Do the Right Thing: Gendering Practices in Sports Media.

This article focuses on gendering practices in sports media, with specific reference to sports culture. The realm of sports culture is one of the corner stones of 21st century western culture. Prevailing forms of culture invite certain lifestyles and identities, dominated by sports and competition. These invitations are constructed and renewed in the network of media and other channels of public debate that form the public sphere of sports culture. In this article, to grasp the public sphere of sports culture, a week of media reality (the television programs, Finnish sports magazines, Finnish Web Sites and advertising within these media) has been analyzed from the point of view of gendering practices. The article authors concentrate on the diverse meanings of sports culture that are circulated within the field of popular culture and especially in specific sports media. They look for practical acts, visual, verbal or discursive, through which the public sphere of sports culture is gendered. It has been found that the public sphere of sports culture is not restricted to explicit magazines, television programs or Internet sports sites.