Sports Stories Research Articles

Congealing Binary Sex/Gender Inequalities Through News Stories About Intersex and Transgender Athletes

ABSTRACT Through the lens of Feminist STS, we explore Danish newspaper stories about sex hormones. We build on Haraway’sconcept of the material-semiotic and Roberts’ understanding of sexhormones as bio-social messengers of sex to explore how the borders of binary sex/gender are policed in stories about intersex and transgender athletes. We combine these Feminist STS concepts with theconcept of benevolent sexism from social psychology to investigate stories about how women are understood or defined in elite sports. We show that stories about sex hormones often are narrated as stories about protecting ciswomen, and that the argument for hormonal interventions often is entangled in a form of benevolent sexism,implying that stereotypical ciswomen need protection. However, the people who the stereotypical ciswomen are narrated as needing protection from, are not; (a) cismen, (b) a science which upholds a bio-essentialist definition of women, or (c) the cultural norms in organizations dominated by men, but rather intersex and transgender people who challenge (or embody a challenge to) the binary sex/gender hierarchy. In these sports stories, science about sex hormones isused to reproduce a benevolent sexist narrative that reiterates ciswomen as vulnerable and narrates intersex and transwomen as the primary threat.

Советский спор(т): попытки гальванизации эйдосов в нововременных кинокартинах о выдающихся советских спортсменах

The author believes that the so-called cinematic speaking on the Soviet, that is, an array of texts, formulated within the contours of fi lm, television, and other screen arts, is one of the representative sources shaping the domestic discourse of the reception of the Soviet. Within the framework of this work, research attention is focused on the consideration of modern Russian films about the legends of Soviet sports, which, in the area of the abovementioned cinematic speaking, appeal to a number of phrase themes, such as sports, personality, heroism, asceticism, service, and moral values. According to the author, the repetitive nature of references to Soviet sports mythology is associated with the dire need of having some kind of incredible task fulfilled; but, unlike, for example, S. Toymentsev, the author considers this task to be cultural, educational and didactic rather than politically predetermined. The author sees Soviet sports biopics as a good opportunity for a large-scale conversation at the level of everyday consciousness, designed to ensure the galvanization of eidos, re-launch of values and remastering of meanings. However, despite the self-evidently noble nature of such intentions, modern sports dramas are unable to fully realize their mission for a number of reasons. The first reason why biographical films about Soviet athletes do not turn into a guide to action, and their protagonists do not become sought-after role models, is the dramatic discrepancy between the glorified personal qualities of the heroes and the main plots of current popular psychology, which consistently inculcates the cult of hedonism and the so-called ‘positive mindset’. The second reason that determines the emergence of the viewer’s “cognitive lag” is associated with the unanimous silencing in such films of the ideological component of Soviet social relations as a factor that necessarily shapes personality (or the reduction of this factor to requisite and decorative markers): a complex of behavioral patterns, choices and motives thus turn out to be impenetrable to the viewer in the absence of interpretative model. As the third reason, the author names the formal, ‘dotted’ manner of depicting Soviet temporality in “champion fi lm sagas” and comes to the conclusion that unpacking and appropriating the didactic, instructive potential of legendary sports stories is impossible without a thoughtful depiction of Soviet social time.

Cultural Empowerment and Exploration of Chinese Media Instruction: Telling Chinese Sports Stories in English with the Context of "The Belt and Road"

Cultural Empowerment and Exploration of Chinese Media Instruction: Telling Chinese Sports Stories in English with the Context of "The Belt and Road"

“This Isn’t a Sports Story … This Is a Life Story”: Elite Athletes and Myths About Mental Illness in Sport

Athletes face unique mental health stressors, including internal/external pressure, time displacement, and physical injury. In addition, athletes who experience mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety reference the role of social factors—specifically stigma—as barriers to mental health. The present study draws on 37 testimonials from The Players’ Tribune in which athletes disclosed mental illness. A theoretical thematic analysis pinpointed themes within the testimonials of athletes who elucidated and refuted myths concerning mental health in sport. Through disclosure, the athletes challenged stigma by protesting myths that discourage help-seeking behavior in sport. The analysis identified six themes in the myths concerning (a) professional success, (b) strength, (c) identity, (d) the sports story treatment of mental health, (e) sport as escape, and (f) isolation. Implications are discussed in relation to changing social norms in sport.

