Notes for Final Exam - Ben Carrington PDF

Preview

Summary

Ben Carrington...

Description

Coverage of women’s sport: What are the major findings of the research into the coverage of women’s sports? What have media studies scholars like Cooky, Messner and Musto found? Have their findings been supported by other researchers? Make sure you are fully up to date on the research on the representation and coverage of women’s sports/female athletes (25 marks) Quantity of coverage ● 5% or less sports coverage dedicated to women’s sports ● Women must do something spectacular to get coverage ● Coverage disproportionately represents the amount of sports played by women ○ Women play every sport men do, yet are given no coverage in comparison Quality of coverage ● Nonchalant, lackluster, lacking depth ● “If you are still around, check out…” ● Dramatizing men’s sports ● No female athlete highlights or stories Power relationships ● Heteronormativity - the normalization of heterosexuality ● Sexualizing women in sports ○ Interviewing women on being mothers or wives ○ Transitioned from their attractiveness ● Men - entering sports emphasizes/reaffirms their masculinity ● Women - playing sports puts their femininity into question ○ Need to reaffirm their feminine side to show that they are heterosexual ■ Bend It Like Beckham - character’s mom thinks that she is a lesbian because she starts playing soccer and hanging out with her teammates ○ Good mother, wife, girlfriend ● Sports spaces are very heteronormative ○ “Space” being sexual - not that poeple are straight, but that they should be straight ○ Sports coverage - basketball game kiss cam (always man and woman) Sports media coverage (women’s sports) ● Vast majority focused on men’s sports and male athletes ● Coverage has changed ○ More respectful, less sexist commentary than 1970s-1990s ● Women women are covered, their stories are lacking in excitement compared to the dramatized narrative style of men’s sports coverage ● Billings & Youngs study of ESPN SportsCenter and Fox Sports in 2015 ○ Cooky et. al. - women received 3.2% of coverage ○ Lower than 1989 (5%) and 1993 (5.1%) ○ 405 segments, 14 hours on SportsCenter

○ ○ ○ ○

●

● ● ●

● ●

●

●

376 segments, 3 hours on men’s sports 13 segments, 17 minutes on women’s sports Nov 2014 - 44 seconds dedicated to coverage of women’s sports Every segment led with male athletes ■ Why is the lead significant? - gets people in the door ■ Agenda-setting - who was in the room when these decisions were made? Who is telling you what is important or not? Act of sexualizing female athlete downplays their athleticism ○ Anna Kornacova - not as good of a tennis player, but she was attractive and therefore was given more coverage ○ 6.1% of space given to women’s sports on the “ticker” ■ The ticker becomes a “visual and textual ghetto for women’s sports” (Cooky) News broadcasters “build audiences” for men’s sports whilst positioning women’s sports as uninteresting/unimportant Big three - men’s pro/college football and basketball, and pro baseball “Dude time” ○ 95% of news/highlights shows have male anchors ○ Male content, commentators with amplified, excited style of delivery ○ “Mediated man cave” WESPN vs. ESPN or WNBA vs. NBA ○ Women are the deviation from the norm Sports Illustrated ○ Women on cover in bikinis ○ Women coverage is given, highlights femininity not skill Men’s events remain unmarked by gender ○ Women’s events are gendered ■ Women’s World Cup or WNBA Iconic individuals/players ○ We know the Lebron James, Tom Brady, Alex Morgan, Serena Williams ○ But we also know male athletes below the elite/top names

Sports media texts (progress in media sporting representation?) ● Increased coverage of female athletes in sports magazines ○ But what is the nature of the coverage? Who makes it on the cover? ● Adult female athletes still often referred to as “girls” rather than women (similar to black men in south being called “boy”) ● Often shot in “suggestive”, sexualized positions ● Reproduction of male gaze - static bodies, shot from above ○ Not from below, where women would look powerful ○ Relationship between photographer and photographed highlighted ○ We get to look - scopophilia ● Decontextualized ○ Often shot “in action”, but posed

●

○ Status as wives, mothers, girlfriends often highlighted ○ Sometimes misplaced - Ivanka Trump on cover of “Golf for Women” ○ Highly sexualized photos ○ Focused more on fashion than function Social effects of women’s sports media coverage ○ Ideologies of “natural” male superiority

