One stereotype ESPN features involves gender. Viewers can watch any of the network's programs for hours and not receive any coverage of women's sports. While there is a large popularity difference between mens and womens sports, ESPN's coverage seems disproportionate. ESPN employs many women anchors and reporters, but it can be argued that this is only to appeal to the network's predominately male audience, and does nothing for the gender diversity pertaining to sports coverage. One popular segment on the network's flagship program, SportsCenter, is the Top 10 plays. These plays are almost always from NCAA football, NBA, MLB, or NFL. Considering the WNBA, womens softball, soccer, volleyball, gymnastics, etc, you would expect a proportionate amount of spectacular plays to be made in mens and womens sports, but the Top 10 plays regularly indicate otherwise.
Another stereotype reinforced by ESPN is the portrayal of professional athletes as criminals, thugs, and cheaters. While there have been many instances where professional athletes have engaged in such behavior, ESPN's coverage of them is disproportionate to those who do not, many of which are active participants in their communities, raising money for charities and mentoring young athletes. Entire segments are given to cover deviant acts created by professional athletes. Noteworthy examples are the Lance Armstrong scandal, Aaron Hernandez's murder trial, the Richie Incognito bullying accusation, and Tiger Woods' extramarital affairs.
While ESPN often reinforces these stereotypes, it is up to the viewer to resist that aspect of pop culture. Martin and Nakayama state, "Avoiding certain forms of popular culture is one kind of resistance, but resistance can occur in a variety of ways." One way to resist this form of text is to educate one's self on the issues in today's sports. Obviously there are cases of athletes who break laws and/or ethical standards, but the average athlete does not. Furthermore, while it is understood that men's sports have more popularity than women's sports in today's culture, the coverage received is disproportionate.
Brett, do you think ESPN is intentionally portraying athletes now as serious thugs and criminals in order to create more stories or coverage? It seems every few months now they are breaking a new story about an athlete who has made poor choices and exploiting the situation.
ReplyDeleteBrett,
ReplyDeleteDo you think that the blame for the negativity of the news stories about athletes should be directed toward ESPN or the viewers? In my opinion, ESPN is just acting as a conduit for giving the viewers stories that they are interested in. If the viewers are more interested in scandals, we will see more scandal or crime based stories.
I like that you chose ESPN as your text for analysis. I think it's a very important pop culture artifact to discuss. It reinforces stereotypes that have direct implications on gender, sex, race/ethnicity, class, etc. I would like to see you discuss implications for resistance just a bit more. You start to discuss this concept and then the blog just sort of ends. I wanted to read more. Also, make sure you submit the text of your blog to SafeAssign for it to count as a complete submission of the assignment.
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