Making sense of race/ethnicity and gender in televised football: reception research among British students

Most people today watch football by way of the mass media, sites that reproduce and transform ideologies and ideas surrounding racial/ethnic and gender identity. However, still little remains known as to what extent actual football viewers take up or resist these ideas. Drawing on a cultural studies perspective, this study tries to identify the dominant discourses that British television viewers use to assign meaning to race/ethnicity and gender in men’s and women’s football on television. Eleven focus groups of British students (n = 44) were utilized to explore these discourses. Our findings indicate that viewers from various ethnic backgrounds were largely compliant with the hegemonic media discourses about natural physicality in both gender and race/ethnic comparisons. At the same time, multiple negotiated/oppositional discourses were found in relation to women’s football that showed how other social practices contributed to such readings. Limitations and possible areas for future research are discussed.