Messner: ● Women are seen as being “closer to nature” and therefore more emotional and irrational The “contested terrain” of gender relations ● Gender relations are always constructed relationally ○ What it means to be a man is what is not a woman ● “Sports media does not construct hegemonic masculinity in relation to femininities but also in relation to marginalized or subordinated masculinities” (Messner) ● Hegemony - a negotiation Musto:

● Study = a 5-year update to a 25-year longitudinal study, indicates that ○ the quantity of coverage of women’s sports in televised sports news and highlights shows remains dismally low. ■ Even more so than in past iterations of this study, the lion’s share of coverage is given to the “big three” of men’s pro and college football, basketball, and baseball. ○ a decline in tendency to present women as sexualized objects of humor ■ replaced by a tendency to view women athletes in their roles as mothers

2. Sports media and masculinity: What is meant by the “televised sports manhood formula”? How is it defined, what evidence is there for it? How does Messner (and other gender scholars) describe the relationship between masculinity and sports? Is masculinity a fixed identity, or is it plural and relational? What is meant by that? (25 marks) Televised sports manhood formula: ● “an overarching narrative about men and gender that cuts across live broadcasts and accompanying commercials” – The elements constitute a pedagogy of manhood for young male viewers ● Messner defines a “real man” = as strong, tough, aggressive and a winner. Have to sacrifice your own long term health in the face of danger. Avoid being soft and be the aggressor. His ultimate prize is the adoring attention of beautiful women. Voices of authority such as white men will tell him when he has arrived as a real man. Only as

●

●

good as your last game. More Messner: ○ “costs of masculinity” = paid by our Sunday heroes sometimes bleed into the play by play broadcasters and the Monday headlines ○ -consumers (men) start to make the connection bw the very real vulnerabilities of advertisers in theses same newspaper pages. Today, ppl bemoan the good old days when we could look up to our athletes are invulnerable heroes, as symbols of masculine perfection. DIRECTLY FROM MESSNER: ○ “the Televised Sports Manhood Formula is a pedagogy through which boys are taught that paying the price, be it one’s bodily health or one’s money, gives one access to the privileges that have been historically linked to hegemonic masculinity—money, power, glory, and women. And the barrage of images of femininity as model-like beauty displayed for and in the service of successful men suggest that heterosexuality is a major lynchpin of the Televised Sports Manhood Formula, and on a larger scale serves as one of the major linking factors in the conservative gender regime of the sports/media/commercial complex.” ○ Not really known the actual effect that the sports manhood formula has on boys but… ■ Most such research finds that audiences interpret, use, and draw meanings from media variously, based on factors such as social class, race/ethnicity, and gender (Hunt, 1999; Whannel, 1998).

Modernity, masculinity, and reason ● Men are seen as rational, objective, and reasoned ● Women are seen as being “closer to nature” and therefore more emotional and irrational ● Men get to control and shape the public sphere, and the domestic sphere is seen as feminine (and therefore a-political) ● Sperm, sweat, and blood ○ David Gilmore (anthropologist, “Manhood in the Making”) ○ 3 components to masculinity in society ■ Man the impregnator (sexually active) ■ Man the provider (breadwinner) ■ Man the protector (bravery and heroism) Masculinity as a relational identity The “contested terrain” of gender relations ● Gender relations are always constructed relationally ○ What it means to be a man is what is not a woman ● “Sports media does not construct hegemonic masculinity in relation to femininities but also in relation to marginalized or subordinated masculinities” (Messner) ● Hegemony - a negotiation

Selling Men: Advertising Masculinities ■ Disjuncture between men’s connection with mediated male heroes and our own less-than-heroic … ○ Video: Gillette commercial ■ “The best a man can get” ○ Objectifying women in advertisements from 50s-70s ■ How have things changed? ● Haven’t really — Dr. Pepper advertisements “Not for women” ■ “Women Not Objects” Video

