Matching Items (3)
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- All Subjects: postfeminism
- Creators: Russomanno, Joseph
- Creators: Switzer, Heather
Description
The term “female sportscaster” elicits a broad range of feelings among the sports media consumer base. Many of the women who fall into the category of “female sportscaster” appear to be greatly admired while many others evoke considerable scorn, making the electronic sports media industry a seemingly dangerous and often vitriolic environment for women. The gendered mistreatment of women sportscasters is not unfamiliar to sports media scholars. Indeed, phenomena such as sex biases, double standards, and harassment have been documented, primarily through positivistic or quantitative research. What has not been investigated, however, is how these phenomena persist and evolve despite the extant research.
This dissertation employs Michel Foucault’s power/knowledge paradigm to take a discursive analytic approach to understand how the “female sportscaster” subjectivity, or imagined idea, is constructed through statements, images, and practices. That is, this dissertation investigates the way society “talks about” the “female sportscaster” and how those discussions affect the experiences of women sportscasters. Using one-on-one interviews with 10 women sportscasters, focus groups with sports media consumers, netnography, and textual analysis under the umbrella of a feminist methodological approach, this dissertation finds that the American female subjectivity is constructed through postfeminist and neoliberal discourses. These discourses “empower” women sportscasters to be responsible for their own success but, in doing so, normalize the obstacles women in sportscasting endure.
As a result of this normalization, the electronic sports media industry is seemingly justified in taking little to no meaningful action toward improving conditions for women sportscasters. Specific manifestations of these discourses are traced across phenomena such as double standards, bias in hiring and development, harassment, and the expectation of affective labor. Suggestions are made for improving conditions for women sportscasters.
This dissertation employs Michel Foucault’s power/knowledge paradigm to take a discursive analytic approach to understand how the “female sportscaster” subjectivity, or imagined idea, is constructed through statements, images, and practices. That is, this dissertation investigates the way society “talks about” the “female sportscaster” and how those discussions affect the experiences of women sportscasters. Using one-on-one interviews with 10 women sportscasters, focus groups with sports media consumers, netnography, and textual analysis under the umbrella of a feminist methodological approach, this dissertation finds that the American female subjectivity is constructed through postfeminist and neoliberal discourses. These discourses “empower” women sportscasters to be responsible for their own success but, in doing so, normalize the obstacles women in sportscasting endure.
As a result of this normalization, the electronic sports media industry is seemingly justified in taking little to no meaningful action toward improving conditions for women sportscasters. Specific manifestations of these discourses are traced across phenomena such as double standards, bias in hiring and development, harassment, and the expectation of affective labor. Suggestions are made for improving conditions for women sportscasters.
ContributorsHarrison, Guy (Author) / Russomanno, Joseph (Thesis advisor) / Switzer, Heather (Thesis advisor) / Reed, Sada (Committee member) / Anderson, Douglas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
The 2015 Supreme Court case, Reed v. Town of Gilbert, is unusual. While it was unanimously decided in a 9-0 opinion, the majority opinion created a lot of divisiveness within the Court. This thesis examines how a court that unanimously decided on the outcome of the case contains concurring opinions that so strongly disagree with the specifics put forth in the Opinion of the Court, and what implications that might have on future content discrimination laws. Such implications include whether the Court will take a more functional or literal approach to strict scrutiny examination and content regulation.
ContributorsLucas, Kristen Alexi (Author) / Russomanno, Joseph (Thesis director) / Gonsher, Geoffrey (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Transnational feminist scholars have increasingly recognized the need to interrogate the dominance of the US and the global north in transnational transactions. Chandra Mohanty argues that transnational feminist scholarship needs to “address fundamental questions of systemic power and inequities and to develop feminist, antiracist analyses of neoliberalism, militarism, and heterosexism as nation-state-building projects” (2013, p. 968). Following this call for analyzing power from feminist, anti-racist stances, this dissertation interrogates Title IX as a nationalist discourse with global reach. As a law created in the era of liberal feminism, Title IX still operates today in neoliberal times and this dissertation makes sense of Title IX as an instrument of neoliberalized feminism in transnational sporting contexts. The following three case studies focus on Title IX as it travels across nation-state borders through 21st century ideas of equity, empowerment, and opportunity.
This dissertation begins by exploring at how transnational sporting policy regarding the participation standards of transgender and intersex athletes operates under the neoliberalized feminism of Title IX. It then moves to a discussion of a Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) project--Women Win’s digital storytelling project. In analyzing SDP projects, I map the cultural logics of Title IX’s neoliberalized feminism in the context of training girls and women to record their stories sport participation. Finally, the dissertation connects the context of the first Saudi female Olympians to Oiselle’s branding campaign of Sarah Attar, one of the first Saudi Olympians. It traces her image as an import-export product for the Olympic Committee and Oiselle through equity, opportunity, and empowerment.
Finally, these case studies are bridged by networking the discourses of investing in a girl (commodifying girls becoming autonomous actors through education and economics) to Title IX’s focus on gender equity in order to show how these discourses simultaneously increase and negatively impact participation in sports by women from the global south. Moreover, it offers how future research in women’s transnational sports can more ethically incorporate the standpoint of women from the global south in sport policy, SDP projects, and branding campaigns.
This dissertation begins by exploring at how transnational sporting policy regarding the participation standards of transgender and intersex athletes operates under the neoliberalized feminism of Title IX. It then moves to a discussion of a Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) project--Women Win’s digital storytelling project. In analyzing SDP projects, I map the cultural logics of Title IX’s neoliberalized feminism in the context of training girls and women to record their stories sport participation. Finally, the dissertation connects the context of the first Saudi female Olympians to Oiselle’s branding campaign of Sarah Attar, one of the first Saudi Olympians. It traces her image as an import-export product for the Olympic Committee and Oiselle through equity, opportunity, and empowerment.
Finally, these case studies are bridged by networking the discourses of investing in a girl (commodifying girls becoming autonomous actors through education and economics) to Title IX’s focus on gender equity in order to show how these discourses simultaneously increase and negatively impact participation in sports by women from the global south. Moreover, it offers how future research in women’s transnational sports can more ethically incorporate the standpoint of women from the global south in sport policy, SDP projects, and branding campaigns.
ContributorsStevenson, Paulette (Author) / Daly Goggin, Maureen (Thesis advisor) / Switzer, Heather (Committee member) / Miller, Keith (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016