CTE, Media, and the NFL: Framing a Public Health Crisis as a Football Epidemic serves as an intriguing introduction to a mysterious disease called CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). These authors address the ways that the media have framed the public health crisis. The book is written in an informative and interesting way, making it a text readers can readily absorb. Furthermore, this book would be suitable and helpful for classes engaging in sport communication, as well as media and public relations. The book permits readers to expand their knowledge regarding contemporary health issues linked to football and other sports that could lead to brain injury.

International Journal of Sport Communication

The triptych title encapsulates what's in store in this short and tightly written volume. Its initial chapters on the history of head injuries in football take account of their role in defining masculinity in the early 20th century, and public health advocates will appreciate the comparisons between the campaign to bring public attention to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and the campaigns waged around tobacco and HIV/AIDS. The media studies leg of this book documents how news organizations transmit scientific findings to the public, pressuring policy makers to change government and corporate behavior. In the case of CTE, Bell (Univ. of South Florida), Applequist (Univ. of South Florida), and Dotson-Pierson (Univ. of South Carolina) detail the formation of a “media storm” that prompted a March 2016 congressional forum on concussions in sport, leading to the NFL’s first acknowledgment of the problem. The fact that the media, and even popular culture in some cases, incites the public interest behind congressional action—not science—will surprise some readers.



Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students.

Choice Reviews

Travis R. Bell, Janelle Applequist, and Christian Dotson-Pierson offer a compelling narrative of unstoppable force (America’s love of football) meeting the immovable object (accumulating evidence of the sport as a major health epidemic). This is a book of searing insight and import—showing the role media plays both in telling the uncomfortable stories and also in stifling them to keep the NFL party rolling.

Andrew C. Billings, The University of Alabama