete noted: “To me, it's not about collecting [mentors]...It's if the person means something to me...played some type of role in my life” (Shpigel SP.1).While most mentoring relationships develop organically, others are created through formal programs. In the NYT, 33 articles described formal programs to support career/skills development in the arts, business, and sports, and behaviour change in at-risk youth. Although many such programs relied on volunteers, we noted instances in professional sports and business where individuals were hired to provide mentorship. We also saw evidence to suggest that formal programs may be viewed as a quick fix, or palatable alternative, to more costly, or long-term organisational or societal change. For instance, one article on operational challenges at a law firm noted: “The firm's leadership...didn't want to be told that they needed to overhaul their entire organizational philosophy.... They wanted to be told that the firm's problem was work-family conflict for women, a narrative that would allow them to adopt a set of policies specifically aimed at helping women work part time, or be mentored” (Slaughter SR.1).Mutuality of the RelationshipEffective mentoring occurs when both mentors and mentees value these relationships. As one academic interviewee noted: “[My mentor] asked me for advice on certain things about where they’re going right career wise... I think that’s allowed us to have a stronger sort of mentoring relationship”. Some NYT portrayals of mentorship also suggested rich, reciprocal relationships. A dancer with a ballet company described her mentor:She doesn't talk at you. She talks with you. I've never thought about dancing as much as I've thought about it working with her. I feel like as a ballerina, you smile and nod and you take the beating. This is more collaborative. In school, I was always waiting to find a professor that I would bond with and who would mentor me. All I had to do was walk over to Barnard, get into the studio, and there she was. I found Twyla. Or she found me. (Kourlas AR.7)The mutuality of the mentorship evident in this dancer’s recollection is echoed in a NYT account of the role of fashion models in mentoring colleagues: “They were...mentors and connectors and facilitators, motivated...by the joy of discovering talent and creating beauty” (Trebay D.8). Yet in other media accounts, mentorship appeared unidirectional, almost one-dimensional: “Judge Forrest noted in court that he had been seen as a mentor for young people” (Moynihan A.21). Here, the focus seemed to be on the benefits, or status, accrued by the mentor. Importance of the RelationshipAcademic interviewees viewed mentors as sources of knowledge, guidance, feedback, and sponsorship. They believed mentorship had profoundly impacted their careers and that “finding a mentor can be one of the most important things” anyone could do. In the NYT portrayals, mentors were also recognized for the significant, often lasting, impact they had on the lives of their mentees. A choreographer said “the lessons she learned from her former mentor still inspire her — ‘he sits on my shoulder’” (Gold CT 11). A successful CEO of a software firm recollected how mentors enabled him to develop professional confidence: “They would have me facilitate meetings with clients early on in my career. It helped build up this reservoir of confidence” (Bryant, Candid Questions BU.2).Other accounts in academic interviews and NYT highlighted how defining moments in even short-term mentoring relationships can provoke fundamental and lasting changes in attitudes and behaviours. One interviewee who recently experienced a career change said she derived comfort from connecting with a mentor who had experienced a similar transition: “oh there’s somebody [who] talks my language...there is a place for me.” As a CEO in the NYT recalled: “An early mentor of mine said something to me when I was going to a new job: ‘Don't worry. It's just another dog and pony show.’ That really stayed with me” (Bryant, Devil’s Advocate BU.2). A writer quoted in a NYT article also recounted how a chance encounter with a mentor changed the course of his career: “She said... that my problem was not having career direction. ‘You should become a teacher,’ she said. It was an unusual thing to hear, since that subject had never come up in our conversations. But I was truly desperate, ready to hear something different...In an indirect way, my life had changed because of that drink (DeMarco ST.6).Mentorship was also celebrated in the NYT in the form of 116 obituary notices as a means of honouring and immortalising a life well lived. The mentoring role individuals had played in life was highlighted alongside those of child, parent, grandparent and spouse.Metaphor and ArchetypeMetaphors imbue language with imagery that evokes emotions, sensations, and memories in ways that other forms of speech or writing cannot, thus enabling us communicate complex ideas or beliefs. Academic interviewees invoked various metaphors to illustrate mentorship experiences. One interviewee spoke of the “blossoming” relationship while another commented on the power of the mentoring experience to “lift your world”. In the NYT we identified only one instance of the use of metaphor. A CEO of a non-profit organisation explained her mentoring philosophy as follows: “One of my mentors