Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Sport, the Media and Popular Culture
- 2 All Our Yesterdays: A History of Media Sport
- 3 A Sporting Triangle: Television, Sport and Sponsorship
- 4 Power Game: Why Sport Matters to Television
- 5 Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Media Sport and Stardom
- 6 The Race Game: Media Sport, Race and Ethnicity
- 7 Playing the Game: Media Sport and Gender
- 8 Games Across Frontiers: Mediated Sport and National Identity
- 9 The Sports Pages: Journalism and Sport
- 10 Consuming Sport: Fans, Fandom and the Audience
- 11 Conclusion: Sport in the Digital Age
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Playing the Game: Media Sport and Gender
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Sport, the Media and Popular Culture
- 2 All Our Yesterdays: A History of Media Sport
- 3 A Sporting Triangle: Television, Sport and Sponsorship
- 4 Power Game: Why Sport Matters to Television
- 5 Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Media Sport and Stardom
- 6 The Race Game: Media Sport, Race and Ethnicity
- 7 Playing the Game: Media Sport and Gender
- 8 Games Across Frontiers: Mediated Sport and National Identity
- 9 The Sports Pages: Journalism and Sport
- 10 Consuming Sport: Fans, Fandom and the Audience
- 11 Conclusion: Sport in the Digital Age
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Victoria Pendleton's Secrets
She's a world champion and favourite to win an Olympic gold medal in Beijing, so why has Victoria Pendleton had to resort to posing in a black dress with a spanner in her hand?
(Sunday Times, 6 January 2008)Introduction
Sport has always been a sexual battlefield. The issue of gender and the representation of biological difference between the sexes have long been central to our perceptions of sport in society. The media representation of sport is no different and, as this chapter sets out to argue, no analysis of media sport would be complete without an understanding of how patriarchal structures are constructed through media institutions and their coverage of sport.
Equally, no understanding of how patriarchy is reinforced in capitalist societies can ignore the importance of sport in communicating familiar stereotypes of men and women and their physical abilities. Indeed, the historical tendency towards the invisibility of women in media sport has suggested a whole field of public life in which women have been marginalized. To what extent is this critique still valid as we move towards the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Power PlaySport, the Media and Popular Culture, pp. 122 - 143Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2009