Cheryl Cooky - Böcker

In just a few decades, sport has undergone a radical gender transformation. However, Cheryl Cooky and Michael A. Messner suggest that the progress toward gender equity in sports is far from complete. The continuing barriers to full and equal participation for young people, the far lower pay for most elite-level women athletes, and the continuing dearth of fair and equal media coverage all underline how much still has yet to change before we see gender equality in sports.   The chapters in No Slam Dunk show that is this not simply a story of an "unfinished revolution." Rather, they contend, it is simplistic optimism to assume that we are currently nearing the conclusion of a story of linear progress that ends with a certain future of equality and justice.  This book provides important theoretical and empirical insights into the contemporary world of sports to help explain the unevenness of social change and how, despite significant progress, gender equality in sports has been "No Slam Dunk."

Serving Equality: Feminism, Media, and Women’s Sports offers a much-needed methodological innovation to sports media research by expanding the focus beyond traditional sports media outlets to examine the diversity of media outlets writing about sports. In doing so, Serving Equality draws analytical attention to the ways in which feminism and feminist principles such as equality, progress, empowerment, and intersectionality shape media narratives of women’s sports. With a focus on networked sports media spaces, including news coverage, promotional cultures, and sports films, chapters examine narratives of Title IX, the Olympics, the treatment of women sports journalists, the activism of women athletes, the routine coverage of the sports world, as well as the COVID-19 global pandemic. Serving Equality illustrates how feminism informs not only the media narratives of women’s sports, but how women’s sports contribute to and mobilize feminism in networked media spaces. Serving Equality ultimately encourages students, instructors, researchers, athletes, sport media content producers, and those in the sports industry to consider the ways we can tell stories differently about sportswomen and women’s sports.

Serving Equality: Feminism, Media, and Women’s Sports offers a much-needed methodological innovation to sports media research by expanding the focus beyond traditional sports media outlets to examine the diversity of media outlets writing about sports. In doing so, Serving Equality draws analytical attention to the ways in which feminism and feminist principles such as equality, progress, empowerment, and intersectionality shape media narratives of women’s sports. With a focus on networked sports media spaces, including news coverage, promotional cultures, and sports films, chapters examine narratives of Title IX, the Olympics, the treatment of women sports journalists, the activism of women athletes, the routine coverage of the sports world, as well as the COVID-19 global pandemic. Serving Equality illustrates how feminism informs not only the media narratives of women’s sports, but how women’s sports contribute to and mobilize feminism in networked media spaces. Serving Equality ultimately encourages students, instructors, researchers, athletes, sport media content producers, and those in the sports industry to consider the ways we can tell stories differently about sportswomen and women’s sports.

Sport is a pervasive aspect of US society. Most children in the U.S. are involved in organized sport and it’s the subject of much conversation, media content, leisure activity, and discretionary spending. There is a growing number of broadcast networks, online news sites, social media accounts, and streaming platforms devoted to covering sports that fans consume with keen interest. But do we truly understand sport?Fair and Foul explores our love of sport, just as it reveals sport’s darker side—the influence of big business, corruption, price gouging, political maneuvering, gender bias, media grandstanding, and more. Broken into two parts, Part I, “Sport is Fair, Sport is Foul,” discusses issues of social class, race, gender, and health as well as the opportunities and demands of youth sports. Part II, “Sports as a Microcosm of Society,” examines issues stemming from the media, college athletics, professional sports franchises, and whether it’s possible to bring about change for a better and brighter future. Ideal for sparking classroom discussion, Fair and Foul is an excellent book for students of sports and society, American culture, and other courses. New to the Seventh Edition:· New Chapter 3, “Sports Includes, Sports Excludes,” discusses Title IX and how barriers to sport continue to persist despite an expansion of opportunities. · New content on athlete activism tied to social and racial justice reflects the current state of politics in the U.S, especially anti-trans bills, which exclude trans athletes from participating in sports. · Expansion of Chapter 4, “Sport is Healthy, Sport is Destructive,” includes new discussion of mental health issues faced by athletes to reflect current issues and conversations in sports as well as a key concern for this generation of athletes.· New coverage of the role of social media and streaming platforms in sports coverage reflects changes in the media production and consumption of sports· New content on the Name Image Likeness (NIL) Supreme Court ruling, recent university conference realignments, and the role of the media (e.g. ESPN and Fox Sports television contracts) explores the possible implications of these changes on the future of college athletics