early on talked about the need for a leader to be a ‘certain trumpet’. It comes from Corinthians, and it's a very good visualization -- if the trumpet isn't clear, who's going to follow you?” (Bryant, Zigzag BU.2).By comparison, we noted numerous instances in the NYT wherein mentors were present as characters, or archetypes, in film, performing arts, and television. Archetypes exhibit attributes, or convey meanings, that are instinctively understood by those who share common cultural, societal, or racial experiences (Lane 232) For example, a NYT film review of The Assassin states that “the title character [is] trained in her deadly vocation by a fierce, soft-spoken mentor” (Scott C.4). Such characterisations rely on audiences’ understanding of the inherentfunction of the mentor role, and, like metaphors, can help to convey that which is compelling or complex.Intentionality and TrustIn interviews, academics spoke of the time and trust required to develop mentoring relationships. One noted “It may take a bit of an effort... You don’t get to know a person very well just meeting three times during the year”. Another spoke of trust and comfort as defining these relationships: “You just open up. You feel immediately comfortable”. We also found evidence of trust and intentionality in NYT accounts of these relationships. Mentees were often portrayed as seeking out and relying on mentorship. A junior teacher stated that “she would lean on mentors at her new school. You are not on that island all alone” (Rich A1). In contrast, there were few explicit accounts of intentionality and reflection on the part of a mentor. In one instance, a police officer who participated in a mentorship program for street kids mused “it's not about the talent. It was just about the interaction”. In another, an actor described her mentoring experiences as follows: “You have to know when to give advice and when to just be quiet and listen...no matter how much you tell someone how it goes, no one really wants to listen. Their dreams are much bigger than whatever fear or whatever obstacle you say may be in their path” (Syme C.5).Many NYT articles present career mentoring as a role that can be assumed by anyone with requisite knowledge or experience. Indeed, some accounts of mentorship arguably more closely resembled role model relationships, wherein individuals are admired, typically from afar, and emulated by those who aspire to similar accomplishments. Here, there was little, if any, apparent awareness of the complexity or potential impact of these relationships. Rather, we observed a casualness, an almost striking superficiality, in some NYT accounts of mentoring relationships. Examples ranged from references to “sartorial mentors” (Pappu D1) to a professional coach who shared: “After being told by a mentor that her scowl was ‘setting her back’ at work, [she] began taking pictures of her face so she could try to look more cheerful” (Bennett ST.1).Trust, an essential component of mentorship, can wither when mentors occupy dual roles, such as that of mentor and supervisor, or engage in mentoring as a means of furthering their own interests. While some academic interviewees were mentored by past and current supervisors, none reported any instance of role conflict. However in the NYT, we identified multiple instances where mentorship programs intentionally, or unintentionally, inspired divided loyalties. At one academic institution, peer mentors were “encouraged to befriend and offer mentorship to the students on their floors, yet were designated ‘mandatory reporters’ of any incident that may violate the school policy” (Rosman ST.1). In another media story, government employees in a phased-retirement program received monetary incentives to mentor colleagues: “Federal workers who take phased retirement work 20 hours a week and agree to mentor other workers. During that time, they receive half their pay and half their retirement annuity payout. When workers retire completely, their annuities will include an increase to account for the part-time service” (Hannon B.1). More extreme depictions of conflict of interest were evident in other NYT reports of mentors and mentees competing for job promotions, and mentees accusing mentors of sexual harassment and rape; such examples underscore potential for abuse of trust in these relationships.Discussion/ConclusionsOur exploration of mentorship in the NYT suggests mentorship is embedded in our culture, and is a means by which we develop competencies required to integrate into, and function within, society. Whereas, traditionally, mentorship was an informal relationship that developed over time, we now see a wider array of mentorship models, including formal career and youth programs aimed at increasing access to mentorship, and mentor-for-hire arrangements in business and professional sports. Such formal programs can offer redress to those who lack informal mentorship opportunities, and increased initiatives of this sort are welcome.Although standards of reporting in news media surely account for some of the lack of detail in many NYT reports of mentorship, such brevity may also suggest that, while mentoring continues to grow in popularity, we may have compromised substance for availability. Considerations of the training, time, attention, and trust required of these relationships may have been