Putting Russia's Ban in Historical Perspective: A Curated Interview

Putting Russia's Ban in Historical Perspective: A Curated Interview

Research and publication trends: Sports branding on the movie

Many films have raised the story of sports as the major story or as the background of a film. However, so far, no research has been obtained that analyzes the mapping of research results related to film and sports. Therefore, this study intends to examine various studies related to film and sports that global researchers have produced. This research uses the bibliometric method. The data source used is the Web of Science, while the tools used to process and display the data are ScientoPy and VosViewer. The results showed that the development of scientific publications starts 2000 to 2021 related to films and sports experienced fluctuating developments. Authors from America and England occupy the top positions for the number of publications. However, in the period 2020 and 2021, researchers from France and Canada are researchers who are more productive in publishing their scientific works. They included most published scientific works related to films and sports in the WoS version of the Social science category. However, Between 2020-2022, more are categorized into the subject of Communication and Film, Radio, & Television. Reference sources widely cited in scientific publications related to film and sports are books by Beeton with the title film-induced tourism (2005) and Crosson's work with the title sport and film (2013). The results of the keyword mapping show that six clusters represent some keywords used by the author in scientific works related to films and sports. In conclusion, sports and cinema research are fully developed in this research.

Sports in African Print Media: Quality Journalism or Toy Department? A Comparison of the South African Results from the 2011 and 2021 International Sports Press Survey

Sports journalism has, for some time, been a traditional subject of communication research. However, long-term studies and cross-national studies on sports journalism are still relatively rare. Analysis of sports in African print media is particularly underrepresented in scholarship. This contribution compares and contrasts the quality of sports journalism in the South African print media based on data collected during the 2011 and 2021 International Sports Press Survey (ISPS). Findings from the study largely replicate earlier studies with regards to authorship, placement, primary content, primary actors, journalistic formats, sourcing patterns, and gender representation in sports stories. While there are indications of gradual transformation, in a few aspects of sports journalism sport remains in the margins. Thematically, the media coverage is narrowly dominated by match reports, results, and previews. Moreover, coverage lacks critical journalistic engagement which makes sports pages amenable to ‘soft’ journalism and content that is generally considered to be ‘less serious’, thus lending credence to the thesis that sport is the ‘toy department’ of the news media.

Old Rules for New Times: Sportswomen and Media Representation in the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the first few months of the pandemic, professional sport around the globe stopped, as competitions and leagues were cancelled, postponed, or went into hiatus while sport administrators scrambled to work out ways to reboot their product in a COVID-19 world. Sport media outlets were faced with the task of reporting on sport and filling the void for fans in the absence of any live content. This article is concerned with the content, both in quantity and quality that fans of women’s sport could consume in those first months. In the context of the current “boom” in women’s professional sports, we draw on the analysis of two online sport media sites to consider the narratives of female athletes that fans had access to. The findings suggest that during the beginning of the pandemic sport stories about women were largely erased and replaced by those appealing to a very different fan market.

HUMAN RIGHTS THROUGH SPORTS AND ART

<p>Over time, since the ancient times until today, there have been events in sports history concerning the right to freedom of expression. The important thing was that the sports festival highlighted this situation, as shown in the history of Kallipateira in the 5th century BC. [8], - that of the mother who did not have the right to see and admire her Olympian son, Peisidoros and who even faced the death penalty - and that story of the American 200-meter Olympic sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos (Mexico, 1968), who at the awards ceremony with their fists raised and wearing black gloves, barefoot during the recitation of the American national anthem, protested both against US racism towards the black race as well as poverty [9]. These events that were recorded in the history of sports have not left unmoved the artistic community which through the representational expressive activities has framed these events giving them a special tone of value. The purpose of this paper is to study the timeless reflexive relationship between human rights and sporting activity but also the way in which it has been captured until today by artistic activity. The method of literature review and content analysis was used. The research sample consisted of sports stories, works of art, historical events, poems, etc. The Greek intellect body of the interwar period praised the history of the first modern “Kallipateira” by writing an excellent poem that speaks of the right of women to exercise and in life generally, of courage and risk, but also of the respect and responsibility that constitute the pillars of support for dignity and human rights. In conclusion, through the reference made to the relationship between Sports - Art and Human Rights, the present research study concludes in the view of L. Wittgenstein <em>"in the extreme depth aesthetics and ethics coincide</em>".</p><p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0938/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Journeys Inward: Do You Believe in Miracles? Sports Stories, Grit, and Resiliency

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Recognition of fake news in sports

This report examines the phenomenon of “fake news” and the influence which disinformation has in the contemporary sports information space. The problem, regarding their wide spread in the contemporary information space and their gradual transition from political life to the world of sports, leads to the necessity of defining and classifying fake news in the sports information space in order to offer a mechanism for their recognition and a practical tool supporting this activity. In the age of fake news, sports stars need security and real connections with the media to improve their performance. With the help of the literary analysis of the specialized sources, examples of disinformation in sports stories have been found, and consequently definitions of fake news, propaganda and disinformation have been proposed. After a review of specialized sources, a classification of ten types of fake news in sports has been made, giving real examples from the lives of Bulgarian athletes. Hence, a simplified seven-step algorithm has been developed to support users' critical thinking and decision-making when evaluating news in the media space. As a result of the proposed classification of “fake news” in sports and the created algorithm, a practical online tool has been created which would help the analysis of given information and the recognition of signs of fake news in online sports media. The tool has been created with the help of the HTML programming language HTML in the form of a webpage which is accessible from anywhere in the world. It is a set of applications that identify all types of fake content in the contemporary information space. This tool can be used to improve the security of athletes and even their game performance.

