Gender Marginalization in Sports Participation through Advertising: The Case of Nike

The sport sector functions as a site of health-promotion by encouraging and enabling individuals to invest in their health and giving them tools to do so. This investment is often initiated by, or altered by, role modeling, or seeing other individuals engaging in sport. This could include family or peers but could also include depictions of sport in popular media. Inclusive role-modeling could subsequently encourage more sport participation, thus expanding access to health benefits that arise from sport. However, stereotypical depictions of sports role models could make sports seem like a more exclusive space and discourage participation. We examine a case study of a prominent athletic brand and their advertising to examine the ways they expand or reify stereotypes of gender in sport. Through a qualitative content analysis of 131 commercials released by Nike in the past decade, we explore whether their stated goals of being a socially progressive company extend to genuinely diverse and inclusive portrayals of gender in their commercials. Our results indicate that Nike commercials continue to treat sports as a predominantly and stereotypically masculine realm, therefore marginalizing athletes who are female, who do not fit traditional gender binaries, or who do not display traditionally masculine qualities. We also find that the bulk of athletes portrayed by Nike are those who adhere to gender stereotypes. Despite their purported goal of encouraging individuals to participate in sports, Nike’s promotion of gendered sport behaviors may be having an opposite effect for some consumers by discouraging sports participation for those who do not align with the gendered behavior Nike promotes. The stereotyped role modeling of the sport sector portrayed in a majority of Nike commercials could dissuade already marginalized individuals from participating in the health-promoting behaviors available through sport.

Tactics of Survival: Social Media, Alternative Discourses, and the Rise of Trans Narratives

In 2018, when Nandini Krishnan decided to write a book on trans men of India titled ‘Invisible Men’, perhaps she expected great accolades. After all, she was raising a topic that was relegated to the periphery of peripheries, an identity that often went astray in translation. But was the intent enough to write something impactful and honest? At the same time in Indian Cinema, Akshay Kumar geared up for a stereotyped role as a trans woman. What’s the connecting dot between these two? They ended up being nothing but highly skewed queer representations by cis-folks. Meanwhile, an alternative movement was brewing on social media as Alok Menon narrated poems of subversion, dressed as a challenge to everything heteronormative. The current paper aims to examine these voices of subversion, of trans narratives, as formed and catalyzed on social media and across various mediums of general discourses. The paper would also explore the rise of trans narratives in literature with special reference to ‘Me Hijra, Me Laxmi’ by Laxminarayan Tripathi and ‘A Life in Trans Activism’ by A. Revathi. Both exploratory and descriptive research methods are used for deriving the theoretical analysis from primary and secondary sources.

PRAGMATICS OF SPEECH STYLE IN BUSINESS COMMUNICATION AS A TOOL FOR DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN BUSINESS LINGUISTICS

Purpose of the study: The study aims to identify, describe, systematize, and compare linguistic means expressing communicative and pragmatic meaning in determining their composition, semantics, and functions in the genres of law, order, and international agreement. The development of linguistic thought is characterized by an increasing interest in the functioning of linguistic units in speech, increased attention to the human factor in the language. Methodology: A communicative-pragmatic approach described the transition from the study of genres as functional and stylistic types of text to their study as special expressions inherent in a certain area of communication. The authors used models of the relationship between linguistic units and their various associations with extra-linguistic situations of communication in a certain sphere of human activity. Main Findings: The authors showed specifics of the representation of the value of the address in an official speech, establishes a repertoire of language means that realize the meaning of address in prescription genres, determines the dependence of the choice of the lexico-grammatical form of means of express the essence of addressing, forms the speech structure of styles. Applications of this study: The work defines the specifics of the conditions of communication in the business sphere; revealed the communicative specificity of stereotyped role manifestations and speech behavior in terms of the functioning of oral and written genres, characteristic for speech communication in the professional sphere. The classification of speech genres is proposed primarily for the business area. Novelty/Originality of this study: The novelty is determined by the object of research and the enterprise's attempt to make a comprehensive description of the genres of speech communication in business from the position of communicative-pragmatic approach. The communicative-pragmatic method in modern linguistics has updated the research of the specifics of speech communication and language support of speech communication in various spheres of human activity.

War, anxiety, optimism and triumph: a study on science in the main Brazilian TV news

We analysed the representations of science and of scientists at Jornal Nacional, the main Brazilian TV news. We carried out content and frames analysis, besides the lexical and semantic analysis of the transcriptions of the science and technology stories. Our results show a narrative that highlights the novelties and the epopee of the scientific advance, mainly in the health field. But to the emotional palette feelings of combat, anxiety and triumph were added. The face of the scientist presented by the TV news is mainly masculine, suggesting a stereotyped role of the male and female scientist: meanwhile men go out to literally explore other worlds, women take care of health and of the body.

Role Model: Building a Body of Experience

A personal biography demonstrating the need for perseverance, flexibility, and refusal to be cast in the stereotyped role of a blind woman.

ДІАЛОГ ЯК МЕХАНІЗМ АКСІОГЕНЕЗУ ОСОБИСТОСТІ В ПРОЦЕСІ ВИЩОЇ ПРОФЕСІЙНОЇ ОСВІТИ

Статтю присвячено проблемі теоретичного обґрунтування діалогу як механізму аксіогенезу особистості в освітньому процесі та виокремлення сутнісних аспектів діалогізації освітнього середовища вищої школи. Обґрунтовано, що провідними цілями сучасної вищої освіти в контексті її гуманітаризації є загальнокультурні орієнтири, які дозволяють замінити власне когнітивний підхід на смислотворчий, де і викладач, і студент є активними суб’єктами освітнього діалогу. Показано, що освітній діалог виступає зовнішньою спонукою внутрішнього ініціювання особистісно-професійного становлення майбутнього фахівця, становлення його ціннісно-смислової сфери, а рівень діалогізації освітнього середовища може слугувати мірилом реалізації особистісно-розвивального потенціалу освіти. На підставі емпіричного дослідження визначено, що у реальному освітньому процесі найбільшою перешкодою у діалогізації освітнього середовища є догматичність, формалізованість освітнього процесу та закритість, стереотипність рольової поведінки викладачів та студентів. The article is focused on theoretical argumentation of the dialogue as a mechanism for personality axiogenesis in educational process and separation of essential dialogue aspects in higher educational environment. The author argues that general cultural orientations are main goals of modern higher education in the context of its humanization. This allows to replace the actual cognitive approach with sense creation one, where both teacher and student are active subjects of educational dialogue. It is shown that educational dialogue is an external stimulus of internal initiation of personal and professional formation in future specialists, as well as formation of their value- semantic sphere. The level of dialogue in educational environment can serve as a measure of implementation of personality and developmental potential in education. On the basis of empirical research it is determined that dogmatism, formalization of educational process, and closeness, stereotyped role of teachers’ and students’ behavior are the greatest obstacles for educational environment becoming more dialogue driven in real-life educational process.