The fight against doping has been one of the most profound challenges in the world of (media-) sports. However, communication research has not addressed the mediated attribution of responsibility for this problem. Drawing on the distinction between episodic and thematic framing, this study analyzes the attribution of responsibility in three quality German national newspapers. We find that responsibility for causing performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) use is equally attributed to the individual and systemic levels, while responsibility for finding solutions is directed at the systemic level. Individual responsibility attributions occur more frequently in articles with an episodic news frame. Given the often proclaimed ambiguous role of the media with regard to PED use, the study attaches particular importance to the self-attribution of responsibility by the media. Our findings show that the media neglect to discuss their own role and do not see themselves as responsible for the problem of doping. This study demonstrates that the investigation of mediated responsibility attribution provides a fruitful new approach to the research on media and PED use in sports.
In recent years, sport mega events have been frequently awarded to autocratic countries whose regimes violate democratic values and human rights. Based on the theory of cognitive dissonance, we assume that this is a potential source of internal conflict for viewers, especially for sports enthusiasts and politically aware recipients. Special attention rests on the consequences of the recipients' strategies of addressing this predicament for important stakeholders of these events, namely the reporting media, the host country and sponsors. We conducted an online survey among 711 German respondents to examine how recipients cope with this dilemma using the forthcoming FIFA soccer World Cup 2018 in Russia as an example. Our results show that while recipients are strongly interested in soccer and politics, most of them do not necessarily perceive these two spheres as inextricably connected. Their awareness of sociopolitical issues in the context of sport events-and thus the decisive factor to explain cognitive dissonance-is arguably low. Still, when recipients experience cognitive dissonance they rely on certain strategies to reduce or avoid dissonance. They do not elude this dilemma by preferring sports broadcasting without coverage of the event's negative circumstances, but are actually willing to pass on parts of the tournament. They also do not denigrate the credibility of the media or emphasize positive aspects of the host country Russia. In fact, the recipients would prefer if the World Cup had not been awarded to Russia in the first place. However, respondents experiencing cognitive dissonance are also more likely to engage in political consumerism, by deliberately deciding against or in favor of products and sponsors depending on whether or not those are associated with the event.
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