short-changed, and the tendency we observed in the NYT to conflate role modeling and mentorship may contribute to depictions of mentorship as a quick fix, or ‘mentorship light’. Although mentorship continues to be lauded as a means of promoting personal and professional development, not all mentoring may be of similar quality, and not everyone has comparable access to these relationships. While we continue to honour the promise of mentorship, as with all things worth having, effective mentorship requires effort. This effort comes in the form of preparation, commitment or intentionality, and the development of bonds of trust within these relationships. In short, overuse of, over-reference to, and misapplication of the mentorship label may serve to dilute the significance and meaning of these relationships. Further, we acknowledge a darker side to mentorship, with the potential for abuses of power.Although we have reservations regarding some trends towards the casual usage of the mentorship term, we are also heartened by the apparent scope and reach of these relationships. Numerous individuals continue to draw comfort from advice, sponsorship, motivation, support and validation that mentors provide. Indeed, for many, mentorship may represent an essential lifeline to navigating life’s many challenges. We, thus, conclude that mentorship, in its many forms, is here to stay.ReferencesBennett, Jessica. "Cursed with a Death Stare." New York Times (East Coast) 2 Aug. 2015, late ed.: ST.1.Bryant, Adam. "Designate a Devil's Advocate." New York Times (East Coast) 9 Aug. 2015, late ed.: BU.2.Bryant, Adam. "The Power of Candid Questions." New York Times (East Coast) 16 Aug. 2015, late ed.: BU. 2.Bryant, Adam. "Zigzag Your Way to the Top." New York Times (East Coast) 13 Sept. 2015, late ed.: BU.2.DeMarco, Peter. "One Life, Shaken and Stirred." New York Times (East Coast) 23 Aug. 2015, late ed.: ST.6.DuBois, David L., Nelson Portillo, Jean E. Rhodes, Nadia Silverhorn and Jeffery C. Valentine. "How Effective Are Mentoring Programs for Youth? A Systematic Assessment of the Evidence." Psychological Science in the Public Interest 12.2 (2011): 57-91.Eby, Lillian T., Tammy D. Allen, Brian J. Hoffman, Lisa E. Baranik, …, and Sarah C. Evans. "An Interdisciplinary Meta-analysis of the Potential Antecedents, Correlates, and Consequences of Protégé Perceptions of Mentoring." Psychological Bulletin 139.2 (2013): 441-76.Gold, Sarah. "Preserving a Master's Vision of Sugar Plums." New York Times (East Coast) 6 Dec. 2015, late ed.: CT 11.Hannon, Kerry. "Retiring, But Not All at Once." New York Times (East Coast) 22 Aug. 2015, late ed.: B.1.Kourlas, Gia. "Marathon of a Milestone Tour." New York Times Late Edition (East Coast) 6 Sept. 2015: AR.7.Lane, Lauriat. "The Literary Archetype: Some Reconsiderations." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 13.2 (1954): 226-32.Levinson, Daniel. J. The Seasons of a Man's Life. New York: Ballantine, 1978.Merriam, Sharan. "Mentors and Protégés: A Critical Review of the Literature." Adult Education Quarterly 33.3 (1983): 161-73.Moynihan, Colin. "Man's Cooperation in Terrorist Cases Spares Him from Serving More Time in Prison." New York Times (East Coast) 24 Oct. 2015, late ed.: A.21.Pappu, Sridhar. "Tailored to the Spotlight." New York Times (East Coast) 27 Aug. 2015, late ed.: D1.Rich, Motoko. "Across Country, a Scramble Is On to Find Teachers." New York Times (East Coast) 10 Aug. 2015, late ed.: A1.Rosman, Katherine. "On the Campus Front Line." New York Times (East Coast) 27 Sept. 2015, late ed.: ST.1.Scott, AO. "The Delights to Be Found in a Deadly Vocation." New York Times (East Coast) 16 Oct. 2015, late ed.: C.4.Shpigel, Ben. "An Exchange of Respect in the Swapping of Jerseys." New York Times (East Coast) 18 Oct. 2015, late ed.: SP.1.Slaughter, Ann-Marie. "A Toxic Work World." New York Times (East Coast) 20 Sept. 2015, late ed.: SR.1.Syme, Rachel. "In TV, Finding a Creative Space with No Limitations." New York Times (East Coast) 26 Aug. 2015, late ed.: C.5.Trebay, Guy. "Remembering a Time When Fashion Shows Were Fun." New York Times (East Coast) 10 Sept. 2015, late ed.: D.8.World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers. World Press Trends Report. Paris: WAN-IFRA, 2015.

Introduction In November 2020, upon learning that the company’s Covid-19 vaccine trial had been successful, the head of Pfizer’s Vaccine Research and Development, Kathrin Jansen, celebrated with champagne – “some really good stuff” (Cohen). Bubbles seem to go naturally with celebration, and champagne is fundamentally associated with bubbles. Yet, until the late-seventeenth century, champagne was a still wine, and it only reached the familiar levels of bubbliness in the late-nineteenth century (Harding). During this period and on into the early twentieth century, “champagne” was in many ways created, defined, and defended. A “champagne bubble” was created, within which the “nature” of champagne was contested and constructed. Champagne today is the result of hundreds of years of labour by many sorts of bubble-makers: those who make the bubbly drink, and those who construct, maintain, and defend the champagne bubble. In this article, I explore some elements of the champagne bubble, in order to understand both its fragility and rigidity over the years and today. Creating the Champagne Bubble – the Labour of