University of California Los Angeles Symbolic Annihilation Argumentative Essay Define “Symbolic Annihilation” (Gender Sports and Media- Cookly 2018), provi

University of California Los Angeles Symbolic Annihilation Argumentative Essay Define “Symbolic Annihilation” (Gender Sports and Media- Cookly 2018), provide a specific example (you need external sources for this part of the answer), and explain how this affects women. Remember to write a clear argument!!
Even though class lectures are very important for guidance and clarification, you need to use the class’ readings for your answer which I will upload to you‘. Therefore, your paper needs to have CITATIONS – even if you are rephrasing the authors – and a bibliography.
Min. 2-pages + 1-page bibliography. New Times Roman 12, double space,
1-inch margins. Mark it ONLY with your name and page numbers. Gender, Sport and Media Between
the Mid-1980s and Early 2000s:
Developments, Trajectories
and Transformations
Cheryl Cooky
Introduction
In the summer of 2016, at ESPN’s annual ESPY (Excellence in Sport Performance
Yearly) awards ceremony, former University of Connecticut (UConn) women’s
basketball centre and 4-time National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA)
champion Breanna Stewart received the Best Female Athlete award. During her
acceptance speech, after thanking her parents, coaches, teammates and fans,
Stewart also thanked ESPN and the sports news media. She observed that while
at UConn she ‘received an enormous amount of media attention’; however now
that she playing in the Women’s National Basketball Association (she was the
number one draft pick in 2016 for the Seattle Storm) she is struck by how professional female athletes do not receive anywhere near the ‘amount of fame’. She
stated, ‘This has to change!’ to generous audience applause, and concluded with
the following declaration: ‘Equality for all, takes each of us.’ The acceptance
speech was a not-so-veiled critique of the lack of media coverage of female athletes, including the lack of coverage on ESPN. Stewart’s call for equality in
media coverage of female athletes is one that has been articulated and advocated
by feminist sociologists of sport over the past three decades. Indeed, one of the
perennial findings in the scholarship on gender, sport and media is the overall
lack of coverage of women’s sports in mainstream sports media relative to men’s,
particularly in the United States (Bruce, 2016). This research trend continues
C. Cooky (*)
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
© The Author(s) 2018
L. Mansfield et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Feminism and Sport,
Leisure and Physical Education, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53318-0_9
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despite increased opportunities to participate at all levels of sport, including collegiate and professional sports, and the cultural acceptance of female athletes in
American society. Moreover, when female athletes are covered by the media, the
quality of coverage of women’s sports lags behind that of men’s sports. The ways
in which female athletes are represented in the media often rely upon outdated
stereotypes and conventional gender norms and expectations (Cooky, Messner,
& Musto, 2015; Kane and Maxwell, 2011). Thousands of studies have been
published over the past several decades, both within and outside the United
States, providing empirical evidence of gender inequality in a variety of media
outlets including televised media, print media, online media and social media.
Often these findings are explained through the theoretical lenses of hegemonic
masculinity and sport as the last male preserve. Yet, what is curious to me is the
resistance of mainstream media, and in particular mainstream sports media, to
the broader shifts in the culture that have occurred over the past three to four
decades as a result of social movements within and outside the world of sports.
In this chapter, I will address several thematic developments in the sociology of sport on gender, sport and media, focusing on scholarship from the
1980s through the early 2000s to chart the development and contributions of
US feminist scholars to the knowledge on gender, media and sport. This chapter also offers insight into the ongoing legacy of some of the key studies from
this era. The chapter concludes with future directions, including an evaluation of the relevance of this work to contemporary understandings of gender,
sport and the media.
Before discussing the thematic developments and their influence on my
thinking and scholarship, I am compelled to offer a caveat. This chapter provides a particular perspective informed by my own academic biography and
the theoretical, methodological and disciplinary standpoints my work is situated. Thus, it is not intended as a comprehensive or exhaustive examination of
the literature written by American feminist sport sociologists on gender, media
and sport. Admittedly, as author I possess a privileged position and agency in
identifying particular scholars and publications and articulating important
trajectories in American feminist work on gender and media within the sociology of sport. As such, I wish to acknowledge the potential for certain scholars
and texts to be positioned as “canonical” by their inclusion, while conversely
others, given their absence through no fault other than my academic training
and theoretical and methodological leanings, may be marginalized as a result.
