Journal article
Naked Function, Athletic Form: Acceptable Sexuality and the Myth of Empowerment in ESPN's Body Issue
Journal of sports media, Vol.17(1), pp.91-118
04/01/2022
DOI: 10.1353/jsm.2022.0004
Abstract
ESPNs Body Issue was launched in 2009 with the purported aim of celebrating the athletic form by photographing prominent athletes nude. This paper analyzes the way the Body Issue sexualizes and objectifies athletes while articulating a discourse of empowerment. This study utilizes a multimodal analysis to conduct a comprehensive examination of all of ESPNs the Body Issues from 2009-2019, looking at every image of individual athletes (N = 778) as well as any accompanying text, captions, or interview excerpts. This study furthers a robust body of literature about the objectification of athletes but extends the theoretical importance of previous works by combining analysis of both images and texts to highlight the way hegemonic beauty standards and body types are prioritized in the Body Issue.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Naked Function, Athletic Form: Acceptable Sexuality and the Myth of Empowerment in ESPN's Body Issue
- Creators
- Vincent PeñaAlexander Scott - University of Iowa, Journalism and Mass Communication
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of sports media, Vol.17(1), pp.91-118
- Publisher
- University of Nebraska Press
- DOI
- 10.1353/jsm.2022.0004
- ISSN
- 1558-4313
- eISSN
- 1940-5073
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 04/01/2022
- Academic Unit
- Journalism and Mass Communication
- Record Identifier
- 9984366955002771
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