Author(s): LIN, W., CHEN, J., Institution: NATIONAL TAIWAN NORMAL UNIVERSITY, Country: TAIWAN, Abstract-ID: 2287

BACKGROUND & AIM:
This study investigates how corporate media in late-20th-century Taiwan constructed and disseminated ideals of sporting well-being, framing them as markers of middle-class distinction. Moving beyond traditional analyses of state-centric sport governance, this research focuses on the role of a family-owned enterprise and its publisher, who concentrated cross-field capital to shape urban sporting culture and public notions of health and happiness.
METHODS:
This historical case study examines Leofoo Xunkan (literally “Leofoo Ten-Day Journal”, 1984-1995), a cinema-oriented periodical published by Taiwan's Leofoo Group. Initially a marketing tool for the Group's hotels, cinemas, restaurants, and zoo, the publication evolved under the leadership of publisher Chuang Hsiu-Shih. A journalism graduate and long-serving General Manager, Chuang also chaired the regional Gymnastics Association (1985-1989) and pioneered sports exchanges in East Asia. All 240 issues were analyzed using systematic content analysis and critical discourse analysis. Coding categories encompassed sport coverage, lifestyle integration, institutional ties, and publication chronology. Intercoder reliability was established, and findings were triangulated with archival materials and biographical data.
RESULTS:
First, the periodical's flexible, cinema-aligned release rhythm positioned it as a key intermediary in urban leisure media, integrating sport content into the cultural consumption patterns of middle-class and family readerships beyond traditional sport outlets. Second, the publication strategically shifted from direct commercial promotion toward sustained editorial curation of gymnastics. Through competition coverage, a dedicated gymnastics column, and featuring the Gymnastics Association's award schemes, it framed the sport through ideals of discipline, grace, and technical precision. These ideals were seamlessly woven into consumer-oriented lifestyle features, effectively modeling a replicable, modern "good life." Third, during Chuang's association chairmanship (1985-1989), the journal published special issues and in-depth reports that were instrumental in preserving gymnastics' cultural memory. Fourth, Chuang's dual corporate and federation roles enabled the strategic mobilization of the Group's media and leisure venues, amplifying sport events and fostering regional and international organizational networks.
CONCLUSIONS:
This case demonstrates that corporate publishing served as a powerful mechanism of cultural brokerage, actively producing sport-related well-being. Commercial logistics and editorial practices created non-governmental pathways through which sporting practices acquired social legitimacy and symbolic value. By grounding analysis in a specific enterprise and its publisher's unique confluence of journalistic and administrative leadership, this study advances East Asian sport history. It contributes to theoretical understandings of how mediated culture shapes class formation and the very definition of well-being in a modernizing urban context.