Gender and images of nature and sport in British and German news magazines: the global and the national in images of advertising

Abstract

The article has an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on research from gender, media, sport and cultural studies. It considers the discourses of nature and sport in advertising which targets mainly men, in the editorial context of two examples of British and German news magazines, namely The Economist and Der Spiegel, from a critical cultural and gender studies perspective. It aims to outline the relational nature and hierarchical structure of gender reflected in constructs of popular culture; to assess whether promotional discourses of nature and sport are conceived to assert a uniform, global hegemonic masculinity, or whether nationally distinctive target-groups are addressed in specifically national ways. It analyzes the particular gender ideologies contained in commodity advertising that use metaphors of untamed nature and competitive sports to address audiences who are considered to be opinion leaders in Britain and/or Germany. The aspiration towards global competitiveness or neo-colonial domination visualized by wild, virgin landscapes and global sports will be questioned in relation to the concept of global or national identity.