ABSTRACT
In understanding and researching sport, socio-cultural approaches in sport studies have generated some distinctive methodologies, which have made significant interventions and contributions to particular spheres of social investigation; these include studies of mega-events, globalisation processes, body cultures, public rhetoric and ideologies, governance processes, and integrated studies of the production and consumption of the spectacle. This conclusion briefly reflects upon selected aspects of the philosophy of science as applied to the analysis of sport culture, and then considers methodological issues in the context of sport history and media studies, before looking at how particular methods have been used by socio-cultural researchers focusing primarily upon the meaning of sport and its cultural significance in contemporary societies.
