19 NBC’s diversity Olympics: promoting gay athletes in PyeongChang
-
Jennifer McClearen
Abstract
The US-based television network NBC distinctly branded the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang “the most diverse ever” while promoting the international sporting mega-event to its American audience. In this chapter, we examine the discourse surrounding NBC’s branding of diversity with a specific focus on the network’s promotion of two openly gay Olympic athletes, Adam Rippon and Gus Kenworthy. While the network’s celebration of Rippon and Kenworthy appears progressive on the surface, we argue that these discourses of inclusion operate through ambivalent dialectics, which are pairs of discourses that seem opposite one another but work together in tandem to temper radical societal change. In this case, ambivalent dialectics give the outward projection of the US Olympic team as progressive, novel, and new while coupling them with embedded regulatory discourses that encourage a return to the harmony of post-identity politics - a liberal political ideology that contends that inequalities based on gender, race, and sexuality have been overcome. NBC’s branding of diversity is ironically a regressive political stance that seeks to restore American politics to a cultural climate where homophobia, racism, and sexism were largely invisible, but political discourse was more comfortable for liberal, straight, White identities.
Abstract
The US-based television network NBC distinctly branded the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang “the most diverse ever” while promoting the international sporting mega-event to its American audience. In this chapter, we examine the discourse surrounding NBC’s branding of diversity with a specific focus on the network’s promotion of two openly gay Olympic athletes, Adam Rippon and Gus Kenworthy. While the network’s celebration of Rippon and Kenworthy appears progressive on the surface, we argue that these discourses of inclusion operate through ambivalent dialectics, which are pairs of discourses that seem opposite one another but work together in tandem to temper radical societal change. In this case, ambivalent dialectics give the outward projection of the US Olympic team as progressive, novel, and new while coupling them with embedded regulatory discourses that encourage a return to the harmony of post-identity politics - a liberal political ideology that contends that inequalities based on gender, race, and sexuality have been overcome. NBC’s branding of diversity is ironically a regressive political stance that seeks to restore American politics to a cultural climate where homophobia, racism, and sexism were largely invisible, but political discourse was more comfortable for liberal, straight, White identities.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface to Handbooks of Communication Science series V
- Acknowledgments IX
- Contents XI
-
I Introduction to communication and sport
- 1 Communication and sport: an emergent field 1
- 2 Playing on the communication and sport field: dispositions, challenges, and priorities 23
-
II Communication studies of sport
- 3 Through the kaleidoscope: all the colors of sports fanship 45
- 4 Moving beyond the local: media, marketing, and “satellite” sports fans 65
- 5 The organizational processes of athletic coaching 83
- 6 Are children getting outplayed? Examining the intersection of children’s involvement in physical activity, youth sports, and barriers to participation 103
- 7 From the living room to the ball field: a communicative approach to studying the family through sport 121
- 8 The sports interpreter’s role and interpreting strategies: a case study of Japanese professional baseball interpreters 137
- 9 The ethos of the activist athlete 161
- 10 Forgivable blackness: Jack Johnson and the politics of presidential clemency 179
- 11 Haram hoops? FIBA, Nike, and the hijab’s half-court defense 199
- 12 “Ideology in practice”: conceptualizing the NCAA’s <student-athlete> as an ideograph 217
- 13 Connecting local and global aspirations and audiences: communication in, around, and about Football Club Barcelona 235
-
III Sport and media
- 14 MediaSport: over production and global consumption 255
- 15 Uber-sport 275
- 16 Sport, media and the promotion of militarism: theoretical inter-continental reflections of the United Kingdom and South Korea 293
- 17 Football, gender, and sexism: the ugly side of the world’s beautiful game 313
- 18 Communication, sport, disability, and the (able)national 333
- 19 NBC’s diversity Olympics: promoting gay athletes in PyeongChang 351
- 20 Greening media sport: sport and the communication of environmental issues 369
- 21 Legitimizing and institutionalizing eSports in the NBA 2K League 387
-
IV Communicating nationalism(s) in sport
- 22 The biggest double-edged sword in sport media: Olympic media and the rendering of identity 405
- 23 “For the good of the world”: the innovations and influences of the UK’s early international televizing of sport 421
