Abstract
Ask most attuned to issues in the sports world as to whether mental health has experienced a “moment” in the past decade, and nearly all would likely say yes. Defining that moment is much more difficult to pinpoint as that depends on one’s location and sport interest type. For soccer fans, perhaps it was Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon’s admission that he once missed a match because of a panic attack. Others might point to Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli, who disclosed that the pressure of playing at the game was a serious issue with profound implications on his own mental health. Swimming afficionados likely focus on record-setting American Olympian Michael Phelps, who not only revealed depression and suicidal ideation but also then created a foundation and a film to show he was not alone with these experiences. In more recent years, women have started to speak about it more, including leaders in their sports such as Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka or American gymnast Simone Biles. Was sport experiencing a mental health moment—or was it something bigger than that? A sequence, an ascending understanding, a progression of insight all ultimately seem more apt.
The key for sports media researchers now pertains to discernment, including in how to examine a multitude of stories under the same broad mental health umbrella. Communication & Sport has gradually been entering scholarship into these types of debates, mostly within the National Basketball Association. For instance, Cassilo (2022) contrasted the cases of NBA players Royce White and DeMar DeRozan, finding media coverage was almost universally positive for DeRozan, yet much more critical of White, at least partly because his mental health disclosure was seen as impeding his ability to travel and compete with his team and at least partly because DeRozan was more athletically successful than White. Parrott et al. (2021) compared DeRozan with the case of Kevin Love, again finding stigma-challenging media renderings that were overwhelmingly of a positive valence. The scholars contended that it appeared to be the case that: If the disclosure of mental health is one’s first impression to the public (as was the case for White), media coverage could be skeptical and problematic; yet if the disclosure is offered after most formative frames have already been formed, it becomes a humanizing backdrop for the athlete—making them more relatable without the questions of legitimacy (p. 46–47).
Lavelle (2021) tempered this overarching praise for Kevin Love’s disclosure, noting that his rhetoric was advanced via a lens of hegemonic masculinity and Whiteness and urging such intersectionality be included in our understandings of mental health disclosures in sports media.
Gradually, the parameters of the discussion are expanding. The recent book Head Game: Mental Health in Sports Media includes cases beyond North America as well as league and team responses (Billings & Parrott, 2023). This issue expands the boundaries specifically in terms of gender, competition level, and disclosure type/strategy. The issue leads with these mental health articles in hopes of starting grander and more nuanced conversations surrounding mental health in the coming years. The issue then extends scope to a wide range of articles that continue to expand our conceptions of what the field of communication and sport can and should be.
In This Issue
Three articles explore the intersection of mental health and media coverage. The first, written by Zhijing Chen and Dae Hee Kwak, provides and analysis of Twitter responses to the disclosure of tennis player Naomi Osaka that she was withdrawing from the French Open because of mental health concerns. Chen and Kwak use both sentiment and thematic analysis and assert a “growing positive reception of athletes’ mental health disclosures” (p. 439) and provide implications for athletes and constituents for navigating such revelations.
The next in the mental-health series also found a generally positive reception to an athlete disclosure. David Cassilo and Yannick Kluch’s analysis of media framing of the decision by a U.S. college basketball player D.J. Carton\ to take a leave of absence from playing because of mental health issues, describes five frames used in media accounts. Most (four of the five) frames were positive. Cassilo and Kluch argue that positive frames normalize mental health disclosures and the support athletes should receive.
The final mental-health-focused article provides an examination of “first/initial” disclosure by athletes or sports organizations Christopher Elsey and colleagues use the principles and methods of conversation analysis to consider a variety of voluntary and involuntary accounts by individuals and organizations and to discuss implications of approaches that seek to obscure or fully disclose an athlete’s struggles. Elsey and colleagues conclude: “[B]arriers to the normalisation of mental health disclosure remain . . . Marrying the needs and welfare concerns of players and the “public interest” is not always satisfactorily achieved when the competing interests of coaches, team-mates, team medical staff, media and fans can place pressure on players to “hide” their mental health issues and play through them” (p. 503).
The next two articles examine officiating as a communicative act. The first, by Christian Burgers and colleagues, uses an experiment to assess fan perceptions of soccer-referee competence, depending on the framing device used by the referee. The results did not find differences in perception of competence (i.e., impartiality and confidence) based on frames. However, they did find that spectator perceptions of communication skills were influenced by the frames referees used – and that relational (versus procedural) frames are a wise choice.
The second article also assesses spectator perception of officiating – but the officiating in this case is technology (e.g., Video Assistant Referee, Hawk-Eye). Jihoon (Jay) Kim and colleagues use an original, validated scale (Performance Expectancy of Officiating Technology) with fans, finding a direct, positive impact on individuals’ intention to watch. The authors conclude, “Therefore, sport businesses and organizations can use our findings when considering whether to introduce or expand officiating technology in sport events” (p. 544).
Spectator attitudes are also assessed – but in a different context and with different aims – in the next article in this issue. Jamie Cleland and colleagues survey more than 2,500 soccer fans in the United Kingdom about the use of homosexually-themed language in match commentary. In the subsequent discussion, they point out a paradox: The support fans express for gay athletes, but the acceptance by many of such toxic language as “humorous banter.” The authors argue that such findings do not indicate widespread homophobia, but must be understood within the sport as its own “linguistic context”– but also that there is a “need to challenge the traditional norms surrounding masculinity in men’s football in the U.K.” (p. 566).
The four remaining articles in this issue examine a variety of topics, using an equally broad array of methods and theoretical approaches. The first, by Matthew Blaszka and Natasha A. Rascon, examines the intersection of communication and sport in a technology many individuals wear on their wrists: The Wearable Fitness Device (WFD). The authors use the Coordinated Management of Meaning to analyze 43 in-depth interviews with users. The discussion focuses on five key themes and the co-construction, during the interviews, that revealed the concept of mindless usage.
The next article, by Keith D. Parry and colleagues, reflects on the impact of COVID-19 on women’s sports, specifically through an analysis of media coverage of women’s association soccer in the U.K. The authors conduct a thematic analysis and reveal five dominant frames in 100 articles published in the first 6 months of the pandemic. The authors note that most of the articles were written by female journalists and note that frames depart from past themes of trivialization of women’s sport. Thus, the study “advocates continued diversification of the sports journalism workforce to dissolve the hegemonic masculine culture that still largely dominates the industry” (p. 592).
The final two articles take a case-study approach to examine communication phenomena. The first, written by Josh Compton and Jordan L. Compton, uses an analysis of a single, “open letter” from Toronto Mayor John Tory to fans after a series loss by the city’s hockey team the Maple Leafs, in 2021. Using rhetorical analysis and the lens of sport-image repair, the authors situate the letter as containing a mix of communication genres. They provide three primary findings and position the letter as a unique example of image-repair rhetoric.
The final article in this issue, by Gregory A. Cranmer and colleagues, is a case-study of the Twitter responses to a college football player who discloses that he has violated rules related to his amateur-competitor status. The authors rely on social identity theory and identity threat management in their analysis of the Twitter responses, finding in-group and out-of-group biases and – interestingly – attempts by non-engaged fans at image-repair on behalf of the player. The article concludes by laying groundwork for additional audience-centered efforts to situate transgressions by athletes.