The ideological construction of TV sports cartoon: Focus on TV soccer cartoon, "World Cup is Tomorrow"

Abstract

Although media sport has no manifest ideological content, the media representation, which is constructed in some preferred ways, is a signifying system that works to legitimate the interests of dominant groups over subordinate groups, particularly male over female, heterosexual people over gays and lesbians, and capitalistic middle-class over working-class (Duncan, 1990; Sage, 1998). Media sport operates a preferred view of the social world by naturalizing it. It is because sport is so `obviously` physical, i.e. concerned with the body, governed by natural laws (Hargreaves, 1996). The dominant images presented in media sport, especially including TV sport coverage, TV sport cartoon, TV sport drama, and sport movie, tend to reaffirm for the viewers/audience that what are being presented are natural, real and universally accepted notions of what constitutes sport world and societal values and norms. That is, media sport re-presents the world in terms of its own inferential framework. This study attempts to analyze TV sports cartoon to figure out which meanings and ideas are provoked. An interpretive textual analysis is employed. An interpretive framework is encoded in the flow of communication to the audience - in the items selected, the language, the visual imagery, the stylistics of the presentation, which constitutes an inducement to the audience to interpret the world reported on in preferred ways (Whannel, 2002). For the convenience of the study, a single sport cartoon program, World cup is tomorrow` was selected rather than the series. The results show TV sport cartoon reveals 5 characteristics of construction: rivalry, unrealism, mythicism, sexism, and individualism. Rivalry is a key constructive plot in cartoon and drama. Sport is the best content in which rivalry between characters is competitive. In this cartoon, the main character is a final winner but he experiences hardship and difficulties and overcomes a lot of barriers from the opponent. Unrealistic presentation is so popular in this sport cartoon and thus it draw so much interests from audience. Even though viewers of sport cartoon recognized that some presentation is not real, they are ready to accept such portrayal in fictional space. Mythicism is often presented in sport cartoon. Sometimes the legendary person is portrayed. The person is a former athlete who has a great record in soccer history. Sexism in sport is portrayed; male characters take the dominant roles such as coaches and athletes while females do the secondary roles such as cheerleaders and assistant coach. Individualism is stressed in this cartoon. To succeed in soccer or to get to the top is attributed to athletes` talents, the person`s efforts and thoughts. The individual hard work, competitiveness, and perseverance are major key to become successful athletes. Finally the study argues that the representation of TV sport cartoon has ideological effects: it naturalizes and legitimates the dominant social values and norms which will be reinforced in sporting metaphors from other media sport.