COMM Professor Raney interviewed by various media outlets about Winston allegations

Posted by Natalie Kates on
Dr. Arthur Raney
Dr. Arthur Raney

Dr. Arthur A. Raney, James E. Kirk Professor of Communication and Director of Doctoral Studies in the Florida State University (FSU) School of Communication, was interviewed in November 2013 by Yahoo! Sports, the Orlando Sentinel, and WFSU’s Capital Report.  He shared his expertise about the media coverage of the sexual-assault allegations against Jameis Winston, the 2013 Heisman Trophy winner and current FSU football and baseball star.

Dr. Raney discussed how media coverage of such stories often becomes sensationalized and opinion-driven. “I saw a poll the other day on a media’s website that was basically ‘Is Jameis Winston guilty? Is he innocent?’  Well, it really doesn’t matter what you and I think – there’s a legal process here.  And the fact that people’s opinions at this point becomes the story itself can be quite problematic,” Raney stated on Capital Report.

Yahoo! Sports sought Dr. Raney’s insight as a researcher of sports media audiences and as the instructor of the course Media, Sports, and Society.  He also offered his perspective as a faculty member in general. “Faculty members have a love-hate relationship with athletics,” Raney said.  “We like to say that we were here before they were – that the school existed before there was a football team. But at the same time, when the football team does well we have an increased number of applications. The name and brand is spread further. There are benefits, absolutely, with having a top-notch football team.”

With his diverse expertise in entertainment theory, media effects, and media and sports, Dr. Raney is an internationally recognized expert within the field of communication.  Dr. Raney, lead editor of The Handbook of Sports and Media, ranks among the top contributing authors to the leading journal in his area, according to The Oxford Handbook of Media Psychology (read the CCI Read a previous College news story about this accomplishment at: news.cci.fsu.edu/cci-news/professor-raney-ranked-among-top-authors.He received his PhD in Mass Communication from the University of Alabama.

Find the full articles where Dr. Raney was quoted about the Winston case at: