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Traditional media coverage of the Olympic Games has been shown to exhibit biases in terms of gender, nationality, and the type of sports covered, which can contribute to negative societal consequences and inaccurate historical records of such events. Scholars have suggested that because of the Internet’s expanded spatial parameters, new media have the ability to provide more equitable coverage of events such as the Olympics. In this study, we used agenda setting theory to employ a content analysis methodology to determine whether different constructions of the 2012 London Olympics were presented to media consumers on news websites in Australia, Brazil, China, Great Britain, Kenya, and the United States. Findings indicated that very few gender, nationalistic, or sport biases existed in any of the countries’ coverage, lending credence to the notion that the Internet affords media managers with an opportunity to provide more equitable coverage and thus a more accurate depiction of events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines journalism on women golfers and golf for women in the 2008 issues of the periodical "Golf Digest" employing intersectional theory and critical discourse analysis. An increased use of women sportswriters and reporting on golf for women is found, as well as an increased appearance by women golfers in the publication's magazine advertising. At the same time, it is found that the depiction of women golfers primarily offered a view of white, wealthy heterosexual athletes, and that the publication's sports journalism often reflected attitudes in which women golfers are not seen as equals to men.

The article considers the working experience of women sports journalists. Women sports journalists for French language newspapers in Switzerland are examined to determine how the power structures of their organization affect their work. It is found that the work experience of the women was dependent upon the relationship between their status in journalism and their personalities. Three strategies are identified through which the women journalists coped with their situations, either by conforming to the male-dominated concept of sports journalism, by resisting it actively, or by resisting it through adaptations of the male role.

The article discusses the creation of a historic identity associated with Canadian professional ice hockey player Howie Morenz. The financial problems faced by the National Hockey League (NHL) during the Great Depression are addressed. Morenz's relationship with his hockey team, the Montreal Canadiens, is described. The author claims that the heroic identity associated with Morenz was in fact fabricated by both the Canadiens and the NHL through Morenz's funeral and the playing of a memorial hockey game in his honor. Emphasis is given to media coverage of Morenz's career playing with the Candiens to emphasize this point. The author attaches this analysis to the wider theme of commemorative events in general.

Applying Social Identity Theory and Linguistic Intergroup Bias to the analysis of mediated sports commentary, this study examines racial bias surrounding the National Football League draft. A content analysis of 41 mock drafts—amounting to more than 1,300 descriptions of individual athletes—revealed significant differences in how commentators discussed White and non-White athletes. In particular, commentators more often described White athletes and in-group athletes in terms of mental traits, but described non-White athletes and out-group athletes in terms of physical traits. Additionally, in-group athletes were talked about in more abstract terms, consistent with Linguistic Intergroup Bias. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Grounded in a deconstructionist approach, this article identifies ideological elements in historical work on women's boxing, including my own. First, I examine the sources, practices, and evidence that have constituted historical facts on women's boxing. Then, employing some of the tactics of a deconstructive historian, I examine and critique the erasure of black female combatants from boxing history through an examination of various written sources about pugilism. To rectify this long standing silence and exclusion, I provide a brief account of some black female boxers from the late nineteenth to mid twentieth centuries. This paper draws from mainstream and African-American newspapers, US. boxing periodicals, and a sample of scholarly and popular literature on the history of boxing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper studies the representations of C.K. Nayudu in cricket news and other writings. It begins by analysing the reaction of Indians to his performances to understand how Nayudu, who was utterly disliked by his team mates, aroused popular fantasy, and exemplified and transformed the discourses of public culture more than any other contemporary sportsperson in his country. Then it examines biographies and newspaper representations of Nayudu to track the social forces that produced his heroic status and study what socio-economic ramifications such portrayals led to, drawing particular attention to how contemporary accounts nationalised his body as a stand against the European attributes of masculine behaviour. Then it explores why newspapers and advertisers used the persona of Nayudu as a cultural intermediary between production and consumption. It further ponders, in the context of rising middle class consumerism in Bombay in the 1930s, on how the news media