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Sport and sports media are powerful ideological forces in the construction of national identities. For decades, women’s sports coverage was virtually non-existent, with enduring marginalisation and discrimination. Despite recent increases, women’s sports media still lags men’s sport, with pandemic challenges that potentially undermine gains.
This paper examines women’s sports media coverage as gendered social relations, using a case study of Australian cricket. Evidence about Australian women’s sports media, including 2021/22 men and women’s cricket broadcast data, is examined in the historical context of sport’s construction of national identity. The paper uses an interdisciplinary framework based on ideology theory, political economy of media and feminist approaches (feminist political economy of communications and feminist media studies).
An analysis of Australian women’s cricket history examines the constructions of national identity, reflecting on the dominant position of a white, male Anglo hegemony in Australian colonial and post-colonial ideological frames.
Highlighting sport’s ideological resonance and deployment as part of hegemonic processes of nation forming this paper examines the power of sport to frame identities of gender and nation, highlighting the challenges and potential of women’s sport to present different constructions of the idea of the nation.
Noting the importance of sociology of sport and interdisciplinary research, the paper argues that examination of the historical role of [male] sport in the formation of identity is critical to understanding issues of gender, nation and sport, and in confronting gender inequality in sports and sports media.
