Constructing ‘race/ethnicity’ and nationality in Spanish media: a content analysis of international football coverage

Abstract

Televised football in Spain enjoys great popularity as it is watched by millions of people every year. It has also been suggested as a site where ideas about race/ethnicity are (re)produced and national football teams have been proposed as key elements in the formation and/or confirmation of national identities. In this qualitative research we analyse the transcripts of 11 televised football matches of the Spanish national team with the goal of understanding how football commentators contribute to the construction of meanings about race/ethnicity and its intersections with nationality. Results showed how football commentators constructed racial difference by describing football players of diverse backgrounds in different ways. Furthermore, commentators made use of warlike language and national heroes in their construction of a narrative about the nation. These results will be interpreted and placed within the larger socio-historical context in the Discussion section.

Meanings given to (super-)diversity in the Dutch national team by Dutch football commentators: A historical approach

“…This fixation on Black physicality in the realm of sports reverberates with dominant imaginaries of Black masculinitystemming in part from colonial modernitythat circulate in wider society in many White-dominated national contexts, often portraying Black men as being innately physical and, inversely, lacking mental qualities (Carrington, 2011). Interestingly, these studies also show that representational patterns of Black football players are inflected by their national background, with notions of physicality particularly concentrating on football players of African nationalities (Longas Luque and Van Sterkenburg, 2022;Van Lienden and Van Sterkenburg, 2022).…”

“…Billings et al, 2015). In recent years, there has been an increase in scholarly attention to how mediated meaning-making practices regarding nationality and race/ethnicity intersect, and how these social dimensions are mutually constituted in the context of international sporting events (Campbell and Bebb, 2022; Longas Luque and Van Sterkenburg, 2022; Van Lienden and Van Sterkenburg, 2022). These studies found that commentators regularly reproduce a stereotype of the ‘natural Black athlete’ (Hylton, 2009).…”

“…Previous studies on mediated football have found that overwhelmingly White and male, football commentators often ‘speak through’ dominant and occasionally stereotypical discourses on nationality and race/ethnicity (Bruce, 2004; Campbell and Bebb, 2022; McCarthy et al, 2003). Studies identified various forms of ‘othering’ towards national representatives with a migration background 2 (Campbell and Bebb, 2022; Van Campenhout and Van Houtum, 2021) and (re)productions of the ‘natural Black athlete’ stereotype (Hylton, 2009; Longas Luque and Van Sterkenburg, 2022; McCarthy et al, 2003; Van Lienden and Van Sterkenburg, 2022). Various other studies have shown that also in the Netherlands dominant discourses on the nation, nationality and race/ethnicity are reproduced and reconstructed in football commentary (Van Sterkenburg, 2011, 2013; Van Sterkenburg et al, 2012).…”

One event, very different interpretations

“…In sports communication studies, the constructivist paradigm refers chiefly (but not exclusively) to the issues of race/ethnicity, gender (Hughey & Goss, 2015;Kane et al, 2013;Luque & van Sterkenburg, 2022;Wright & Clarke, 1999), or their combination. According to Wright and Clarke (1999, p. 227): "Media representations of sport are particularly powerful in naturalising and normalising hegemonic meanings about the body and social relations".…”

“…The same applies to sports journalistic discourse regarding sports events where athletes compete internationally, representing their countries. Then, the stereotypes of other nationalities, used also to downplay their achievements in comparison to the national, "our" norm, appear in the media content (Delgado, 2003;Farrington et al, 2015;Luque & van Sterkenburg, 2022;O'Donnell, 1994).…”