The politics of sport coverage

This thesis investigates how political discourses are communicated through the sports media when two countries, the United Kingdom and The Netherlands, compete with each other. Since sport and sport media are becoming increasingly popular, social scientists should be aware of the presence of political discourses in the sports media and of this potential research field of sport and political communication. Especially during international sport competitions, nationality and identity become increasingly important and could affect the perception on events during the game. This means that journalists could make use of political discourses in their sport reportages, which could influence their ‘inattentive’ (un-concentrated and unprepared for the political message) audience. Results of this thesis indicate that sports media use two political discourses in their reports. The first political discourse embodies a sentiment of fraternization, which tones down nationalistic views. The second political discourse expresses national feelings and unity, which evaluates their own national country as positive and the opponent as negative. Politics and sport are part of society and therefore the politics of sport coverage is an intriguing and upcoming research field.