Centuries It is difficult to separate the physical from the mythical as regards champagne. Therefore the categorisations below are always overlapping, and embedded in legal, political, economic, and socio-cultural factors. Just as assemblage – the mixing of wine from different grapes – is an essential element of champagne wine, the champagne bubble may be called heterogeneous assemblage. Indeed, the champagne bubble, as we will see below, is a myriad of different sorts of bubbles, such as terroir, appellation, myth and brand. And just as any assemblage, its heterogeneous elements exist and operate in relation to each other. Therefore the “champagne bubble” discussed here is both one and many, all of its elements fundamentally interconnected, constituting that “one” known as “champagne”. It is not my intention to be comprehensive of all the elements, historical and contemporary. Indeed, that would not be possible within such a short article. Instead, I seek to demonstrate some of the complexity of the champagne bubble, noting the elaborate labour that has gone into its creation. The Physical Champagne and Champagne – from Soil to Bubbles Champagne means both a legally protected geographical area (Champagne), and the wine (here: champagne) produced in this area from grapes defined as acceptable: most importantly pinot noir, pinot meunier (“black” grapes), and chardonnay (“white” grape). The method of production, too, is regulated and legally protected: méthode champenoise. Although the same method is used in numerous locations, these must be called something different: metodo classico (Italy), método tradicional (Spain), Methode Cap Classique (South Africa). The geographical area of Champagne was first legally defined in 1908, when it only included the areas of Marne and Aisne, leaving out, most importantly, the area of Aube. This decision led to severe unrest and riots, as the Aube vignerons revolted in 1911, forcing the inclusion of “zone 2”: Aube, Haute-Marne, and Seine-et-Marne (Guy). Behind these regulations was a surge in fraudulent production in the early twentieth century, as well as falling wine prices resulting from increasing supply of cheap wines (Colman 18). These first appellations d’origine had many consequences – they proved financially beneficial for the “zone 1”, but less so for the “zone 2”. When both these areas were brought under the same appellation in 1927, the financial benefits were more limited – but this may have been due to the Great Depression triggered in 1929 (Haeck et al.). It is a long-standing belief that the soil and climate of Champagne are key contributors to the quality of champagne wines, said to be due to “conditions … most suitable for making this type of wine” (Simon 11). Already in the end of the nineteenth century, the editor of Vigneron champenois attributed champagne’s quality to “a fortunate combination of … chalky soil … [and] unrivalled exposure [to the sun]” (Guy 119) among other things. Factors such as soil and climate, commonly included in and expressed through the idea of terroir, undoubtedly influence grapes and wines made thereof, but the extent remains unproven. Indeed, terroir itself is a very contested concept (Teil; Inglis and Almila). It is also the case that climate change has had, and will continue to have, devastating effects on wine production in many areas, while benefiting others. The highly successful English sparkling wine production, drawing upon know-how from the Champagne area, has been enabled by the warming climate (Inglis), while Champagne itself is at risk of becoming too hot (Robinson). Champagne is made through a process more complicated than most wines. I present here the bare bones of it, to illustrate the many challenges that had to be overcome to enable its production in the scale we see today. Freshly picked grapes are first pressed and the juice is fermented. Grape juice contains natural yeasts and therefore will ferment spontaneously, but fermentation can also be started with artificial yeasts. In fermentation, alcohol and carbon dioxide (CO2) are formed, but the latter usually escapes the liquid. The secret of champagne is its second fermentation, which happens in bottles, after wines from different grapes and/or vineyards have been blended for desired characteristics (assemblage). For the second fermentation, yeast and sugar are added. As the fermentation happens inside a bottle, the CO2 that is created does not escape, but dissolves into the wine. The average pressure inside a champagne bottle in serving temperature is around 5 bar – 5 times the pressure outside the bottle (Liger-Belair et al.). The obvious challenge this method poses has to do with managing the pressure. Exploding bottles used to be a common problem, and the manner of sealing bottles was not very developed, either. Seventeenth-century developments in bottle-making, and using corks to seal bottles, enabled sparkling wines to be produced in the first place (Leszczyńska; Phillips 137). Still today, champagne comes in heavy-bottomed bottles, sealed with characteristically shaped cork, which is secured with a wire cage known as muselet. Scientific innovations, such as calculating the ideal amount of sugar for the second fermentation in 1836, also helped to control the amount of gas formed during the second fermentation, thus making the behaviour of the wine more