The (un)level playing field: sport media during COVID-19

ABSTRACT Research question : The creation of sport media content is guided by the need to cover live, seasonal events, which typically results in the greater coverage of men’s sport than women’s. However, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, live sport was halted. This paper presents the findings of a study into the media coverage of women in sport during the pandemic. Specifically, the study sought to answer the research question, how has Australian mainstream media covered women in sport during a period of time with no live sport on the global stage? Research methods : The study used quantitative content analysis to track the coverage from 20 media outlets using consistent one-directional coding practices, involving a single individual coder at the same time each day to focus on counting articles covering women in sport. Results and findings : The findings show a slight reduction in the coverage of women in sport at the start of the COVID-19 crisis in Australia and that low levels of coverage persisted throughout. This indicates that in the absence of live sport, media institutions reflexively revert to traditional ritualized, routinized practices to create sport media content, and women in sport stories are excluded regardless of the presence of play. Implications : The major contribution of this study is its demonstration that the ongoing dominance of men’s sport media coverage does not emerge as a result of weekly, seasonal coverage of live sport, but is founded on deeply entrenched notions of commercial value and upheld by newsroom routines and social rituals.

One and Done: The Long Eclipse of Women’s Televised Sports, 1989–2019

For 3 decades we have tracked and analyzed the quantity and quality of coverage of women’s and men’s sports in televised news and highlights shows. In this paper, we report on our most recent iteration of the longitudinal study, which now includes an examination of online sports newsletters and social media. The study reveals little change in the quantitative apportionment of coverage of women’s and men’s sports over the past 30 years. Men’s sports—especially the “Big Three” of basketball, football and baseball—still receive the lion’s share of the coverage, whether in-season or out of season. When a women’s sports story does appear, it is usually a case of “one and done,” a single women’s sports story obscured by a cluster of men’s stories that precede it, follow it, and are longer in length. Social media posts and online sports newsletters’ coverage, though a bit more diverse in some ways, mostly reflected these same patterned gender asymmetries. Gender-bland sexism continued as the dominant pattern in 2019 TV news and highlights’ stories on women’s sports. Three themes of this “gender-bland” coverage include: 1) nationalism, 2) asymmetrical gender marking coupled with local parochialism, and 3) community service/ charitable contributions.

WHEN SPORT MEETS ART: HOCKEY NIGHT IN CANADA

The paper refers to the history of Olympic art competitions which at one point were part of the Olympic Games competitions. In that vein, the author of the paper analyzes the Canadian short story Hockey Night in Canada, written by Diane Schoemperlen, which is inspired by sport as other sports stories are but, as a matter of fact, does not have much to do with hockey. The story illustrates how domestic objects could be turned into objects of art and how they help Schoemperlen reflect on her characters or apply her own technique of writing.

영화 ‘Three Seconds’에 투영된 냉전시대 스포츠스토리

본 연구는 실화를 바탕으로 한 스포츠영화 '쓰리 세컨즈'에 투영된 냉전시대 스포츠스토리가 어떻게 전개되고 그 속에서 나타나는 상징적 의미가 무엇인지에 대해 고찰하는 데 있다. 이를 위해 자막에 대한 텍스트 분석(textual analysis)을 실시하였다. 결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 영화 '쓰리 세컨즈'의 서사구조 분석은 5개 구조에 12개의 구성단위 로 구성되었다. 발단은 냉전시대가 낳은 경기패배는 곧 국가의 패배, 쉽지 않았던 감독 선임으로 나타났다. 전개는 새로운 훈련을 위한 제안, 아쉬운 데뷔전의 우승, '영원한 제국은 없다'이다. 위기는 하나의 팀이 되기에 어려움, 미국 농구의 두려 움, 예상하지 못한 부상과 불치병이다. 절정은 심정 변화와 신뢰, 테러와 도주, 길고 긴 마지막 3초의 승부, 결말은 냉전에도 굴복하지 않는 스포츠 정체성의 의미가 나타났다. 둘째, 영화 ‘쓰리 세컨즈’에서는 사실 왜곡과 사물의 대립을 통해 잔존하 는 정치․문화적 우월성 및 국수주의적 성향의 상징성을 나타내고 있다.