promotes individual players as stars, dramatizes their notable feats and even their failure to perform, and turns the on-field behaviour into the bricks to build a market around the game they represent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study measures the use of media for sports information among African American student athletes. Television was indicated as the primary source of sports information by about one third of the target group, whereas newspapers were used much less as a source. About one fourth got their information from multiple sources. A somewhat unexpected finding was the limited use of sports radio as a source. Female respondents used media less frequently for sports information compared to male athletes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Second World War, the French athletics team included many sportsmen from outside mainland France, mainly from Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia), Black Africa, and Overseas, who distinguished themselves by their performances at the highest national and indeed international levels. How did the French sports press, in particular the mainland press, report these performances, which overturned colonial hierarchies and challenged “white superiority”? This article will describe the coverage, from a quantitative perspective, of these non-mainland athletes in the columns of L'Equipe, France's main multi-sports daily newspaper (after first determining the origin of the members of the French athletics team and pinpointing the arrival and gradual integration of athletes born outside mainland France). [Observations are limited here to male athletes. Women born outside mainland France joined the French athletic elite later than men, making it difficult to include both male and female athletes in the context of a single study. After 1945, the first French woman born outside mainland France to join the athletic elite was Martinique's Emma Sulter in 1970. In the United States, no African-born American woman picked up a gold medal until the 1948 Olympic Games.] Our objective is to test the hypothesis that these coloured athletes from the French colonies were discriminated against in the media. Indeed, American studies with comparable subject matter have shown different media coverage for “white” and “black” sportsmen. Our results show that the French athletic elite opened its doors to the colonies during the second half of the twentieth century, as the first wave of non-mainland athletes was integrated into the French team between 1946 and 1968. In fact, athletes from Maghreb were present in relatively high numbers; those from Overseas were starting to be integrated, and the numbers of people coming from Black Africa were reaching their highest levels. During this period, L'Equipe gave non-mainland athletes proportionately higher coverage than was warranted by their presence in the elite. This over-representation was even more marked in the case of athletes from Overseas and Black Africa (while it seems that North Africans had slightly less coverage compared with their presence in the French team). It would appear, therefore, that in terms of quantity France's main sports daily did not discriminate against athletes who were not born on the mainland, but quite the reverse, with the relative exception of athletes from Maghreb. Several interpretations of this over-representation will be considered, including: a disparity in terms of practice level between the groups of athletes; the particular features of French colonial history with regard to racial stereotypes; and the effect of mental categorization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes archival Carlisle school newspapers to demonstrate how the institution used news representations of athletics and recreation to foster assimilationist aims. The article argues that athletics and recreation were imbued with different meanings for the various constituencies, all of whom used athletics and recreation to construct identities, express emotions, and struggle over the politics of assimilation. The conjuncture of Carlisle's athletic programs and the growth of sports coverage resulted in representations of Indian athletes within the context of a racial ideology that portrayed the Indian as both a noble and primitive savage whose instinctive abilities and cunning allowed him to compete against whites despite a lack of scientific training. In the process, a modern bicultural athletic world came into being, but it was not destined to last. The very cultural system that had supported Indian athletes in the early twentieth century was transformed in ways that rendered Indian athletes invisible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay we examine the ways in which the sporting press establish, define and reinforce the boundaries of national communities. We do so in the context of the flux surrounding nationalism in the white-settler dominated former colony of New Zealand/Aotearoa. We analyse New Zealand nationalism in press coverage of the 2005 British and Irish Lions rugby tour. We gathered 593 articles from a total of six national and regional newspapers throughout the tour and analysed them to tease out narratives of national belonging. We argue that the press selectively constructed the nation in hegemonic terms underpinned by several interlocking dimensions: the construction of male rugby as an embodiment of a fictive 'national character'; the invocation of key protagonists - players and coaches - as embodying that character; idealized constructions of New Zealandness