predictable (Leszczyńska 265). Champagne is characteristically a “manufactured” wine, as it involves several steps of interference, from assemblage to dosage – sugar added for flavour to most champagnes after the second fermentation (although there are also zero dosage champagnes). This lends champagne particularly suitable for branding, as it is possible to make the wine taste the same year after year, harvest after harvest, and thus create a distinctive and recognisable house style. It is also possible to make champagnes for different tastes. During the nineteenth century, champagnes of different dosage were made for different markets – the driest for the British, the sweetest for the Russians (Harding). Bubbles are probably the most striking characteristic of champagne, and they are enabled by the complicated factors described above. But they are also formed when the champagne is poured in a glass. Natural impurities on the surface of the glass provide channels through which the gas pockets trapped in the wine can release themselves, forming strains of rising bubbles (Liger-Belair et al.). Champagne glasses have for centuries differed from other wine glasses, often for aesthetic reasons (Harding). The bubbles seem to do more than give people aesthetic pleasure and sensory experiences. It is often claimed that champagne makes you drunk faster than other drinks would, and there is, indeed, some (limited) research showing that this may well be the case (Roberts and Robinson; Ridout et al.). The Mythical Champagne – from Dom Pérignon to Modern Wonders Just as the bubbles in a champagne glass are influenced by numerous forces, so the metaphorical champagne bubble is subject to complex influences. Myth-creation is one of the most significant of these. The origin of champagne as sparkling wine is embedded in the myth of Dom Pérignon of Hautvillers monastery (1638–1715), who according to the legend would have accidentally developed the bubbles, and then enthusiastically exclaimed “I am drinking the stars!” (Phillips 138). In reality, bubbles are a natural phenomenon provoked by winter temperatures deactivating the fermenting yeasts, and spring again reactivating them. The myth of Dom Pérignon was first established in the nineteenth century and quickly embraced by the champagne industry. In 1937, Moët et Chandon launched a premium champagne called Dom Pérignon, which enjoys high reputation until this day (Phillips). The champagne industry has been active in managing associations connected with champagne since the nineteenth century. Sparkling champagnes had already enjoyed fashionability in the later seventeenth and early eighteenth century, both in the French Court, and amongst the British higher classes. In the second half of the nineteenth century, champagne found ever increasing markets abroad, and the clientele was not aristocratic anymore. Before the 1860s, champagne’s association was with high status celebration, as well as sexual activity and seduction (Harding; Rokka). As the century went on, and champagne sales radically increased, associations with “modernity” were added: “hot-air balloons, towering steamships, transcontinental trains, cars, sports, and other ‘modern’ wonders were often featured in quickly proliferating champagne advertising” (Rokka 280). During this time, champagne grew both drier and more sparkling, following consumer tastes (Harding). Champagne’s most important markets in later nineteenth century included the UK, where the growing middle classes consumed champagne for both celebration and hospitality (Harding), the US, where (upper) middle-class women were served champagne in new kinds of consumer environments (Smith; Remus), and Russia, where the upper classes enjoyed sweeter champagne – until the Revolution (Phillips 296). The champagne industry quickly embraced the new middle classes in possession of increasing wealth, as well as new methods of advertising and marketing. What is remarkable is that they managed to integrate enormously varied cultural thematics and still retain associations with aristocracy and luxury, while producing and selling wine in industrial scale (Harding; Rokka). This is still true today: champagne retains a reputation of prestige, despite large-scale branding, production, and marketing. Maintaining and Defending the Bubble: Formulas, Rappers, and the Absolutely Fabulous Tipplers The falling wine prices and increasing counterfeit wines coincided with Europe’s phylloxera crisis – the pest accidentally brought over from North America that almost wiped out all Europe’s vineyards. The pest moved through Champagne in the 1890s, killing vines and devastating vignerons (Campbell). The Syndicat du Commerce des vins de Champagne had already been formed in 1882 (Rokka 280). Now unions were formed to fight phylloxera, such as the Association Viticole Champenoise in 1898. The 1904 Fédération Syndicale des Vignerons was formed to lobby the government to protect the name of Champagne (Leszczyńska 266) – successfully, as we have seen above. The financial benefits from appellations were certainly welcome, but short-lived. World War I treated Champagne harshly, with battle lines stuck through the area for years (Guy 187). The battle went on also in the lobbying front. In 1935, a new appellation regime was brought into law, which came to be the basis for all European