Gender and Sport Media

LaVoi, Nicole M.

doi:10.1007/978-94-6209-455-0_3

Cited by 9 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Media representations of females in sports tie into images of femininity and sexuality. Print and broadcast representations help shape a view that female athletes are a less authentic version of male counterparts (Lavoi, 2013; Weber & Carini, 2013). Although women makeup 40% of sport participants in the United States, less than 2% of televised media coverage is devoted to women; by ignoring sportswomen, the media portray females as not being skilled at or interested in sport (Kane, 2013).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

What’s the Best Exposure? Examining Media Representations of Female Athletes and the Impact on Collegiate Athletes’ Self-Objectification

Smith

2015

Communication & Sport

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Many studies offer clear evidence that exposure to glamorized and sexualized media images results in distorted body image perceptions in girls and young women. Researchers have examined the link between sports media exposure and the negative effect on body perceptions of young girls and women, though a gap exists in the examination of the relationship between media images and positive impact. Grounded in the theories of self-objectification and social comparison, this study tested the relationships between self-objectification and body esteem and sports media exposure. Using a between-participants experimental design, this study examined how three different images of elite female athletes-performance, glamorized, and overly sexualized-impacted collegiate-level female athlete's tendency to self-objectify and their levels of body esteem. Results suggest that less self-objectification occurs and greater body satisfaction is achieved when images of performance athletes are viewed, suggesting a need for more of these images in mainstream media.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

What’s the Best Exposure? Examining Media Representations of Female Athletes and the Impact on Collegiate Athletes’ Self-Objectification

Smith

2015

Communication & Sport

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“…Narratives surrounding gay athletes have unfolded across a backdrop of what cultural studies scholars have dubbed “the era of the visible” (Walters, 2001b, p. 338), the unprecedented media coverage of LGBTQ communities, and the advancement of gay civil rights issues in U.S. culture (Dow, 2001; Gross, 2001). Once considered “unfit to print” (Alwood, 1998), LGBTQ issues now routinely headline mainstream news, and coverage of coming-out stories has increasingly become more positive (Lavoi, 2013). While the 2000s witnessed a rise in the entertainment appeal, the advancement of inclusionary civil rights such as marriage and military service, and the recognition of gays and lesbians as a budding consumer market, these changes have not necessarily challenged homophobia or worked to combat heterosexual privilege.…”

Section: Intersections and Disjunctions: Sport Media And Sexualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Outside the Sports Closet: News Discourses of Professional Gay Male Athletes in the Mainstream

Moscowitz

Billings

Ejaz

et al. 2018

Journal of Communication Inquiry

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Contributing to a growing yet underresearched area of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer issues in sport, this study interrogates news discourses of the most prominent American athletes coming-out stories to date: the National Basketball Association's Jason Collins and the National Football League's Michael Sam. Mainstream media narratives invoked an overall congratulatory tone, hailing these announcements as watershed moments while at the same time emphasizing athletes' physicality and athleticism in ways that reinforced the hypermasculine. Journalists and opinion leaders celebrated these announcements while simultaneously relying on coded and overt homophobic labels and language. Media storytellers subsequently relied upon dualistic, self-contradictory binaries, highlighting the paradoxes implicit in celebrating increased gay visibility within the confines of a commercialized sports/media complex with heterosexuality and hypermasculinity at its core.

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“…One way in which women athletes are positioned as ideally feminine by the media is through articulations of heterosexuality (Birrell & Theberge, 1994; Kane, 2013). This is often achieved through obligatory references to women athletes’ boyfriends and husbands, and children are prominently displayed if an athlete is a mother (Lavoi, 2013). In these instances, motherhood comes to stand in for appropriate womanhood, soothing anxieties about the athlete’s sexuality.…”

Section: Media Coverage Of Women’s Sport: Athletic or Fit?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“The Mother of All Comebacks”

Hodler

Lucas-Carr

2016

Communication & Sport

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Swimmer Dara Torres’s comeback to her sport at 41 years of age was a prominent story from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. While her record making swims made her comeback an athletic success, the importance of her comeback extends beyond her athletic accomplishments. Media representations of Torres during her comeback construct her body and the lifestyle that produced it as inspirational—or fitspirational. Although the term circulates widely in U.S. popular culture, and despite its importance in reframing what a woman’s ideal body is and how it is achieved, fitspiration has not received much attention from scholars. In this article, we use the constructed narrative of Torres’s 2008 comeback to demonstrate how notions of individualism, self-monitoring practices, personal responsibility, and empowerment in conjunction with long-standing ideological portrayals of women athletes erase social inequalities and perpetuate heteronormative ideals. The constructed narrative produces her as a fitspirational figure whom American women should emulate. Furthermore, this process transforms Torres from an elite athlete to a mom who used sport to regain her fitness. Her status as an elite athlete is marginalized and her body becomes attainable through the representation of her age and motherhood as barriers that can be overcome through self-monitored consumptive practices.

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Gender and Sport Media

Cited by 9 publications

References 41 publications

What’s the Best Exposure? Examining Media Representations of Female Athletes and the Impact on Collegiate Athletes’ Self-Objectification

What’s the Best Exposure? Examining Media Representations of Female Athletes and the Impact on Collegiate Athletes’ Self-Objectification

Outside the Sports Closet: News Discourses of Professional Gay Male Athletes in the Mainstream

“The Mother of All Comebacks”

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