Media discourse, sport and the nation: narratives and counter-narratives in the digital age

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (6) ◽  
pp. 932-951 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Mauro

Throughout the 20th century, the growth of international sport events as media spectacles has provided one of the most powerful tools for the projection of national identities. Traditional media, such as newspapers and private and public broadcasters, have been instrumental in this process. Media discourses around sporting events have historically tended to legitimise exclusionary versions of the idea of the nation, reproducing hegemonic gender divisions and marginalising ethnic minorities and immigrants. At the same time, sport is also a contested vehicle for nation-building, providing to some degree opportunities for the expression of different versions of the idea of the nation. The deep changes in the media industry, and particularly the emergence and success among young people of interactive and transnational media, open the way for counter-narratives and alternative media discourses. For example, sport celebrities can use social media to expose and criticise the racialisation of immigrants in sport and beyond. But can the millions who follow them on Instagram or Twitter be counted as a ‘public’?

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
Diana Luiza Dumitriu

The media-sport relation of interdependency has influenced both the commodity value of sport actors and events, as well as the mere sport experience. The present study focuses on the reconfiguration process of the spectatorship experience through media, addressing two of its central dimensions: the emotional and physical one. Along with the wide accessibility to sport events and a progressive grow of audiences, media provided a mediated live experience that ended up competing with the genuine live experience. Strongly related and dependent on the technological changes and the dynamics of the globalization process, media went beyond simply transmitting the sport event, engaging in a process of redefining it. In doing so, they generated a deterritorialized laboratory sport experience, “hotting-up” the spectatorship experience and minimizing the perceptual constrains. This, in turn, ended up by making this media-sport hyperreality more appealing than the genuine live experience of sport acts. In addressing the spatial reconfiguration of the spectatorship experience, I have built up a new model in order to better respond to the primacy of connectivity over the space-dependent experience of sport acts: the scattering model of sport spectatorship. Moreover, I discuss the mixture of the private and public zones as a strategic way of maximizing the accessibility and customization of sport media-products, inside the wider process of sport commodification.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-43
Author(s):  
Neha Jindal

With new media becoming the mainstay of the journalism industry, there is a change in curriculum and pedagogy in journalism education. Even with Web 2.0 becoming the main source of news dissemination, journalism educators will still be required to impart skills to the next generation on writing with clarity, organizing ideas cleanly and working efficiently as a team. The change will be in the methodology, and has to be accepted by the institution at the administrative level first. Since journalism education is required to develop a rational capacity in future graduates, and help them attain all skills essential to understand the media industry with regard to new media practices and changing trends, journalism administrators and educators have to be ably equipped with the skills, only then these can be delivered to the students. The study is about private and public (government) journalism schools in India and focuses on their willingness to adopt the requisite skill set and display adaptability towards using new media. It includes interviews conducted with administrators (who are also educators) in government and private journalism institutions in the country, concerning acceptance of new media and adoption in curriculum, instruction, evaluation and feedback, and arrives at results interpretatively.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rogelio Puente-Díaz

Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, the author examines how the destination brand Mexico is using international sporting events as part of its branding strategy to deal with the challenges faced by destinations and to overcome some of its weaknesses. Second, the author assesses the positive and negative consequences of such strategy. The investigation tries to fill a gap in terms of understanding and assessing opportunities and challenges experienced by the sport industry in emerging markets. Design/methodology/approach The author used a case study research strategy, relying on documentation, archival records, and personal interviews with experts as sources of evidence. Given that most research efforts have focused on developed countries, this research approach was exploratory and descriptive. Findings The thematic analysis revealed the presence of five major themes related to the process of hosting and using Formula One (F1), National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), and National Basketball Association (NBA) games as part of a brand strategy. These five major themes were labeled: brand strategy challenges and opportunities, balancing short- and long-term goals and benefits, tension between stakeholders from different destinations, social issues, and areas of improvement. Originality/value The findings shed light on the challenges and opportunities that hosting international sport events bring to a destination brand with an emerging economy such as Mexico. The opportunity to host these types of events comes from the expansion strategies of well-known sport brands such as F1, NFL, MLB, and NBA.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 180-191
Author(s):  
Yu. V. Markina