systems, and the Comité National des appellations d'origine (CNAO) was founded (Colman 1922). Champagne’s protection became increasingly international, and continues to be so today under EU law and trade deals (European Commission). The post-war recovery of champagne relied on strategies used already in the “golden years” – marketing and lobbying. Advertising continued to embrace “luxury, celebration, transport (extending from air travel to the increasingly popular automobile), modernity, sports” (Guy 188). Such advertisement must have responded accurately to the mood of post-war, pre-depression Europe. Even in the prohibition US it was known that the “frivolous” French women might go as far as bathe in champagne, like the popular actress Mistinguett (Young 63). Curiously, in the 1930s Soviet Russia, “champagne” (not produced in Champagne) was declared a sign of good living, symbolising the standard of living that any Soviet worker had access to (at least in theory) (Gronow). Today, the reputation of champagne is fiercely defended in legal terms. This is not only in terms of protection against other sparkling wine making areas, but also in terms of exploitation of champagne’s reputation by actors in other commercial fields, and even against mass market products containing genuine champagne (Mahy and d’Ath; Schneider and Nam). At the same time, champagne has been widely “democratised” by mass production, enabled partly by increasing mechanisation and scientification of champagne production from the 1950s onwards (Leszczyńska 266). Yet champagne retains its association with prestige, luxury, and even royalty. This has required some serious adaptation and flexibility. In what follows, I look into three cultural phenomena that illuminate processes of such adaptation: Formula One (F1) champagne spraying, the 1990s sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, and the Cristal racism scandal in 2006. The first champagne bottle is said to have been presented to F1 grand prix winner in Champagne in 1950 (Wheels24). Such a gesture would have been fully in line with champagne’s association with cars, sport, and modernity. But what about the spraying? Surely that is not in line with the prestige of the wine? The first spraying is attributed to Jo Siffert in 1966 and Dan Gurney in 1967, the former described as accidental, the latter as a spontaneous gesture of celebration (Wheels24; Dobie). Moët had become the official supplier of F1 champagnes in 1966, and there are no signs that the new custom would have been problematic for them, as their sponsorship continued until 1999, after which Mumm sponsored the sport for 15 years. Today, the champagne to be popped and sprayed is Chanson, in special bottles “coated in the same carbon fibre that F1 cars are made of” (Wheels24). Such an iconic status has the spraying gained that it features in practically all TV broadcasts concerning F1, although non-alcoholic substitute is used in countries where sale of alcohol is banned (Barker et al., “Quantifying”; Barker et al., “Alcohol”). As disturbing as the champagne spraying might look for a wine snob, it is perfectly in line with champagne’s marketing history and entrepreneurial spirit shown since the nineteenth century. Nor is it unheard of to let champagne spray. The “art” of sabrage, opening champagne bottle with a sable, associated with glamour, spectacle, and myth – its origin is attributed to Napoleon and his officers – is perfectly acceptable even for the snob. Sparkling champagne was always bound up with joy and celebration, not a solemn drink, and the champagne bubble was able to accommodate middle classes as well as aristocrats. This brings us to our second example, the British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. The show, first released in 1992, featured two women, “Eddy” (Jennifer Saunders) and “Patsy” (Joanna Lumley), who spent their time happily smoking, taking drugs, and drinking large quantities of “Bolly” (among other things). Bollinger champagne may have initially experienced “a bit of a shock” for being thus addressed, but soon came to see the benefits of fame (French). In 2005, they hired PR support to make better use of the brand’s “Ab Fab” recognisability, and to improve its prestige reputation in order to justify their higher price range (Cann). Saunders and Lumley were warmly welcomed by the Bollinger house when filming for their champagne tour Absolutely Champers (2017). It is befitting indeed that such controversial fame came from the UK, the first country to discover sparkling champagne outside France (Simon 48), and where the aspirational middle classes were keen to consume it already in the nineteenth century (Harding). More controversial still is the case of Cristal (made by Louis Roederer) and the US rap world. Enthusiastically embraced by the “bling-bling” world of (black) rappers, champagne seems to fit their ethos well. Cristal was long favoured as both a drink and a word in rap lyrics. But in 2006, the newly appointed managing director at the family owned Roederer, Frédéric Rouzaud, made comments considered racist by many (Woodland). Rouzard told in an interview with The Economist that the house observed the Cristal-rap association “with curiosity and serenity”. He reportedly continued: “but what can we do? We can’t forbid people from buying it. I’m sure Dom Pérignon or