So I wish to acknowledge the role my academic background and lineage thus
plays in determining the inclusion of certain voices, knowledges and scholarly
perspectives and to apologize in advance for those whose work has been
i­nadvertently excluded as a product of my academic training and theoretical
Gender, Sport and Media Between the Mid-1980s and Early 2000s…
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and methodological proclivities and preferences. Thus, absences of particular
scholars or publications should be read through this lens and apologies
extended to those scholars or texts that have been unjustly omitted.
Thematic Developments and Contributions
One of the significant developments and contributions of American feminist
thought in sociology of sport (although it was not unique or specific to
American feminism) resides in the conceptualization of sports as a social institution and cultural practice that both constitutes and is constituted by gender.
Sports were understood as important sites for the reproduction of and challenge to gendered ideologies, discourses and representations. Moreover, the
ways in which sport itself was organized and its cultural meanings could not be
understood outside an analysis of gender relations and gendered power dynamics. Critical theories such as feminism allowed for sport to be ‘examined as a
site through which questions related to social and political power, domination,
ideology and agency, and transformative possibilities could be considered’
(Cole, 1994, p. 5). Media was a central object of study, given the ‘role of the
media in circulating and legitimating dominant narratives that construct who
we are and how we understand the world around us’ (Birrell & Cole, 1994,
p. 246). Thus, the media, and sports media in particular, shape cultural meanings and understandings of sport, of social relations and of ourselves (ibid.).
Similar to the contemporary moment of feminist sports studies scholarship, American feminist sociologists of sport writing during the 1980s–1990s
came from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, were trained and situated differently relative to various disciplinary or multi/inter-disciplinary knowledges.
As a result, the approaches, theories and methodologies among these scholars
varied, yet what they held in common was a feminist analysis and critique of
the institution of sport, and the gendered inequalities that were, and continue
to be reproduced, reaffirmed and legitimized within it. Yet, this analysis and
critique was also accompanied by a re-envisioning or re-imagining of the
potential for sports to be resistive to hegemonic dominance, to be empowering for those who had been historically marginalized; in other words, for
sport’s potential to be a vehicle for feminist empowerment, practice and
change in spite of, or perhaps as the result of, its historical origins as a social
institution and cultural practice designed to socialize boys and young men
into hegemonic masculinity (Messner, 1988).
Key writings focused on the representations and discourses of women’s
sports and female athletes in sports media and/or offered theoretical and
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c­onceptual frameworks by which to explain and analyze these representations
and discourses. The major contributions of this scholarship were twofold and,
it should be noted, are not mutually exclusive or independent of one another.
First, American feminist scholars drew upon methodologies in communication and media studies (e.g., textual analysis, content analysis, discursive analysis, framing analysis among others) bringing forward empirical evidence
regarding the ‘symbolic annihilation’ (Gerbner, 1978; Tuchmann, 1978) of
women in sport media. This research examined the lack of coverage of women’s sports and female athletes in televised news and sports highlight shows
(Duncan, Messner, Williams, Jensen, & Wilson, 1994; Messner, Duncan, &
Cooky, 2003), in Sports Illustrated (Kane, 1988), in Olympic media coverage
(Duncan, 1990), and in televised broadcasts of sports events and competitions (Duncan & Hasbrook, 1988). Second, scholars drew upon cultural
studies and feminist studies to offer important insights regarding sport media,
which did not simply provide a transparent or objective representation of
sport events, athletes or controversies. Instead, these scholars asserted, the
sport media ‘re-present and re-construct sport in certain frames and through
routinized codes and conventions to produce images that benefit particular
privileged groups’ (Birrell & Cole, 1994, p. 246), while simultaneously marginalizing others. Sport media and the representation of women’s sports shapes
and impacts cultural understandings of female athleticism and critically
informed analyses offered insight into broader gendered dynamics and social
arrangements. I discuss each major contribution below.
