The author of this piece is David Papineau, the author is credible because he is the professor of the philosophy of science at King’s college in London. He has also published other articles that are in the New York times including this article.

I believe the author’s audience are intended to be sports fans of football/soccer fans. I know this because the title of the article is something that football/soccer fans have questioned about. He then goes on to give the reasoning for why these players pretend to be hurt which is shown on the second page first paragraph.

The piece’s tone is humorous and displeased, I know this because in the very sentences the author says,” It is a part of the viewing experience of world cup football (soccer, as Americans Know it.) At the slightest physical contact with an opponent, a player throws himself to the ground and writhes around in mock agony, grabbing a body part,” He exaggerates the actions of the player and later shows he is displeased as he calls the players “shameless”.

The purpose of this piece is to show why these football players engage in this playacting and later shows that this form of playacting is in most sports and how it’s a normal thing. I know this because he says that the players are, “peaking at the referee to see if he has duped him into awarding a penalty”. He then goes on to say that “in truth much of this is simply misplaced insularity,” showing that it is prevalent in sports.

The genre is sports and nonfiction. Some features of the genre is that he names specific sports, names famous football players, names teams of the sport, and talks about what certain players are doing.

The medium that is being used is an article because this is published in the New York Times and shows features of an article. And I believe this can be turned into a podcast for it can be more like a conversation.

When the piece was released it was around the same time that the world cup was happening. The timeliness of this piece was perfect because it answered football fan’s questions as they watched the world cup.

A cultural expectation for it was that it was going to be somewhat funny since English people like to have fun and that it would talk about the world cup because it was released around the time the English were going to play.

The author’s stance appears to be that he does not enjoy the foul play and the deception from sport because after complaining about it he ends the article saying, “we can hope.” as in he hopes the foul play will stop.