Krug would be delighted to have their business”. It was indeed those two brands that the rapper Jay-Z replaced Cristal with, when calling for a boycott on Cristal. It would be easy to dismiss Rouzard’s comments as snobbery, or indeed as racism, but they merit some more reflection. Cristal is the premium wine of a house that otherwise does not enjoy high recognisability. While champagne’s history involves embracing new sorts of clientele, and marketing flexibly to as many consumer groups as possible (Rokka), this was the first spectacular crossing of racial boundaries. It was always the case that different houses and their different champagnes were targeted at different clienteles, and it is apparent that Cristal was not targeted at black rap artists. Whereas Bollinger was able to turn into a victory the questionable fame brought by the white middle-class association of Absolutely Fabulous, the more prestigious Cristal considered the attention of the black rapper world more threatening and acted accordingly. They sought to defend their own brand bubble, not the larger champagne bubble. Cristal’s reputation seems to have suffered little – its 2008 vintage, launched in 2018, was the most traded wine of that year (Schultz). Jay-Z’s purchase of his own champagne brand (Armand de Brignac, nicknamed Ace of Spades) has been less successful reputation-wise (Greenburg). It is difficult to break the champagne bubble, and it may be equally difficult to break into it. Conclusion In this article, I have looked into the various dilemmas the “bubble-makers” of Champagne encountered when fabricating what is today known as “champagne”. There have been moments of threat to the bubble they formed, such as in the turn of nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and eras of incomparable success, such as from the 1860s to 1880s. The discussion has demonstrated the remarkable flexibility with which the makers and defenders of champagne have responded to challenges, and dealt with material, socio-cultural, economic, and other problems. It feels appropriate to end with a note on the current challenge the champagne industry faces: Covid-19. The pandemic hit champagne sales exceptionally hard, leaving around 100 million bottles unsold (Micallef). This was not very surprising, given the closure of champagne-selling venues, banning of public and private celebrations, and a general mood not particularly prone to (or even likely to frown upon) such light-hearted matters as glamour and champagne. Champagne has survived many dramatic drops in sales during the twentieth century, such as the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the post-financial crisis collapse in 2009. Yet they seem to be able to make astonishing recoveries. Already, there are indicators that many people consumed more champagne during the festive end-of-year season than in previous years (Smithers). For the moment, it looks like the champagne bubble, despite its seeming fragility, is practically indestructible, no matter how much its elements may suffer under various pressures and challenges. References Barker, Alexander, Magdalena Opazo-Breton, Emily Thomson, John Britton, Bruce Granti-Braham, and Rachael L. Murray. “Quantifying Alcohol Audio-Visual Content in UK Broadcasts of the 2018 Formula 1 Championship: A Content Analysis and Population Exposure.” BMJ Open 10 (2020): e037035. <https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/8/e037035>. Barker, Alexander B., John Britton, Bruce Grant-Braham, and Rachael L. Murray. “Alcohol Audio-Visual Content in Formula 1 Television Broadcasting.” BMC Public Health 18 (2018): 1155. <https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-018-6068-3>. Campbell, Christy. Phylloxera: How Wine Was Saved for the World. London: Harper, 2004. Cann, Richard. “Bolllinger Signs Agency to Reclaim Ab Fab Status.” PR Week 4 Mar. 2005. 4 Mar. 2021 <https://www.prweek.com/article/472221/bollinger-signs-agency-reclaim-ab-fab-status>. Cohen, Jon. “Champagne and Questions Greet First Data Showing That a COVID-19 Vaccine Works.” Science 9 Nov. 2020. 4 Mar. 2021 <https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/champagne-and-questions-greet-first-data-showing-covid-19-vaccine-works>. Colman, Tyler. Wine Politics: How Governments, Environmentalists, Mobsters, and Critics Influence the Wines We Drink. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. Dobie, Stephen. “The Story of Motorsport’s First Ever Champagne Spray.” TopGear 15 Jan. 2018. 4 Mar. 2021 <https://www.topgear.com/car-news/motorsport/story-motorsports-first-ever-champagne-spray>. European Commission. “Wine.” 4 Mar. 2021 <https://ec.europa.eu/info/food-farming-fisheries/plants-and-plant-products/plant-products/wine_en#:~:text=Related%20links-,Overview,consumption%20and%2070%25%20of%20exports>. French, Phoebe. “Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders to Star in Absolutely Champers.” The Drinks Business 20 Dec. 2017. 4 Mar. 2021 <https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2017/12/joanna-lumley-and-jennifer-saunders-to-star-in-absolutely-champers/>. Greenburg, Zack O. “The Real Story behind Jay Z's Champagne Deal.” Forbes 6 Nov. 2014. 