This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Knoppers, A. Articles by Elling, A. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

‘We Do Not Engage in Promotional Journalism’

Discursive Strategies Used by Sport Journalists to Describe the Selection Process

University of Utrecht, The Netherlands

Agnes Elling

Tilburg University and W.J.H. Mulier Instituut, The Netherlands

Although the results of content analyses of television and newspaper sport coverage have shown quantitative and qualitative gender differences, such analyses do not reveal why some texts are selected and others not. Although this selection process is constrained by structural factors, there is room for agency since journalists decide what to include and how to write about that. Little scholarly attention has been paid to the ways in which agency is used in the discourses of sport journalists to describe the gendering of the selection process. The purpose of this study is to explore the discursive strategies and their gendered subtexts employed by Dutch sports journalists in explaining the selection process, especially the exclusion of women’s sports coverage. The results show that the journalists conceal issues of gendered dynamics of power by using an ideology of neutrality. This strategy allows them to be misogynist and resistant to the coverage of women’s sport while simultaneously allowing them to claim neutrality and fairness for themselves. We explore how their discourse is linked to a broader societal discourse and how it simultaneously strengthens that discourse.

Key Words: gender • objectivity • sport journalism

International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Vol. 39, No. 1, 57-73 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/1012690204040523


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				S. MacKay and C. Dallaire Campus Newspaper Coverage of Varsity Sports: Getting Closer to Equitable and Sports-related Representations of Female Athletes? International Review for the Sociology of Sport, March 1, 2009; 44(1): 25 - 40. [Abstract] [PDF]

				R. Chappell Sport in Postcolonial Uganda Journal of Sport and Social Issues, May 1, 2008; 32(2): 177 - 198. [Abstract] [PDF]

				S. Pan and C. Ryan Gender, Framing, and Travelogues Journal of Travel Research, May 1, 2007; 45(4): 464 - 474. [Abstract] [PDF]

				J. van Sterkenburg and A. Knoppers Dominant Discourses about Race/Ethnicity and Gender in Sport Practice and Performance International Review for the Sociology of Sport, September 1, 2004; 39(3): 301 - 321. [Abstract] [PDF]