Football's ‘Coming Out’: Soccer and Homophobia in England's Tabloid Press

2011 ◽  
Vol 140 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hughson ◽  
Marcus Free
Keyword(s):  
Coming Out ◽  
Media Representation ◽  
Soccer Players ◽  
News Releases ◽  
Professional Soccer ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Media ◽  
A Site ◽  
Tabloid Press ◽  
Discursive Constructions

This article examines the current contradictory discourses on homosexuality and soccer within the British (specifically English) newspaper media. While support ostensibly is given in the press to the eradication of homophobia in relation to soccer, the continuing promotion of traditional masculine football stereotypes, such as the ‘hard man’, imagines an ongoing heterosexual normativity. Furthermore, the media fascination with professional soccer players ‘coming out’, although expressed in supportive terms, may be decoded as an attempt to publicly reveal the deviant other. Such ambivalent representation is even evident in coverage of the Kick It Out anti-homophobia campaign. News releases from the campaign have been reinterpreted within media representation to fuel a perceived public interest in wanting to know which Premier League soccer players are gay. Accordingly, by employing a psychoanalytic and post-structuralist perspective on the instability of discursive constructions of heteronormative masculinity, the article considers soccer and its related media as a site of hegemonic contestation in which the dominant discourse of male heterosexuality is at once undergoing challenge and reinforcement.

Soccer Players and Their Media-Related Behavior

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 367-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Birkner ◽  
Daniel Nölleke
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Soccer Players ◽  
Sport Communication ◽  
The Media ◽  
The One ◽  
Tabloid Press ◽  
The Relationship

Using the concept of mediatization, in this article, we analyze the relationship between sport and media from a sport-centered perspective. Examining the autobiographies of 14 German and English soccer players, we investigate how athletes use media outlets, what they perceive as the media’s influence and its logic, and—crucially—how this usage and these perceptions affect their own media-related behavior. Our findings demonstrate the important role of the media for the sports systems from the athlete’s point of view and demonstrate the research potential of mediatization as a fruitful concept in studies on sport communication. On the one hand, the sport stars reflect in their autobiographies that their status and income depend on media coverage; and on the other hand, they complain about the omnipresence of the media, especially offside the pitch and feel unfairly treated by the tabloid press, both in England and in Germany.

scholarly journals Celebrity and Public Persona

Communication ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. David Marshall
Keyword(s):  
Reputation Management ◽  
Community Research ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
The Public ◽  
Democratic Capitalism ◽  
The Press ◽  
Public Persona ◽  
The Media ◽  
A Site ◽  
Media And Communication

Research on celebrity and public persona derives from fundamentally interdisciplinary sources. Although at its core, the study of public personality has been the object of investigations by those more closely associated with media and communication, the key disciplines of sociology, cultural studies, literary studies, political science, social psychology, and even anthropology and history have been part of its analysis. Celebrity identifies the “extra-textual” dimensions of the famous, in which the lives of the renowned are followed, read, and reported. It is a public celebration of individuality that is (but not exclusively) connected to consumer culture and democratic capitalism. Through these larger cultural tropes celebrity has had its strongest affiliations with the contemporary entertainment industries, particularly in terms of how they are covered by the media and the press for further value beyond the cultural forms that are often the origins of stardom—the public individual’s performances in fields such as film, television, sport, and popular music. Celebrity is a site of celebration and derogation in any culture: these public individuals are truly exalted and given a status beyond others, but they are also ridiculed for their believed-to-be unearned credentials for having such a public platform and voice. Moreover, the study of celebrity and public persona is also an investigation into the connection between the populace and these public personalities, where parasocial relations most evident in fandom identify how celebrities embody audiences with an affective connection that is truly powerful in contemporary culture. That power of embodiment and connection that celebrities possess is subsequently exploited by the media industries to promote and sell new connected cultural products. Identifying celebrities as part of a spectrum of public personas links the study of celebrity to the investigation of the celebrated and famed in a variety of professions and fields well beyond entertainment. Thus, the term persona is used in these studies of public personalities to acknowledge the mask that is deployed to present a public version of the self for this external consumption and reading by an audience, a collective, a network, a nation, a citizenry, or a community. Research into public personas has led to related studies of political leadership, self-branding, notoriety in business, and reputation management, and research delves into the presentation of the public self by greater portions of the populace in online cultures. Celebrity and public persona is a field in which research aims to investigate the significance and meaning of various versions of the public self in both contemporary culture and historically.

The Media Representation of Refugee Women in Spain

2021 ◽  
pp. 98-128
Author(s):  
Francisco Javier García Castaño ◽  
Ariet Castillo Fernandez ◽  
Antolín Granados Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Immigrant Women ◽  
Media Representation ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Refugee Women ◽  
The Press ◽  
Refugee Woman ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Subject

Research on the migratory phenomenon has produced many studies and from various disciplines. However, the knowledge that citizens have of this phenomenon is linked to the discourse by the media. It is not different in the case of refuge and asylum. The contribution of the authors involves questioning to what extent the media are present in shaping the image of migrations. Until now, the image presented is negative, problematic, conflictive, ethnic, and alarming. But this chapter focuses on refugees and, in particular, refugee women. In the same way that research on the migratory phenomenon shows that immigrant women have not been the subject of notable media coverage, it is to be expected that refugee women are not either. For this reason, it is interesting to check the degree of media coverage of the migratory phenomenon in the press (including the mobility of refugees) during the so-called “refugee crisis” in Europe. The chapter focuses on the news that include the refugee woman. For this purpose, the news published in the Spanish newspaper El País are used.