The issues of media concentration have currently been quite often the topic of public discussion and the subject of study of many analysts and publicists. The fact that the processes of concentration in recent decades are beginning to acquire a global character is first of all evidenced by the creation of large transnational media corporations, which are already showing a desire for international domination in a particular area of the media business. In addition, media owners from developed countries are actively expanding into the information markets of developing countries. Given the global impact of information technology on the entire socio-economic space, it seems necessary to define the concept of information globalization, to assess the scale of information shifts in the modern media economy. The relevance of this study is due to the need for a scientific understanding of concentration and diversification as forms of organizing media business in the context of globalization. Researchers identify globalization, convergence, glocalization, demassification, and diversification as the main trends characterizing the development of modern mass media.The purpose of this article is to characterize the processes of globalization in the communication industry that have influenced changes in the structure of the media market to describe the models of diversification and mutual integration of holding media.The theoretical and methodological basis of the work was formed by conceptual provisions, recommendations, and conclusions presented in the fundamental scientific works of domestic researchers on history, theory, typology, research methods of the Russian media industry (E. L. Vartanova, S. M. Gurevich, E. Ch. Andrunas, S. I. Beglov, S. S. Smirnov). When writing this article, we used the methods of system analysis, as well as expert analytical, descriptive, historical and theoretical methods.Conclusions. Globalization of information space, as an inevitable and extremely important phenomenon, affects all spheres of the socio-economic life of society, changing the motivation of economic actors at the micro level and modifying the macroeconomics in general. 


2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriella Cserháti ◽  
Réka Polák-Weldon

Sport events always played an important role in human life from the ancient Olympics and marathon races to today’s modern Olympics, World and continental championships. In our days these remarkable sport events come to the fore because participants of the sporting world effectuate even more, greater and more varied ones. Furthermore, the competition for organisation between cities and countries is becoming more and more intense (Zeman 2005). The organisation of international sporting events is an extremely complicated and multiple task. The organising committee has to manage the duties and activities, to co-ordinate the participants’ work, to satisfy the needs of international sport association(s), sponsors and other stakeholders. Within the frame of the research we reveal the success factors of international sporting events in different segments of Europe, and in addition to this compare the event organization practices of analysed regions along the identified success factors. In this study we represent the results of a quantitative research, where organizers of World and European Championships – organised between 2000 and 2008 in different European countries – were asked and statistical analyses have been applied. According to our results beside the essential technical and task oriented areas the human aspects of organisation, the partnerships, coordination and communication are all-important factors. Especially in countries of East-Central Europe, where organisers have to pay more attention on selection, control of partners as well as on continuous communication with them in order to assure accurate performance in time.


2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (8) ◽  
pp. 997-1015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olan Kees Martin Scott ◽  
Andrew C Billings ◽  
John Harris ◽  
John Vincent

Research into the framing of sporting events has been extensively studied to uncover newspaper bias in the coverage of global sporting events. Through discourse, the media attempt to capture, build, and maintain audiences for the duration of sporting events through the use of multiple narratives and/or storylines. Little research has looked at the ways in which the same event is reported across different nations, and media representations of the Rugby World Cup have rarely featured in discussions of the framing of sport events. The present study highlights the different ways in which rugby union is portrayed across the three leading Southern Hemisphere nations in the sport. It also shows the prominence of nationalistic discourse across those nations and importance of self-categorizations in newspaper narratives.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-91
Author(s):  
Mellie Torres ◽  
Alejandro E. Carrión ◽  
Roberto Martínez

Recent studies have focused on challenging deficit narratives and discourses perpetuating the criminalization of Latino men and boys. But even with this emerging literature, mainstream counter-narratives of young Latino boys and their attitudes towards manhood and masculinity stand in stark contrast to the dangerous and animalistic portrayals of Latino boys and men in the media and society. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, the authors draw on the notion of counter-storytelling to explore how Latino boys try to reframe masculinity, manhood, and what they label as ‘responsible manhood.’ Counter-storytelling and narratives provide a platform from which to challenge the discourse, narratives, and imaginaries guiding the conceptualization of machismo. In their counter-narratives, Latino boys critiqued how they are raced, gendered, and Othered in derogatory ways.


