Abstract
Although the notion of race has been understood and accepted by the scientific community as a social construct, perhaps in no cultural institution is that reality more challenged than in spectator sport, where the power of (racialized) bodies is represented almost solely as a product of biology. Thus, it is no surprise that academic research features “a rich tradition of studying race, sport and media” (McGovern, 2016, p. 331). Such scholarship has often focused on interrogating racialized discourses that reinforce cultural stereotypes and social hierarchies, ultimately underscoring Whiteness as central to sport (Andrews, 2013).
Research has observed this social construction of racial and ethnic identities through mediated sport across global cultures. Although manifested differently in different geopolitical contexts, media (broadly defined) consistently represent sporting bodies, in a variety of ways, as inherently inferior or superior based on racial identity. Of course, such identities are complicated not only by their intersection with nation, gender, sexuality, class and other identities, but also by the centrality of Whiteness that has been remarkably persistent in the way we talk about sport, represent sport, and maintain mythologies related to citizenship and heroism. Simultaneously (and ironically), athletics continue to be idealized in popular culture as being staged on an “even playing field,” an egalitarian space untouched by the privilege conveyed by racialized identity. Challenges to this neoliberal positioning of sport and race have been at the margins.
Over the years, the work of scholars in Communication & Sport has been critical in our understanding of the racial dynamics embedded in the sport/media complex and their implications for athletes, fans, and society. Since the journal launched one decade ago, more than 100 articles in the journal have examined representations or discourse around race. Most-cited articles during the past 3 years include those examining phenomena related to the national-anthem protest by NFL player Colin Kaepernick (Anderson, 2019; Park et al., 2019; Schmidt et al., 2018) and online racism directed at college athletes (Oshiro et al., 2021).
Based on national and global events in recent years, however, it is logical to wonder whether the widely recognized cultural “racial reckoning” might more substantively challenge dominant narratives. The irrefutable documentation of racially motivated violence against non-White citizens by law enforcement and other events—predominantly in the United States—has been heralded by some as “an inflection point” as it relates to race, freedom, opportunity and equity (Hammonds, 2021, p. 12). This issue of Communication & Sport includes a compilation of research that – again, and in the light of changing cultural conversations around race and power – interrogates contradictions between the realities related to racialized bodies, sporting representations, and their implications. (Spoiler alert: We continue to seek the elusive “even playing field.”) As with previous work published in this journal, we believe this research continues to push our understanding, conversation, and theory-building forward. We are grateful to the scholars who do this important work.
Insights in This Issue
Opening this issue is work from Natalie Bunch and Beth A. Cianfrone, who surveyed 273 American student-athletes as to ways they believed racial justice issues could be advanced. While the four quantitative and three qualitative factors prove instructive for understanding the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of athletic department strategies for advancing racial justice, equally as intriguing was the finding that Black student-athletes were disproportionately more likely than all other athletes to view such causes as central roles athletic departments should be seeking to fulfill.
Black expressivity becomes the theme of the next entry, in which Brandon Wallace incorporates streetball to show purported colorblindness is rarely the panacea to complex understandings of race. Wallace shows how streetball is used to both romanticize and trivialize structural racism in sports, noting that “dismantl[ing] structural hierarchies first requires analyses of how deeply embedded racism is in our popular cultural institutions, which shapes our collective racial perceptions” (p. 1067).
Arguably no element of race has permeated sport in America over the last decade more than Colin Kaepernick and other athletes’ anthem protests and the next piece in this issue features Lisa Mueller asking the question about how popular and supported those protests truly are. Using a pair of experiments, Mueller uncovers muted opposition to the protests, particularly among people of color. Such findings add considerable nuance to what are often binary distinctions of for versus against such forms of activism.
Warren M. Davis and Julius M. Riles then turn the racial conversation to promotion of prizefighting, from boxing to mixed-martial arts. Their content analysis finds that social identity is performed on racially reductive terms within such contexts, specifically in the area of verbal aggression. Separating each element of the racial context is again key to providing deeper understand of how race unfolds in sport—and vice versa.
Racial interrogations firmly move outside of the United States in the next two entries. First, Carmen Longas Luque and Jacco van Sterkenburg study race in the context of Spanish soccer/football. Content analyses of ten post-match discourses revealed us/them dichotomies that are reinforced far more frequently than they are challenged. Meanwhile, NaRi Shin, DooJae Park, and Jon Welty Peachey explored how ethnic nationalism was promoted in South Korean media to reinforce conceptions of Benedict Anderson’s “imagined community.” Discourses were argued to ameliorate such us/them dichotomies by showing, for instance, how naturalized athletes had embraced Korean acculturation.
Next, Jeffrey Montez de Oca, Sherry Mason, and Sung Ahn reveal the duality of how corporate entities market socially conscious stances while simultaneously upholding capitalistic exploitation that would seemingly be at odds with such stances. The authors examine commercials in which such companies “never call into question the racial capitalism that drives the crises, since that would require prioritizing people (value rationality) over profit (instrumental rationality)” (p. 1177).
Similar themes are uncovered in the next work by Steven Latino, Audrey R. Giles, Steven Rynne, Lyndsay Hayhurst, who explored how three extractive companies used sport for development as a mechanism for promoting relationships with indigenous communities in Canada and Australia. The primary discourses they advance jointly are used to contend that the extractive industry seeks to blunt elements of colonialism by promoting transformative aspects of sports development.
Twitter comments become the fodder for the next study, which comes from Evan L. Frederick, Ann Pegoraro, and Samuel Schmidt. Focusing on the fusion of the political and the racial within the sporting context of the U.S. Women’s National Team (specifically Megan Rapinoe) and President Donald Trump, themes were uncovered that showed how people used Twitter to both focus on and expand elements of critical race theory principles. The finding that racism was acknowledged to exist more than be a remnant of the past shows how such narratives become nuanced within America’s racial reckoning.
Finally, Brandon Mastromartino, Jerred J. Wang, D. Welch Suggs, Candice R. Hellenbeck, and James J. Zheng provide a concluding piece to this issue, focusing on how a Sport Fan Sense of Community (SFSC) scale can be utilized to identify the creation and maintenance of social capital. Sport fan communities have long been the focus of previous research, with this new instrument being established as a way to show how one establishes themselves within a sports fan community.
Throughout this entire issue, readers will witness partitions between us versus them, in-group versus out-group, and action versus passivity. Each piece reveals aspects of the modern sport culture; each also shows how race or identification can either foster or impede connections within sport. We think you will find this issue a particularly compelling and prescient read.