Women at the periphery of the US sports media industry


Britt-Marie Ringfjord
Department of Media and Journalism, Linnæus University


Guy Harrison
On the Sidelines: Gendered Neoliberalism and the Female Sportscaster
164 pages, paperback
Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press 2021 (Sports, Media, and Society)
ISBN 978-1-4962-2646-4

In sports, to stay on the sidelines means to stay outside of the playing area and not participate in the game. The causes often imply a negative position due to being a beginner who has not yet been tried in real-life situations. Despite title XI and periodic reports from the Gender Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), it is in this marginalized prescribed position that the female sportscasters in this study find themselves when they talk about the mistreatment and discrimination at the workplace.

In this book, Guy Harrison sheds light on female sportscasters working in the sport media industry and how they experience double standards based on ten interviews. Supplemented with four focus groups of sport media consumers and mediated texts from nearly 150 pieces (articles, tweets, audio visuals) Harrison investigates how the concept of the female sportscaster is socially constructed. Positioning his research in cultural criticism through the lens of gendered neoliberalism, he examines the challenges women deal with in their everyday work (2021:28, 67). The analytical approach is based on how discourses relate to production of power relations with support from Michel Foucault, Stuart Hall and feminist theorists like Rosalind Gill and Angela McRobbie, amongst others. Harrison is an assistant professor of journalism and electronic media at the University of Tennessee with research interests covering diversity, inclusion and representation in sports and news media. The focus in this book is on the sportscasting industry and the uneven representation of women, and how the gender discourse on sport media is a practice built in society. The discursive exclusion concerns how gender is composed of language, images and texts integrated in sports broadcasting as well as in people’s everyday lives.

The book is divided into six parts, beginning with a prologue, The Pregame Show, where some previous research on sport media and gender is covered and serves as a relevant platform for the study’s design and theoretical framework. In this part, the study’s interviewees are presented, followed by a short description of the focus groups. The main four chapters conveys various aspects of sportscasting that affect women’s opportunities and limitations as a workforce in a field governed by social and cultural power structures. The book concludes with an epilogue, The Postgame Show, that opens a broader discussion about the institutional and social consequences in relation to making sport media industry more inclusive for women.

The first chapter on post-feminism, “Anglocentric white femininity and sportscasting’s double standards”, discusses how women sportscasters’ skills and knowledge are questioned by the sport media industry, the sport organizations and the sport audiences. Harrison examines the sports media gendered double standards using neoliberalism as a perspective to criticize from. Neoliberalism is part of post-feminism, which suggests that gender equality has been achieved. Therefore, today “free” decisions about life choices are in the hands of the independent individual. Young women with successful careers and financial independence do not have to fight for equality. As such, neoliberalism hides inequalities and other unjust power structures. Characteristics of female sportscasters situated in the sport media sphere holds contradictions for women: sexualisation, beauty ideals, and credibility. Sexualisation is the expectations to wear revealing clothing, a trend called nightclubification that women in the sport media industry comply with (Harrison 2021:42-46). Beauty ideals are constructed of white western femininity that most women sportscasters adopt regardless of race. Credibility relates to the scepticism women sportscasters face. They are often younger and less experienced than men, which might confirm assumptions that women and men socialize in working routines where the prevailing norm is the male sportscaster. Women are expected to overcome double standards with an independent attitude and without help of the media organization.

By making the individual woman responsible for overcoming her own oppression, the number of women exposed in the sport media industry will still remain hidden.

Chapter two is about on-air positions in sportscasting, where women often are excluded from the visible play-by-play announcing and colour commentary positions in popular (male) sports. Presenting the sportscasting’s glass booth, a symbolic site women often aspire to but typically are not hired for, the author discusses how the ideal positions are constructed for women within sports media. The sportscasting’s glass booth refers to “symbolic annihilation” (Tuchman 1978) as a way to illustrate the invisibility of women within the sport media sphere. This symbolic site for women also associates to the familiar “glass ceiling” metaphor used to describe barriers to workplace advancement for women and minorities (Byerly & McGraw 2020). In a Nordic country like Sweden, studies from the GMMP (Gender Media Monitoring Project) indicate that these ceiling effects show a higher proportion of women in news production, but at the same time only increases slowly the number of women at top level positions (Edström & Facht 2017). Anchored in gender neoliberalism, Harrison explains how the interviewees and focus groups construct the perceived positions available for women sportscasters. The variety of comments shows both an understanding of difficulties in reaching top level positions and appreciation of finding women representing sport journalism paired with criticism of their competence and appearance as sports commentators.