2020 ◽  
pp. bjsports-2020-102771
Author(s):  
Margo Mountjoy ◽  
Jane Moran ◽  
Hosny Ahmed ◽  
Stephane Bermon ◽  
Xavier Bigard ◽  
...  

All sport events have inherent injury and illness risks for participants. Healthcare services for sport events should be planned and delivered to mitigate these risks which is the ethical responsibility of all sport event organisers. The objective of this paper was to develop consensus-driven guidelines describing the basic standards of services necessary to protect athlete health and safety during large sporting events. By using the Knowledge Translation Scheme Framework, a gap in International Federation healthcare programming for sport events was identified. Event healthcare content areas were determined through a narrative review of the scientific literature. Content experts were systematically identified. Following a literature search, an iterative consensus process was undertaken. The outcome document was written by the knowledge translation expert writing group, with the assistance of a focus group consisting of a cohort of International Federation Medical Chairpersons. Athletes were recruited to review and provide comment. The Healthcare Guidelines for International Federation Events document was developed including content-related to (i) pre-event planning (eg, sport medical risk assessment, public health requirements, environmental considerations), (ii) event safety (eg, venue medical services, emergency action plan, emergency transport, safety and security) and (iii) additional considerations (eg, event health research, spectator medical services). We developed a generic standardised template guide to facilitate the planning and delivery of medical services at international sport events. The organisers of medical services should adapt, evaluate and modify this guide to meet the sport-specific local context.


Author(s):  
Liana MacDonald ◽  
Adreanne Ormond

Racism in the Aotearoa New Zealand media is the subject of scholarly debate that examines how Māori (Indigenous Peoples of New Zealand) are broadcast in a negative and demeaning light. Literature demonstrates evolving understandings of how the industry places Pākehā (New Zealanders primarily of European descent) interests at the heart of broadcasting. We offer new insights by arguing that the media industry propagates a racial discourse of silencing that sustains widespread ignorance of the ways that Pākehā sensibilities mediate society. We draw attention to a silencing discourse through one televised story in 2018. On-screen interactions reproduce and safeguard a harmonious narrative of settler–Indigenous relations that support ignorance and denial of the structuring force of colonisation, and the Television Code of Broadcasting Practice upholds colour-blind perceptions of discrimination and injustice through liberal rhetoric. These processes ensure that the media industry is complicit in racism and the ongoing oppression of Indigenous peoples.


Author(s):  
Godwin Iretomiwa Simon

This article examines the contextual challenges that characterize the video on demand (VOD) market in Africa. It provides critical analysis of the creative strategies employed by Nigeria-based streaming services to navigate the peculiar business environment on the continent. This research is on the background of the poor Internet infrastructure and economic divides in many African countries including Nigeria. Streaming services operating in these markets must understand a context where Internet access is complicated on the levels of availability and/or affordability, including significant lack of confidence in e-payment facilities. All these, together with epileptic power supply and poor standard of living, indicate that streaming services must innovate to capture subscribers within the continent. Despite the harsh operational environment, streaming services in Nigeria have continued to increase in number within the past 5 years. This is attributed to the transnational reach of the streaming services as they are patronized by Africans in diaspora across the globe, while they also enjoy popularity within African countries. This article specifically focuses on the innovative strategies employed by Nigerian streaming services to operate within their African markets in the context of their peculiar challenges. In so doing, it extends extant scholarship about Internet-distributed video using the African context. This article is situated within the Media Industry Studies framework and draws from semi-structured interviews with 7 streaming executives in Nigeria and 10 creative professionals in the Nigerian Video Film Industry (Nollywood). It also relies on desk research of press reports, industry publications, as well as the interfaces of streaming portals. This article underscores the necessity of contextualized research with the digital turn in video distribution. Through contextualized analysis of VOD market realities in a less studied terrain like Africa, it aligns with scholarly call to expand theories of Internet-distributed video to marginal contexts.


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