Sports Photographs and Sexual Difference: Images of Women and Men in the 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games
- 1 March 1990
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Human Kinetics in Sociology of Sport Journal
- Vol. 7 (1) , 22-43
- https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.7.1.22
Abstract
This paper develops a theoretical framework for understanding how and what sports photographs mean. In particular, it identifies two categories of photographic features as conveyors of meanings. The first category is the content or discourse within the photograph, which includes physical appearances, poses and body positions, facial expressions, emotional displays, and camera angles. The second category is the context, which contributes to the discursive text of the photograph. The context includes the visual space in which the photograph appears, its caption, the surrounding written text, and the title and the substantive nature of the article in which the photograph appears. Using 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games photographs appearing in popular North American magazines, I show how these various features of photographs may enable patriarchal readings that emphasize sexual difference.This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit:
- Sports and Male Domination: The Female Athlete as Contested Ideological TerrainSociology of Sport Journal, 1988