these aspects with sport media viewing. This study used EEG to measure brain activity stimulated by suspense and surprise in sports entertainment. Twenty-one subjects (mean age, 21.8 yr) viewed a stratified random selection of 8 out of 32 suspenseful and/or surprising sports video clips, 2 each of 4 categories: High Suspense and High Surprise (HH), High Suspense and Low Surprise (HL), Low Suspense and High Surprise (LH), and Low Suspense and Low Surprise (LL). EEG frequency bands (θ, α, β, and γ) and the α asymmetry index in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) were examined. Across video classifications, main effects were found for α activity in the Left-PFC and for PFC α asymmetry (F_3,60 = 5.298, p = 0.003). Further factorial analyses suggest that suspense and surprise have independent influences on brain activity and there were no apparent interactions between the factors. This provides evidence of the distinct effects that suspense and surprise, anticipatory versus outcome-driven emotions, have on a sports viewer’s brain and offers early insights into the impact of potentially modifiable elements of media for practitioners.

31:T514,

This Communication & Sport special issue explores the complex intersection of sport, media, and migration from multiple interconnected perspectives. As human migration accelerates globally, understanding how sports media facilitates and contests migration narratives is increasingly critical. The issue examines four foundational concepts—media, sport, migration, and culture—to investigate how athlete mobility and national identity are constructed and perceived. As outlined in this introduction, the collected articles are organized into three thematic sections. The first section addresses the transnational identities of elite athletes and their navigation of hybrid cultures across various media platforms. The second section investigates the systemic impacts of athlete naturalization, highlighting state media narratives alongside grassroots fan responses. The third section provides theoretical and historical frameworks for understanding how national belonging can migrate across borders through sporting narratives. Ultimately, this collection of articles demonstrates that sports media acts as a powerful mechanism in shaping cultural boundaries and national identity, emphasizing that sports migration extends far beyond the physical movement of athletes.

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This study investigates the cross-cultural visual self-presentation of skier Eileen Gu, a U.S.-born athlete who migrated competitively to represent China at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. While previous scholarship has examined how sports media construct nationalistic and gendered narratives around athletes, little attention has been paid to how athletes themselves negotiate these identities through visual self-presentation on social media. Drawing on self-presentation theory, we analyzed 893 images from Gu’s official Weibo and Instagram accounts. Using a combination of human and computational content analysis, we found that Gu’s visual self-presentation highlighted personal life and used more sexual appeals on Instagram, but centered on athletics and national symbols on Weibo. Athletics-themed posts received the highest engagement, while nationalistic symbols boosted likes and comments on Instagram but reduced shares on Weibo. Visual characteristics and facial expressions predicted engagement only on Instagram. By integrating computational methods with self-presentation theory, this study contributes to sports migration scholarship by showing how athletes negotiate hybrid identity and mobilize cross-cultural support in digital sport communication.

33:T58e,