scholarly journals International Conference on “The Making of the Islamic Diaspora”

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 146-149
Author(s):  
Cheshmak Farhoumand-Sims
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Media Representation ◽  
Life Transition ◽  
National Authority ◽  
National Belonging ◽  
Hybrid Identities ◽  
The Media ◽  
And Gender ◽  
A Site

On 7-9 May 2004, the SSHRC-funded, York University-based MCRI projecton Diaspora, Islam, and Gender project held an international conferenceon “The Making of the Islamic Diaspora.” Under the directorship ofHaideh Moghissi, Saeed Rahnema, and Mark Goodman, the event was heldin Toronto and was cosponsored by the Ford Foundation EducationalProject for Palestinians, the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and ProfessionalStudies, the York Centre for Refugee Studies, and the York Centre forFeminist Research. The conference brought together an impressive collectionof scholars from around the world to share knowledge and insight intothe challenges that face diaspora communities of emigrants, refugees, andexiles who originate from Islamic cultures, with a specific focus on the genderdimension of displacement.In addition to the invited guests and speakers, the conference wasattended by approximately 50 academics, graduate students, and the publicat large. The conference’s guest of honor was the Honorable Zahira Kamal,Minister of Women’s Affairs for the Palestinian National Authority, whoparticipated in the conference and presented a keynote address at a dinnerreception in her honor.The conference’s panels discussed themes related to identity formation,gender in diaspora, fundamentalism and human rights, the diasporaexperience, and the media and representation. Nergis Canefe, for example,spoke about issues of religious identity and national belonging andnoted that diasporas offer a site of new membership that is different thanmigrants and represent the flourishing of hybrid identities. She describedthe “common immigrant story,” where such socioeconomic barriers asracism, stereotyping, media representation, and difficulty in recertificationmake it extremely difficult to have a smooth life transition in a newcountry ...

Media Representation of the Pandemic: a Metaphorical Image of War (based on American Newspapers)

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (8) ◽  
pp. 69-83
Author(s):  
N. S. Dankova ◽  
E. V. Krekhtunova
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Media Representation ◽  
Martial Law ◽  
War Zone ◽  
Mass Consciousness ◽  
The Media ◽  
Coronavirus Infection ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

The article is devoted to the study of the media representation features of the situation of coronavirus infection spread. The material was articles published in American newspapers. It is shown that the metaphorical model "War" is widely used in media coverage of the pandemic. The relevance of the work is due to the ability of the media to influence the mass consciousness. The methodological basis of the research is formed by critical discourse analysis, which establishes the connection between language and social reality. The article provides an overview of works devoted to the study of metaphor. The theoretical foundations for the study of metaphorical modeling are given. In the course of the analysis, the linguistic means of updating the metaphorical model "War" were revealed. The authors note that this metaphorical model is represented by such frames as “War and its characteristics”, “Participants in military action”, “War zone”, “Enemy actions”, “Confronting the enemy”. It is shown that modern reality is presented in the media as martial law, the coronavirus is positioned in the media as a cruel and merciless enemy seeking to take over the world, the treatment of the disease is represented as a fight against the enemy. It is concluded that the use of the metaphorical model "War" is one of the ways to conceptualize the spread of coronavirus.

How to Tell the Truth without Outraging the Press?

MedienJournal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Li Xiguang
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Stories ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
Chinese News Media

The commercialization of meclia in China has cultivated a new journalism business model characterized with scandalization, sensationalization, exaggeration, oversimplification, highly opinionated news stories, one-sidedly reporting, fabrication and hate reporting, which have clone more harm than good to the public affairs. Today the Chinese journalists are more prey to the manipu/ation of the emotions of the audiences than being a faithful messenger for the public. Une/er such a media environment, in case of news events, particularly, during crisis, it is not the media being scared by the government. but the media itself is scaring the government into silence. The Chinese news media have grown so negative and so cynica/ that it has produced growing popular clistrust of the government and the government officials. Entering a freer but fearful commercially mediated society, the Chinese government is totally tmprepared in engaging the Chinese press effectively and has lost its ability for setting public agenda and shaping public opinions. 

Coming out of the closet? Audience reactions to the heteronormative disruptive advertising

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-102
Author(s):  
Ramasela Semang L. Mathobela ◽  
Shepherd Mpofu ◽  
Samukezi Mrubula-Ngwenya
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
Gender Issues ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Positive Development ◽  
Global Trend ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Media

An emerging global trend of brands advertising their products through LGBTIQ+ individuals and couples indicates growth of gender awareness across the globe. The media, through advertising, deconstructs homophobia and associated cultures through the use of LGBTIQ+s in commercials. This qualitative research paper centres the advancement of debates on human rights and social media as critical in the interaction between corporates and consumers. The Gillette, Chicken Licken‘s Soul Sisters and We the Brave advertisements were used to critically analyse how audiences react to the use of LGBTIQ+ characters and casts through comments posted on the brands‘ social media platforms. Further, the paper explored the role of social media in the mediation of significant gender issues such as homosexuality that are considered taboo to engage in. The paper used a qualitative approach. Using the digital ethnography method to observe comments and interactions from the chosen advertisement‘s online platforms, the paper employed queer and constructionist theories to deconstruct discourses around same-sex relations as used in commercials, especially in quasiconservative. The data used in the paper included thirty comments of the brands customers and audiences obtained from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The paper concludes there are positive development in human rights awareness as seen through advertisements and campaigns that use LGBTIQ+ communities in a positive light across the world.

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