The “Symbolic Annihilation” of Female Athletes
One of the unfortunate, yet enduring trends in sport media coverage, both
inside and outside the United States, is the silencing, marginalization and trivialization of women’s sports, what some have referred to as the “symbolic annihilation” of women in the media. Symbolic annihilation, a term coined by Gaye
Tuchmann, an American sociologist in the late 1970s, describes the mainstream
media’s (i.e., newspapers, magazines, television and its advertisements) practice
of either ignoring women, portraying women in stereotypical gendered domestic roles of either homemaker or mother, or, when women are depicted in the
public sphere, those representations often focus on women working in “pinkcollar” occupations. This was particularly of interest for media scholars given the
significant social change that occurred in the 1960s throughout the 1970s, in
part driven by the social movements of the 1960s, such as the women’s movements, civil rights movements, and lesbian and gay rights movements, which
challenged the gender status quo and offered a critique to the binary roles and
Gender, Sport and Media Between the Mid-1980s and Early 2000s…
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expectations for men and for women. Gerbner (1978), in a collection on mass
media edited by Gaye Tuchmann and others wrote,
Instead of mediating even the actual social change that is taking place, the media
appear to be cultivating resistance and preparing for a last-ditch defense. And
the gap between actual social reality and what is portrayed in the media is widening. (p. 50)
American feminists in the sociology of sport studying the media in the 1980s
and 1990s were interested in examining the media coverage of women’s sports
in part because of Title IX, federal legislation that was passed in 1972 prohibiting educational institutions that receive federal funding from discrimination
on the basis of sex. This legislation ushered in a mass movement of girls and
women into athletics and sports. Scholars were interested in how the increased
participation and the development of competitive sports leagues for girls and
women translated into change in the sport media landscape. In a content
analysis of the ‘most powerful and influential creator of sport images’ (Kane,
1988, p. 89), Sports Illustrated, a weekly magazine featuring stories on what’s
happening in the world of sports, Mary Jo Kane, an American feminist sports
studies scholar whose devoted her career to research and advocacy for girls and
women in sports, asked if the coverage of women’s sports had improved since
the passage of Title IX. In this article, Kane offers a different approach by
moving beyond a comparative lens examining men’s to women’s sports coverage to analyze how the coverage of women’s sports has changed over time and
what impact, if any, Title IX had on improving the coverage of women’s
sports. Moreover, Kane examined what type of coverage female athletes
received: were they portrayed in athletic or non-athletic roles and what types
of sports are featured? Here Kane was interested in whether female athletes
were featured in stereotypically “sex-appropriate sports”, such as gymnastics,
tennis and golf or “sex-inappropriate sports”, such as basketball, weightlifting
or wrestling. Kane found that there were no statistically significant differences
in the amount of coverage female athletes received prior to or after Title IX.
However, women were more likely to be featured in athletic roles than in non-­
athletic roles in the time period after Title IX. Yet, despite this improvement
in coverage, over the course of years sampled, female athletes were statistically
more likely to be featured in sex-appropriate sports. Kane concluded that,
‘15 years after Title IX, female participation in athletics remains heavily influenced by traditional beliefs about what is considered appropriate, ladylike
behavior’ (p. 97). Sports Illustrated, for Kane, is sending clear messages to
viewers about which sports are appropriate, accepted and valued for female
athletes. She rhetorically asks,
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When the vast majority of coverage still focuses on primarily ‘feminine’ and
therefore non-threatening sport behavior, how much progress has actually
occurred in challenging traditional stereotypes of what it means to be female
and an athlete? (p. 96)
While subsequent studies on media coverage of women’s sports did not
necessarily investigate differences in coverage before and after Title IX, what
most studies did, and continue to do through the 2000s, is to frame and contextualize studies on media coverage of women’s sports through the lens of
Title IX and its impact on girls’ and women’s sports participation. With
increased participation and growth in women’s sports along with increased
cultural acceptance of female athletes, we should expect that the sports media
would reflect the changes that had occurred in the sports landscape. Yet, the
major findings from numerous studies in the 1980s and 1990s on the coverage of women’s sports all pointed to the sentiment expressed in Gerbner’s
quote referenced above. In fact, longitudinal studies illustrated the reality that
for certain sports media, televised news and highlight programmes, the ‘social
reality and what is portrayed in the media’ had indeed widened over the course
of the 1980s and 1990s (see Duncan et al., 1994; Messner et al., 2003).