4 Mar. 2021 <https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2014/11/06/why-jay-zs-champagne-news-isnt-so-new/?sh=6e4eb8f07528>. Gronow, Jukka. “Caviar with Champagne Good Life and Common Luxury in Stalin's Soviet Union.” Suomen Antropologi 4 (1998). Guy, Colleen M. When Champagne Became French: Wine and the Making of a National Identity. London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Haeck, Catherine, Giulia Meloni, and Johan Swinnen. “The Value of Terroir: A Historical Analysis of the Bordeaux and Champagne Geographical Indications.” Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy 41.4 (2019): 598–619. <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1093/aepp/ppz026>. Harding, Graham. “The Making of Modern Champagne: How and Why the Taste for and the Taste of Champagne Changed in Nineteenth Century Britain.” Consumption Markets & Culture 42.1 (2021): 6-29. <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10253866.2020.1713765?journalCode=gcmc20>. Inglis, David. “Wine Globalization: Longer-Term Dynamics and Contemporary Patterns.” The Globalization of Wine. Eds. David Inglis and Anna-Mari Almila. London: Bloomsbury, 2019. 21-46. Inglis, David, and Anna-Mari Almila. “Introduction: The Travels and Tendencies of Wine.” The Globalization of Wine. Eds. David Inglis and Anna-Mari Almila. London: Bloomsbury, 2019. 1-20. Leszczyńska, D. “A Cluster and Its Trajectory: Evidence from the History of the French Champagne Production Cluster.” Labor History 57.2 (2016): 258-276. <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0023656X.2016.1161140>. Liger-Belair, Gérard, Guillaume Polidori, and Philippe Jeandet. “Recent Advances in the Science of Champagne Bubbles.” Chemical Society Reviews 37 (2008): 2490–2511. <https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2008/cs/b717798b#!divAbstract>. Mahy, Aude, and Florence d’Ath. “The Case of the ‘Champagner Sorbet’ – Unlawful Exploitation or Legitimate Use of the Protected Name ‘Champagne’?” EFFL 1 (2017): 43-48. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/26451418?seq=1>. Micallef, Joseph V. “How Champagne Is Bouncing Back after the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Forbes 15 Nov. 2020. 4 Mar. 2021 <https://www.forbes.com/sites/joemicallef/2020/11/15/how-champagne-is-bouncing-back-after-the-covid-19-pandemic/?sh=3300e4125784>. Phillips, Rod. A Short History of Wine. London: Penguin, 2000. Remus, Emily A. “Tippling Ladies and the Making of Consumer Culture: Gender and Public Space in ‘Fin-de- Siècle’ Chicago.” The Journal of American History 101.3 (2014): 751-77. <https://academic.oup.com/jah/article/101/3/751/796447?login=true>. Ridout, Fran, Stuart Gould, Carlo Nunes, and Ian Hindmarch. “The Effects of Carbon Dioxide in Champagne on Psychometric Performance and Blood-Alcohol Concentration.” Alcohol and Alcoholism 38.4 (2003): 381-85. <https://academic.oup.com/alcalc/article/38/4/381/232628>. Roberts, C., and S.P. Robinson. “Alcohol Concentration and Carbonation of Drinks: The Effect on Blood Alcohol Levels.” Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine 14.7 (2007): 398-405. <https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17720590/>. Robinson, Frances. “Champagne Will Be Too Hot for Champagne Research Warns.” Decanter. 12 Jan. 2004. 4 Mar. 2021 <https://www.decanter.com/wine-news/champagne-will-be-too-hot-for-champagne-research-warns-103258/>. Rokka, Joonas. “Champagne: Marketplace Icon.” Consumption Markets & Culture 20.3 (2017): 275-283. <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10253866.2016.1177990?journalCode=gcmc20>. Schneider, Marius, and Nora Ho Tu Nam. “Champagne Makes the Dough Sour: EUIPO Board of Appeal Allows Opposition against Registration of Champagnola Trade Mark Based on Evocation of Champagne PDO.” Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice 15.9 (2020): 675-676. <https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/article/15/9/675/5905791>. Schultz, Abby. “20 Minutes With: Frédéric Rouzaud on Cristal, Biodynamics, and Zero Dosage.” Penta. 31 Dec. 2018. 4 Mar. 2021 <https://www.barrons.com/articles/20-minutes-with-frederic-rouzaud-on-cristal-biodynamics-and-zero-dosage-01546280265>. Simon, André L. The History of Champagne. London: Octobus, 1972. Smith, Andrew F. Drinking History: Fifteen Turning Points in the Making of American Beverages. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. Smithers, Rebecca. “Britons Turn to Luxury Food and Drink to See Out Dismal 2020 in Style.” The Guardian 28 Dec. 2020. 4 Mar. 2021 <https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/dec/28/britons-turn-luxury-food-drink-see-out-dismal-2020-style?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Gmail>. Teil, Geneviève. “No Such Thing as Terroir? Objectivities and the Regimes of Existence of Objects.” Science, Technology & Human Values 37.5 (2012): 478-505. <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0162243911423843>. Wheels24. “Champagne Returns to F1 podium.” 2 Aug. 2017. 4 Mar. 2021 <https://www.news24.com/wheels/FormulaOne/champagne-returns-to-f1-podium-20170802>. Woodland, Richard. “Rapper Jay-Z Boycotts ‘Racist’ Cristal.” Decanter 16 June 2006. 4 Mar. 2021 <https://www.decanter.com/wine-news/rapper-jay-z-boycotts-racist-cristal-94054/>. Young, Robert K. “Out of the Ashes: The American Press and France's Postwar Recovery in the 1920s.” Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques 28.1 (2002): 51-72. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/41299224?seq=1>.