3. White sports/media complex: A question on the idea of a “post-racial society”, the concept of “color-blind racism”, and the role of advertising in shaping racial perceptions. You need to think about the relationship between sports and politics, especially the election of Barack Obama in 2008 and Donald Trump in 2016. You should be able to define racism, and speak to the wider relationship between sports, race and politics (25 marks) Racism: modern racism — lebron james holding the girl. Exact same picture as the king kong image ● “Shifting and contradictory nature of contemporary racism” (Carrington) ○ Its often inadvertent and so normalized that its invisible to the naked eye ○ Racism is prejudice and discrimination but its also defined by cultural context that is shifting and contradictory ■ Contradictory = lebron story The white sports/media complex ● “Shifting and contradictory nature of contemporary racism” (Carrington) ● Darwin’s Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race (John Hoberman) ○ Sports is an image factory ○ Sports help to reinforce/reproduce the idea that humans are biologically different ○ Race (blackness) is a spectacle - to be black is seen as cool ○ Challenges notion that sports are a fair arena ○ Common sense position on sports is that race does not matter ● “The sports media complex becomes the modality through which popular ideas about race are lived” (Carrington) ● Disproportionately focuses on physicality of black men’s bodies and not their intelligence ● Myths that black athletes have “different bodies” - “extra bones, thicker skulls, more muscles” - that make them able to compete at a higher physical level WHITE SPORTS/MEDIA COMPLEX: ○ The sports/media complex becomes the modality (vehicle) through which popular ideas about race are played out/lived ○ What is the “white” in the white sports media complex ■ The centering of whiteness. The default and unexamined norma against

which all other identities are understood Similar to the gender conversation: ● Women seem to be intruding on sports (NBA vs. WNBA) default is masculine ■ Similar: default of sports is white ● The black athlete’s presence in sports disrupts it Understanding the role of white sports media complex constituting that reality for us ○ Formed through the white sports media complex ○ How we understand race generally ■ P 90 carrington reading “it is important to understand …” ○ The ideologies of racism remain contradictory structures, which can function both as the vehicles for the imposition of dominant ideologies, and as the elementary forms of the cultures of resistance Invention of the black athlete ○ Keeping alive colonial myths of inherent black degeneracy — racial trope created ○ Pulls together 2 ideas of blackness ■ Blackness... as exotic, as desirable, as a spectacle, as danger, as violence, as aggression. ■ Elevation of blackness and the view of blackness as dangerous ○ Invention bc it is an idea, it doesn’t exist in reality ■ There are black ppl who are athletic but the black athlete is a trope that is nonexistent ■ OBAMA; ○ Some said that Obama’s election meant that the US was now “post-racial” – had cleaned itself of shame ○ The argument was that black athletes like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods had paved the way for society to accept black accomplishment as possible and desirable. ○ Black athletes were seen by the media at the time as portraying “blackness” as admirable. ○ ‘Bradley Effect’ - people thought that leading up to election people would say that they would vote black and then not ○ Deifying Michael Jordan as “black Jesus” ○ Multicultural belly and monocultural mind ○ Whiteness is the dominant racial discourse TRUMP ○ Jack johnson - pardoned him ■ Served 10 mo in federal prison ○ Racially motivated injustice ■ Pardoned all of his felonies and gave him a clean slate ○ Obama never did that ■ Obama wouldve been criticized bc this guy allegedy kidnapped a white woman ■

●

●

●

●

○

Also — ■ Trump went after Colin Kapernick ■ “Get that son of a bitch off the field” — went off on Colin Kapernick about that

4. Media and sports mega events: There will be a question on sports mega-events. How are they defined, what are their key characteristics? Are they good or bad for countries, host cities and communities? Who benefits from sports mega events and who pays the costs? What is the role of the media in relation to sports mega events? What do scholars like Jules Boykoff say about the impact of the Olympics? You should think about the 2028 Summer Olympic games in Los Angeles when addressing the questions above and have specific data/evidence to support your arguments (25 marks) The commodified sports mega event would not be possible without the media, a statement backed by not only Billings & Wenner but also sociologist Debord. Sports events as “mega events” ● There is no mega event without the media ● Become part of a cultural tapestry ● Civic occasions for bonding, platform for conversation HOSTING: ● Roche (2000) — did much of the foundational work about megaevents ○ Mega events have 2 dimensional character as ■ 1- tourist events ● In the realm of global tourist culture and global tourist industry/cultural economy ■ 2- media events ● Global media culture and the global media industry/economy ○ Makes mega events into temporary “localizations” of global culture ● Critique of sports mega events ○ Has become an important aspect of globalization ■ Provides social and political space that has no national affiliation Mega events spread across a wide range of the definition of sports, interests and rituals but always share certain characteristics : Four key characteristics ● 1- Pre-eminent competition ○ Sport at its highest level ○ A megasporting event is noteworthy in that a fair share of the winnowing has already taken place. ■ Far more athletes have failed to achieve the level of competition/ability to be able to play in these megasport events ○ The ultimate competition is preceded by months and sometimes years of

