It’s Not About the Game: Don Imus, Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Media

Abstract

Using intersectionality and hegemony theory, we critically analyze mainstream print news media’s response to Don Imus’ exchange on the 2007 NCAA women’s basketball championship game. Content and textual analysis reveals the following media frames: “invisibility and silence”; “controlling images versus women’s self-definitions”; and, “outside the frame: social issues in sport and society.” The paper situates these media frames within a broader societal context wherein 1) women’s sports are silenced, trivialized and sexualized, 2) media representations of African-American women in the U. S. have historically reproduced racism and sexism, and 3) race and class relations differentially shape dominant understandings of African-American women’s participation in sport. We conclude that news media reproduced monolithic understandings of social inequality, which lacked insight into the intersecting nature of oppression for women, both in sport and in the United States.

‘Race’ talk! Tensions and contradictions in sport and PE

“…The story is based on a conversation with a sport journalist that occurred a few days before the European athletic championships in Barcelona in 2010; I was asked to comment on the new sprint 'sensation' from France, Christophe Lemaitre. Cooky et al (2010) reinforce the argument that the mass media contribute to the way we are influenced into constructing dominant ideas of 'race' and other salient factors affecting our identities. Others contend that the media exacerbates tensions in society by renewing social problems through the use of the uncritical collective memory of stereotypes and mythology such as John Inverdale's earlier comment (above) (McDonald 1999;Markovitz 2006).…”

Surviving rather than thriving: Understanding the experiences of women coaches using a theory of gendered social well-being

“…Other means of segregation includes the sexualisation and trivialising of women as athletes and as coaches (e.g. Norman, 2008;2010;2012;Cooky et al, 2010;Cranmer et al, 2014). On a micro level, current research has shown that women coaches report feeling segregated in the workplace demonstrated by being left out of (predominantly male) networks in order to learn about educational and promotional opportunities, report poor working relationships with men and describe feeling 'left out' of decision making roles and not feeling integral to their organisation or male coaching colleagues who display often different norms and values which run contrary to fostering social integration (Allen and Shaw, 2013).…”

To Airbrush or Not?: Theoretical and Practical Applications of Athletes, Tattoos, and the Media

“…The framing of athletes has been noted in prior research in a variety of contexts depending on athlete gender, race, class, or sport (Cooky, Wachs, Messner, & Dworkin, 2010). Visual aspects of female gymnasts, in attempting to negotiate the space between femininity and muscularity, have demonstrated that photos can objectify and marginalize the photo subjects (Weber & Barker-Ruchti, 2012).…”