Michael A. Messner, a feminist sociologist, and Margaret Carlisle Duncan,
a feminist sports studies scholar, public intellectuals who leveraged empirical
findings for women’s sports advocacy, published a series of studies for the
Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles that longitudinally examined
the quantity and quality of coverage of men’s and women’s sports on televised
news and highlight shows. What is significant for feminist scholars regarding
the study of sports news media is the role the mainstream news plays in setting the agenda for what is considered the top or important stories of the day.
Thus, studying the news media’s coverage of sport sheds light on what value
journalists and broadcasters place on women’s sports and thus, what messages
viewers and audiences may be sent regarding the role and status of women’s
sports in the broader society. Examining the evening newscasts on the local
affiliates in Los Angeles of the three major television networks (ESPN, the
largest and most popular cable sports network in the USA would be included
in subsequent iterations of the study), Messner and Duncan (see Duncan
et al., 1994; Messner et al., 2003) tracked the coverage of men’s and women’s
sport and the types of sports that are featured. They also tracked production
values, such as the use of music, graphics, statistics, game footage and interviews as well as a qualitative analysis of the commentary, specifically the ways
in which male and female athletes are represented by sports broadcasters.
What they found in the early iterations of the study, findings which would
Gender, Sport and Media Between the Mid-1980s and Early 2000s…
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continue in subsequent studies, was an overall lack of coverage of women’s
sports in the broadcasts. In 1989, the first year of data collection, the coverage
of women’s sports was 5% (Duncan et al., 1994). Coverage “spiked” in 1999,
nearing 9% (Messner et al., 2003) and subsequently declined to near lows of
2–3% in the latest iterations of the study (see Cooky, Messner, & Hextrum,
2013; Cooky et al., 2015). Moreover, when examining the quality of
­coverage—the production values—segments on men’s sports were more likely
to be accompanied by music, game footage, pre- or post-game interviews with
coaches, players or team owners, and graphics. Conversely, in the earlier iterations of the study, women were commonly featured in non-serious gag features (e.g., the “kissing bandit”), pseudo-sports (e.g., naked bungee jumping),
and as the objects of sexualized humour. Through the sheer amount of coverage and the high quality of coverage of men’s sports alongside the lack of
coverage and the trivialization of women’s sports and female athletes, assert
Messner, Duncan and colleagues, as well as Kane (1988) and others, sport
media, rather than reflecting reality or giving viewers and audiences what they
want, build and sustain audiences for men’s sports and send powerful messages regarding the value and status of women’s sports in American culture.
Feminist Cultural Studies of Sport
In 1994, C.L. Cole and Susan Birrell, both feminist cultural studies scholars,
published what has now become a “classic” collection of essays in the edited
volume, Women, Sport, and Culture (see: Birrell & Cole, 1994). In this book
are influential articles including the publication of Messner and Duncan’s
study on gender in televised sports and highlight shows discussed above, as
well as chapters outlining key developments in the study of gender and sport
broadly, including chapters on sport as the last ‘male preserve’, (Dunning,
1994) and sport as the maintenance of masculine hegemony (Bryson, 1994)
both of which continue to have relevance and resonance for contemporary
understandings and analyses of gender and sport. Also in this collection is
Messner’s article on the female athlete as contested ideological terrain, which
will be discussed below, and Cole’s chapter titled ‘Resisting the canon:
Feminist cultural studies, sport, and technologies of the body’ (Cole, 1994).
In ‘Resisting the canon’, Cole (1994) articulates the potential for critical
theories (post-Marxism, cultural studies and feminisms) as useful frameworks
for the study of sport, gender and the body, given that sport is a site ‘through
which questions related to social and political power, domination, ideology
and agency, and transformative possibilities must be considered’ (p. 5). Cole
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draws from key elements in socialist feminism and British cultural studies in
the development of feminist cultural studies of sport. For Cole, socialist feminism is useful in the feminist cultural studies of sport project in its critique of
the sex/gender binary as ‘dehistoricized nature and biological difference’ and
argues instead that the ‘gendered body marks, contains and reproduces difference in a sex/gender syst…
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