The following chapter on gendered offline and online harassments in sportscasting raises questions about the sports journalism workplace, popular feminism and misogyny. Just like women working in mass media industries, women in sports broadcasting are often forced to tolerate online and offline gender-based harassment. The chapter focus on two sites of harassments: in workplace and online environment. Harrison conducts his analysis of harassment by combining material from sport media narratives supported by previously published material from other sports researchers, and by re-reading material from the interviews and focus groups. In the light of the neoliberal discourse, he concludes that these harassments contribute to a backlash particularly visible in the electronic sports media industry. The women sportscasters face abuse caused by the persistent gender structures in the sports media industry by using neoliberal logic to endure the profession of sports journalism.

In chapter four, the affective labour of women as sportscasters is discussed in terms of how norms for sport journalism and gender structure media organizations’ professions. Harrison’s analysis is based on Ahmed’s and Hochschild’s work on emotions as sociocultural established experiences, thoughts, and feelings (2021:112). Women sportscasters are generally not given the opportunity to show that they can develop their passion and talent as professional sports journalists. They learn that emotions that in other contexts are accepted as an appropriate response to gender-based abuse are seen as signs of weakness in sportscasting. Sportscasting as an institution relies on neoliberalism to normalize the acknowledged existence of gender abuse and therefore maintains the subordination of women. The women learn to discipline their emotions by developing “thick skin” to endure gender criticism and mistreatment. She can alter her performance; but she is still a woman (2021:115). Women sportscasters use emotional labour in the workplace in exchange for a capital that allows them some political influence in their media organization. The emotion management derives from harassment, race and gender inequality that support the structure in sport media industry to marginalize women which maintains the masculine norm.

As previously mentioned, the book ends with The Postgame Show presenting a discussion how women in the American sportscasting industry are perceived, viewed, talked about, addressed and treated by women and men according to expectations that are narrow and contradictory. In fact, gender-based neoliberal discourse requires women to take personal responsibility for navigating their own oppression. By making the individual woman responsible for overcoming her own oppression, the number of women exposed in the sport media industry will still remain hidden. The author concludes by proposing appropriate strategies for the sports media industry to take responsibility and change sports media to become a more equal place in society.

This book has an American perspective on sports media and gender that is refreshing by combining theory with material from interviews and focus groups, and thus presenting a fruitful study that can surely inspire many students in journalism and media education. From my perspective, a Scandinavian media scholar and teacher, Harrison’s book covers both theories and empirical material useful in courses at universities in sport media and journalism for students preparing for their bachelor theses. Perhaps Harrison’s book also introduces new ways of using neoliberal discourse and “symbolic annihilation” in future research by questioning unfair power structures and increase the awareness of sexual harassment in the sports media spheres with the aim to highlight the need for discussions that create more inclusive environments for all, women and men despite sexual orientation, race and abilities.

Harrison paints the picture of post-feminism, white femininity and sportscasting’s double standards with distinct colours where the consequences of gender harassment and neoliberalism speak the language of patriarchal power. Especially in chapter three, the horrible story of #MoreThanMean with the sports reporters Spain and Dicaro gives harassment of women in sports (male) face sand voices. The male norm as the obvious symbol of the power position of sports has been addressed and challenged in the autumn of 2021 in news articles about initiation rites that young boys and men have been forced to undergo in male sports.

The sport media industry in the Scandinavian countries are considered to be gender aware in terms of workplaces for women and men, and with this in mind, how to cover and represent sports in media outlets. Sports broadcasts in Sweden are rooted in a strong relationship between Public Service media and commercial sport channels, which also holds gender ideals for female and male sportscasters that need to be investigated. From a Swedish (and European) perspective, Harrison’s book offers opportunities for interesting discussions with students on how gender can be analysed within the sport media context as well as the implications of sport and sports media for equality, citizenship and human rights in society.

Copyright © Britt-Marie Ringfjord 2022

References

Byerly, Carolyn M., & Katherine A. McGraw, (2020). ‘Axes of power: Examining women’s access to leadership positions in the news media.’ In Monika Djerf-Pierre, & Maria Edström (Eds.), Comparing gender and media equality across the globe: A cross-national study of the qualities, causes, and consequences of gender equality in and through the news media(pp. 191–232). Gothenburg: Nordicom, University of Gothenburg. https://doi.org/10.48335/9789188855329-5
Edström, Maria, & Ulrika Facht. (2017). Men and (a few) women in the top 100 international media corporations[Report]. Gothenburg: Nordicom, University of Gothenburg. https://www.nordicom.gu.se/sites/default/files/medieforskning-statistik/fact_sheet_nordic-appendix_revised_2018-03-27.pdf
Tuchman, Gaye. (1978). ‘The symbolic annihilation of women by the mass media.’ In Gaye Tuchman, Arlene Kaplan Daniels, & James Benét (Eds.), Hearth and home: Images of women in the mass media (pp. 3–38). New York: Oxford University Press.

 

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