●

●

●

qualifying contests that lead up to major events ■ In golf, it would be months/years of participating in smaller championships to be able to compete for the big title such as the British Open 2- Predictable occurrence ○ Fixed calendar, known in advance (2020 Olympics in Japan) ○ When a sport event is not classified as “mega” it is not always known when the competition will occur ○ Megasports operate separately from these organic structures ■ Some events are scheduled a decade in advance ■ Olympic locations are presented 7 years prior 3- Opportunities for historical comparison ○ Can stand in comparison to history/past events ○ Offer enough consistency to warrant comparisons not only yearly but across generations ○ The generational media narrative inspires the spectacle of awe ■ Easily invites comparison ■ Jesse Owens v. Usain Bolt ● 7 decades apart ○ Notably, the tale of megasporting events has to be recognized as being told by power complexes and ideologies of the time ■ Some might argue many of the ideologies of power such as white, male, heteronormativity dominate the language/dialect in which these megaevents are framed ■ Influences how accurately they can be compared 4- Transcendence of traditional meaning of sport ○ Reach beyond everyday sporting events, “dreams come true” ○ Victories in mega sporting events literally has the power to define an atheltes entire career ■ It is the “apex” of their career ■ Think of michael phelps and how he became a celebrity ○ Participation however is also its own form of achievement ■ Reaches beyond the world of sports ○ Mike Lupicia notes the olympics as “world’s most spectacular reality series”

Mega Events have become normalized as seemingly natural features of the rhythms of modern life. Summer 2028 Olympics: ● Phase 3 of Scholar Alan Tomlinson’s analysis of the 3 phases of developemtn in the summer olympic games ○ Puts the games from 1984 - 2016 in the “commodification” phase: olympic brand and media product through the global reach of capital Muller (2015) - notes that there are 4 size-related status markers that mega events have to

achieve 1. Visitor attractiveness 2. Mediated reach 3. Cost 4. Transformative impact ● Makes a case for raising the summer olympic game scale to a new echelon ○ A “gigantic’ event ○ Superbowl would be a major event , right below mega event status ○ Jules Boykoff — IMPACT OF THE OLYMPICS ● Professor at pacific university in oregon ● Teaches on social politics, environmental politics, etc ○ She talks about how politics has impacted the olympics ● COST of olympic games —- economically impacts negatively ○ The 2014 Winter Games in Sochi blew their budget by 289 percent. The 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid overtopped projections by 324 percent. And the 1976 Games in Montreal ran a staggering 720 percent over projections; the city spent three decades paying down the bill. While outliers such as these distort the average cost overruns somewhat (176 percent for Summer Games, 142 percent for Winter Games), the median cost overrun for all games for which we have data is 90 percent, making Rio’s cost overrun somewhat lower than the historical norm, at least so far. ● IMPACT ○ On rio economically ○ An interview w Boykoff about how worried should the IOC be over the (then) upcoming olympic games in rio - 4 years ago ■ The impeachment at the time had a direct impact on the economical impact of the olympics ■ Organizers of the rio olympics — sole beneficiary of the mahem in the government ○ Typically the global media asks tough questions about olympic preparation but the media has been asking about the political/economic crisis in Rio ■ Venue construction behind schedule — those things weren’t discussed in the media. The government issues/political issues were taking negative attention/critique away from the olympic games media and mega/super-media. Media events (without sports) facilitate social integration by celebrating shared values and validating public rituals of affirmation. – More about the cultural rituals of the Super Bowl -often will be put in your calendar à setting aside time to watch the golf masters in April -have dramatic character, mass popular appeal, and international significance.

https://blackboard.usc.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-6367028-dt-content-rid26234380_2/courses/20201_jour_350_21186/Billings%20and%20Wenner%20Week%2014.pdf...