Black Brother, Black Brother by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Reviewed by: Black Brother, Black Brother by Jewell Parker Rhodes Elizabeth Bush Rhodes, Jewell Parker Black Brother, Black Brother. Little, 2020 [240p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-316-49380-2 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-316-49381-9 $9.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 4-7 Donte’s older brother, Trey, fits in well at elite Middlefield Prep school; he’s athletically talented and as light skinned as Donte and Trey’s white father. Donte, on the other hand, has never gone the athletic route, and his dark skin, inherited from their mother, has made him a target for the fencing team bullies, who think it’s hilarious that the two boys could be brothers. The school is oblivious to—possibly complicit in—the bullying, and when the tacit “blame the victim” policy lands Donte in a juvenile court hearing, he decides to fight back the only way he can truly hurt his abhorrent classmate, Alan—defeat him in fencing. First he has to learn to fence, though, and for that he has to convince a former Black fencing champ, now working at the rec center, to teach him. This is a classic sports story, complete with a washed-out coach with a skeleton in his closet, a nastier-than-sin villain, a romantic interest, and a supportive mixed-race family that must daily find its way through the maze of microaggressions. As usual in classic sports stories, Donte learns some lessons he didn’t count on, including how his own economic privilege appears to other kids of color, and how his own brother struggles to navigate having his back while letting him fight his own battles. Readers who mourn the completion of Jason Reynolds’ Track series will be happy to find Rhodes’ take on revenge and redemption. Copyright © 2020 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

‘The Need to Tell Your Story’

The term “memoir” is a loose and compendious one, applied to any number of publications, including those, often ghost-written, purporting to tell the life story of pop stars, politicians, and sport...

Gravity by Sarah Deming

Reviewed by: Gravity by Sarah Deming Deborah Stevenson, Editor Deming, Sarah Gravity. Make Me a World/Random House, 2019 [400p] Library ed. ISBN 978-0-525-58104-8 $20.99 Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-525-58103-1 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-525-58105-5 $10.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 9-12 Sixteen-year-old Gravity Delgado is half-Dominican, half-Jewish, and all boxer; she's been fighting for four years, and now the undefeated lightweight is aiming for a slot on the U.S. Olympic team. She's got to earn her spot, though, and along the way she deals with an array of opponents, her alcoholic single mother, her budding love life, and friction with her beloved coach, learning by losing as well as winning. That's a classic sports story, and Deming, herself a boxer and a boxing coach, turns it out with assurance and style. The details of boxing as a sport, from specifics about injuries and recovery times to facets of gym culture and aspects of global politics, bring the world close enough for the reader to smell the sweat. What really lifts the story, though, is the savory cast of credible characters, from the whip-smart women's boxing journalist to the young heavyweight guy who'd rather turn photographer than pro to teammates both friendly and not-so-friendly. Gravity's believable in her first serious relationship and her takeaways from it, but boxing is the real romance here; as with any romance, the reading pleasure lies not in genre surprises but in the way the story brings freshness and joy to the familiar turns. Deming delivers with love for her sport and appreciation for her star, and the book may inspire readers to strap on a pair of gloves themselves. Copyright © 2019 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Twitter, Team GB and the Australian Olympic Team: representations of gender in social media spaces

Twitter is used by athletes, sporting teams and sports media to provide updates on the results of sporting events as they happen. Unlike traditional forms of sports media, online sports media offers the potential for diverse representations of athletes. The current study examined gender in social media coverage of the 2016 Olympic Games using a third wave feminist lens. The analysis focused on the Twitter pages of ‘Team GB’ and the ‘Australian Olympic team’ and the sports stories and images posted during the Rio Olympic Games. Despite a number of traditional differences in the ways that male and females were represented being present, such as the presence of ‘active’ images of male athletes accompanying sports stories and the presence of infantalization in the language used to represent female performers, this analysis demonstrated significant strides forward in terms of the quantity of coverage received by women in online spaces. It further highlights virtual platforms as dynamic spaces for the representation of women athletes.

HOW CAN YOU PLAY WHEN YOUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE? THE NORWEGIAN SPORTS STRIKE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR

The article considers the story of the Norwegian sports strike during the Second World War. What kind of resistance does the story reveal? What was the effect of a boycott of leisure activities like sports? The Norwegian sports organizations, unlike other international sports organizations, came to see themselves as part of the resistance movement against the Nazi regime during the German occupation from 1940 to 1945, using non-violent, civil disobedience as their weapon. Unprecedented historically and internationally, this meant that Norwegian sportsmen and women, for four and a half years, stopped participating in any way in sport. The boycott comprised sportsmen and spectators, regardless of whether the contestants were friends or foes, Allies or Nazis, Norwegians or German. Based upon previous and recent research the article contends that the sports strike can be considered an effective act of civil disobedience. It demonstrated in a visible way that civil resistance was possible, while the German and Nazi authorities sought to promote sports as a means of creating an impression of normality. Finally, the story of the sports strike can be read as a tale of the limitations of totalitarian regimes.