- 24 Sports and the media in Germany: lessons in nationhood and multiculturalism 441
- 25 Sport celebrity and multiculturalism in South Korea during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games 459
- 26 Communication and sport in Japan 477
- 27 Communicating Igbo sports nationalism under military dictatorship and democracy 495
- 28 Sport communication and the politics of identity in the MENA region 515
- 29 “Even when the angel of death will come I will still wear yellow-blue”: Israeli soccer fans’ chants as a window for understanding cultural and sports reality 527
- 30 Colombian football: a national popular of pleasure, violence, and labor 543
- 31 Football, television, and the state in Argentina: a tale of monopolies, patrimonies, and populisms 561
-
V Communicating in applied sport contexts
- 32 Crisis communication and sport: the organization, the players, and the fans 579
- 33 Communicating fantasy sport 597
- 34 The contemporary use of social media in professional sport 615
- 35 Social media and sport marketing 633
- 36 Sport media, sport journalism, and the digital era 651
- 37 The male and female sports journalists divide on the Twittersphere 669
- 38 #Rio2016 and #WorldCup2018: social media meets journalism 693
- 39 Ghosted gods: commodifying celebrities, decrying wraiths, and contesting graven images 709
- Contributors to this volume 729
- Index 737
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface to Handbooks of Communication Science series V
- Acknowledgments IX
- Contents XI
-
I Introduction to communication and sport
- 1 Communication and sport: an emergent field 1
- 2 Playing on the communication and sport field: dispositions, challenges, and priorities 23
-
II Communication studies of sport
- 3 Through the kaleidoscope: all the colors of sports fanship 45
- 4 Moving beyond the local: media, marketing, and “satellite” sports fans 65
- 5 The organizational processes of athletic coaching 83
- 6 Are children getting outplayed? Examining the intersection of children’s involvement in physical activity, youth sports, and barriers to participation 103
- 7 From the living room to the ball field: a communicative approach to studying the family through sport 121
- 8 The sports interpreter’s role and interpreting strategies: a case study of Japanese professional baseball interpreters 137
- 9 The ethos of the activist athlete 161
- 10 Forgivable blackness: Jack Johnson and the politics of presidential clemency 179
- 11 Haram hoops? FIBA, Nike, and the hijab’s half-court defense 199
- 12 “Ideology in practice”: conceptualizing the NCAA’s <student-athlete> as an ideograph 217
- 13 Connecting local and global aspirations and audiences: communication in, around, and about Football Club Barcelona 235
-
III Sport and media
- 14 MediaSport: over production and global consumption 255
- 15 Uber-sport 275
- 16 Sport, media and the promotion of militarism: theoretical inter-continental reflections of the United Kingdom and South Korea 293
- 17 Football, gender, and sexism: the ugly side of the world’s beautiful game 313
- 18 Communication, sport, disability, and the (able)national 333
- 19 NBC’s diversity Olympics: promoting gay athletes in PyeongChang 351
- 20 Greening media sport: sport and the communication of environmental issues 369
- 21 Legitimizing and institutionalizing eSports in the NBA 2K League 387
-
IV Communicating nationalism(s) in sport
- 22 The biggest double-edged sword in sport media: Olympic media and the rendering of identity 405
- 23 “For the good of the world”: the innovations and influences of the UK’s early international televizing of sport 421
- 24 Sports and the media in Germany: lessons in nationhood and multiculturalism 441
- 25 Sport celebrity and multiculturalism in South Korea during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games 459
- 26 Communication and sport in Japan 477
- 27 Communicating Igbo sports nationalism under military dictatorship and democracy 495
- 28 Sport communication and the politics of identity in the MENA region 515
- 29 “Even when the angel of death will come I will still wear yellow-blue”: Israeli soccer fans’ chants as a window for understanding cultural and sports reality 527
- 30 Colombian football: a national popular of pleasure, violence, and labor 543
- 31 Football, television, and the state in Argentina: a tale of monopolies, patrimonies, and populisms 561
-
V Communicating in applied sport contexts
- 32 Crisis communication and sport: the organization, the players, and the fans 579
- 33 Communicating fantasy sport 597
- 34 The contemporary use of social media in professional sport 615
- 35 Social media and sport marketing 633
- 36 Sport media, sport journalism, and the digital era 651
- 37 The male and female sports journalists divide on the Twittersphere 669
- 38 #Rio2016 and #WorldCup2018: social media meets journalism 693
- 39 Ghosted gods: commodifying celebrities, decrying wraiths, and contesting graven images 709
- Contributors to this volume 729
- Index 737