in conjunction with stigmatizations of 'the British'; wilful nostalgia that lionizes rural - specifically Pakeha - settler masculinity; and, the construction of an 'ethnic imaginary' that assigns Maori a particular role and place within the national community. Our analysis focuses upon how this hegemonic national consciousness takes on a particular potency and nuance within the context of a sporting event which pitted the former colonial centre against the (post)colonizer dominated nation. It also illuminates the ambiguities of (post)colonial belonging by highlighting the unresolved tensions of press constructions of an apparently inclusive, specifically postcolonial, nationhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study of The New York Times and USA Today articles on college basketball counters the gender-specific stereotypes found in previous studies on television commentary of March Madness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Football coverage in newspapers is both an arena for, and a mirror of, political discourse within a society. This essay argues that discourses within football coverage referring to political issues reflect dominant - and possibly contesting - 'truths', which themselves are linked to power relations and political struggles within a given society. The comparison of Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, two neighbouring countries in very different conditions (particularly with regard to their historical trajectories and the degree of societal consensus), and more particularly, the comparison of dominant discourses on the topics of patriotism, peace and good governance related to the World Cup qualification of both national teams supports the hypothesis of a strong context-relatedness of a politically loaded 'football language'. For instance, whereas in Ghana, patriotism is, when football comes in, quickly merged with pan-Africanism, the Ivorian team renewed the heated political debate about 'Ivorianess' by putting forward a notion of inclusive patriotism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay offers a critique of media narratives concerning soccer and those of 'difference' in contemporary Scotland, in particular those who have Irishness as their different identity. It examines certain newspaper narratives concerning Neil Lennon of Celtic FC during autumn 2005. During this period Lennon was characterized as a soccer villain. The commentaries drew on existing perceptions concerning his personality and style of play. More importantly Lennon's national identity (Irish) and his religious background (Catholic) were integrated into the narratives, marking him as an outsider in Scotland. These narratives resonate with public and private discourses of 'otherness' concerning the Irish Catholic diaspora community in Scotland. These broader discourses are manifest as ethno-religious prejudices directed against this community. The discourses of 'outsider' and 'otherness' that surround Lennon, Celtic FC and the Irish Catholic community expose the myth of Scotland's collective self-image as an egalitarian and inclusive society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the marginalized practice of sportswriting to demonstrate the limited ways in which the question "who is a journalist?" has been answered within the profession. Following John Dewey and Raymond Williams, we offer an alternative view of democratic culture that values narrative as well as information. We also discuss how "New Journalists" (and other writers since), in their quest for fresh, sophisticated storytelling strategies, turned to sports as a cultural activity worthy of serious examination. Our goal is to demonstrate that sportswriting fundamentally resembles other forms of reporting and that journalism should not use sports as an ethical straw man against which to defend the virtue of its serious work. This suspension of our usual ethical judgments would deepen our sense of the moral significance of sportswriting and allow us to rethink journalism's relation to democratic culture in productive new ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Football has only acquired its current status because people have reported on it. Without spectatorship, there would not be an art of reporting. Yet there is hardly a topic as difficult to write about as football - with the possible exception of music. This may also be due to the matter itself: As a famous German football quote goes: 'The ball is round' (Sepp Herberger). Handling it - whether with feet or with words - is the tricky part. This essay will examine the most outrageous instances of foolishness, inanity, ignorance and brutishness that tend to evolve around the ball - starting with the notion that football constitutes a mirror reflection of society. That kind of kitchen-sink truism legitimates numerous myths and clichés; yet in actual fact, it is social perceptions that are being projected onto football: Commercialization and globalization are the ruin of football; what was once a worker's game is now a privilege for the rich; there are either too many foreigners here or too many of us abroad; then there are perceptions specific to nationality or even to race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores press treatment of baseball's first integrated spring training from two perspectives, the advocacy role of the black press and status quo role of the white press in the United States. Literature on baseball spring training; Comparison between the black and white sportswriters; Sportswriters of the New York press.