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.
The methodology for this study consisted of flexible strategies for collecting and analyzing data, primarily elite, semi-structured interviews with professional artists, attorneys, and others who engage with the cultural and legal norms of intellectual property regimes on a regular basis. Constant comparative analysis was used to maintain an emic perspective, prioritizing the subjective experience of individuals interviewed for this research project. Additional methods for qualitative analysis were also employed here to code and categorize gathered data, including the use of RQDA, a software package for Qualitative Data Analysis that runs within the R statistical software program. Various patterns and behaviors relevant to intellectual property reforms as they relate to artist practices were discussed in detail following the analysis of findings, in an effort to describe how cultural norms of copyright intersect with the creation of original works of authorship, and towards the development of the theory that the semiotic sign systems subject to intellectual property laws are not themselves forms of real property, as they do not meet the categorical requirements of scarce resources.
Media Mentality is a media education resource website designed to aid students in early career development. This project was developed with a few goals in mind: improve accessibility, provide opportunity and inspire a new generation of the workforce. We wanted to level the playing field as students enter undergraduate programs with varying degrees of experience. We see this website as an opportunity for interested parties to continue the research and add to the wealth of knowledge in a student worker role. The hope is that students, particularly freshman and first-year transfer students will utilize the site, expand their horizons, learn about all the career opportunities available to them, and push the envelope when it comes to curriculum taught at Arizona State University.