Media discourse, sport and the nation: narratives and counter-narratives in the digital age

Throughout the 20th century, the growth of international sport events as media spectacles has provided one of the most powerful tools for the projection of national identities. Traditional media, such as newspapers and private and public broadcasters, have been instrumental in this process. Media discourses around sporting events have historically tended to legitimise exclusionary versions of the idea of the nation, reproducing hegemonic gender divisions and marginalising ethnic minorities and immigrants. At the same time, sport is also a contested vehicle for nation-building, providing to some degree opportunities for the expression of different versions of the idea of the nation. The deep changes in the media industry, and particularly the emergence and success among young people of interactive and transnational media, open the way for counter-narratives and alternative media discourses. For example, sport celebrities can use social media to expose and criticise the racialisation of immigrants in sport and beyond. But can the millions who follow them on Instagram or Twitter be counted as a ‘public’?