How Racist is Televised Football and do Audiences React?
Investigating the production, reproduction, and reception of racial meanings in televised football
Finished
Overview
2018-2023
Televised men’s football (soccer) is a key source for entertainment reaching millions of people. It is also one of the most visibly mixed ethnic cultural practices. Numerous studies have shown how football journalists draw on a discourse of ‘enlightened racism’: Black footballers are associated with bodily qualities but not with domains that require intelligence. It remained lesser known, though, how these discourses come about. We therefore shifted the research focus towards the journalists who produce the football coverage. The vast majority of football journalists are white, but little is known about the intersection of whiteness and the meanings journalists give to the racial/ethnic diversity of players.
The project supplemented a focus on the production process with an examination of televised football content and audience receptions. This three-fold focus allowed us to provide a comprehensive understanding of the role of televised football in the meanings given to race/ethnicity. This is especially relevant in current times when discussions about race/ethnicity dominate policy and media discourses.
“Audiences don’t just watch football; they absorb the racial narratives embedded within it.”
Project Team
Irene Blum, MA
Lead Researcher
Key Goals
Investigate how whiteness and newsroom routines shape representations of race and ethnicity in televised football.
Examine how discourses of race/ethnicity appear in football broadcasts across Spain, England, The Netherlands, and Poland.
Analyze how different audiences interpret, accept, or resist racial stereotypes in televised football.
Multi-Method Approach
Used a combination of observations, interviews, content analyses, and online discussions to study football media across four countries.
Methodology
Integrated Perspectives
Connected production, content, and reception research within one project, advancing media studies with a holistic approach
Theoretical Contribution
Advanced conceptual and empirical understanding of whiteness in European media contexts.
Televised football reproduces stereotypes around race/ethnicity, with some recurring across Europe and others shaped by national contexts.
Key Insights
Football newsrooms in Spain, The Netherlands, Poland, and England remain predominantly white and male, reinforcing homogeneous professional practices.
Audiences in Spain, Poland, and The Netherlands often absorbed these stereotypes, while English audiences, especially younger ones, showed more critical awareness.
Minoritized audiences more quickly recognized stereotypes and their negative impact.
Workshops
Designed and implemented sessions on racial/ethnic stereotyping and critical media literacy in Spanish high schools.
Impact
Educational Videos
Created in Spanish, English, Dutch, and Polish for use in high schools in Spain, England, The Netherlands, and Poland.
Infographic
Produced in Spanish and Catalan for Spanish sports journalists, summarizing the main findings of the production study.
