The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup tournament is the most attended women’s sporting event in history and the story lines – or areas to study – are everywhere! Spain is headed to the finals despite 15 players being left off the team as recently as less than a year ago as they fought with their federation over the coach. Colombia advanced to the quarterfinals despite nearly a decade of accusations of sexual harrassment, assault and wage theft.
A global audience is watching raucous crowds, openly gay female competitors, non-binary athletes, players whose children meet them on the pitch immediately after games. On mainstream sports pages, fans are – or should be! — reading about the fight for resources equivalent to male counterparts, the financial struggles of national and continental football federations, as well as the continued plight of some sides simply to play. It will also be the final major tournament for legends of the game such as Marta, Megan Rapinoe and Christine Sinclair.
In 2021, sport media scholars Danielle Coombs and Molly Yanity edited and published a 15-chapter collection entitled 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup: Media, Fandom, and Soccer’s Biggest Stage. The articles in the collection looked at media coverage of and fan experiences from the 2019 World Cup in France, which was highlighted by technological advancements on the pitch and in media, political struggle, activism around equal pay and LGBTQ rights, as well as perceptions of the event, the game, and female athletes around the world.
Three years later, the Women’s World Cup is wrapping up South of the equator for the first time as Australia and New Zealand have hosted one wild mega-event. And, once again, Coombs and Yanity believe the tournament is a perfect palette for the study of women’s sport, media, and fandom — and we want your chapter pitches.
The proposed collection will provide an accessible space for scholarship and narrative in order to explore and better understand the personalities, controversies, politics, and representations of the issues and people in and surrounding the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
The call for chapters is aimed at scholars around the globe who will investigate and assign meaning to what happens at and surrounding the football showcase.
The book hopes to combine academic and popular approaches to a multitude of topics to present a kaleidoscope of perspectives from throughout the world on the following topics:
- media coverage
- social media
- politics and activism
- imperialism
- equal pay/resources
- feminist perspectives
- race
- ethnicity
- nationalism
- sexuality
- gender identity
- parenting
- sponsorship
Editors seek qualitative academic approaches, as well as popular narratives that employ thorough reporting methods.
Requirements for chapter contributions
- 100-150 word author bio/s
- 300-500 word abstract including significance of the topic, geographical context, focus and intersectional nature (if possible)
- Processed in an editable, accessible Google Doc, link emailed to molly.yanity@qu.edu no later than September 1, 2023.
Contribution details and deadlines
- Submission of chapter proposals: September 1, 2023
- Notification of acceptance: October 15, 2023
- Submission of full chapter: January 15, 2024
- Chapters should be between 6,000 – 10,000 words (including references)
The ambitious schedule ensures timeliness as the 2023 World Cup concludes with the August 20 final in Sydney. Send proposals to Molly Yanity at molly.yanity@qu.edu.
About the editors
MOLLY YANITY (molly.yanity@qu.edu) is a professor and chair of Journalism, as well as the director of the Sports Journalism and Journalism Master’s degree programs at Quinnipiac University. Yanity completed her doctorate in Mass Communication, as well as a graduate certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies, at Ohio University. Her research interests center on roles of women in sport and sport media. She has published her research in peer reviewed journals, in edited collections, and covered the WNBA in 2019 as a freelance beat reporter for The Athletic. She is a board member for the International Association for Communication and Sport and two-time previous chair of AEJMC’s Sport Communication Interest Group.
DANIELLE SARVER COOMBS (Danielle.coombs@uca.ac.uk) recently moved to the University for the Creative Arts in Epsom, United Kingdom after 16 years at Kent State University in Ohio. Her research interests center on politics, sports, and the politics of sport. Coombs has authored and edited a number of books, including The Consumer Insights Handbook (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021), Routledge International Handbook for Sport Fans and Fandom (Routledge, 2022), and the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup: Media, Fandom, and Soccer’s Biggest Stage (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). She is the vice-chair of the International Communication Association’s Sport Communication Interest Group.
