The language of televised sport : World Cup rugby, a case study

Abstract

The starting point of the thesis is the relationship between rugby and television in New Zealand. In the 1980's both had strong reasons for redefining their partnership in the wake of the 1981 Springbok Tour (which damaged the public image of rugby) and in response to the increasing commercialism and competitiveness of the media marketplace. The coverage of the 1987 World Cup by T.V.N.Z. illustrates the development of 'New Image' rugby and new forms of television packaging and presentation. The new television version of rugby has brought benefits both to broadcasters and to the rugby establishment, but the changes involved at the level of the player or the spectator are profound and demand critical analysis. The thesis proceeds to place these changes in a broader historical and theoretical perspective. It examines the relationship between rugby culture and male culture generally, including the ways in which masculinity is inscribed via male team sports.There is a complex intertextuality between television representations of masculinity and other culturally dominant discourses of 'normalcy' such as 'health', 'sexuality', 'family' and'nationalism'. After the method of Michel Foucault, the thesis proceeds from stories and pictures of rugby insiders, which indicate the richness and (until the 1980's) the centrality of rugby culture in Aotearoa, to a general analysis of the techniques of 'bio-power'. Various resisting readings have emerged out of hegemonic theories, feminisms, gay and lesbian theories, and new masculinity writings. Other perspectives are provided by poststructuralist theories of popular culture, pleasure and the carnivalesque, and the panic body. The spectacle of telerugby vividly illustrates Barthes's notion of myth and Baudrillard's hyperreality. Some limitations of contemporary theories of pleasure as applied to televised sport are examined, and it is argued that the full range of pleasures are potentially available to both sexes. An analysis of the male gaze on male sportsmen suggests a potential for homoeroticism, and at the same time reveals techniques whereby the threat of public exposure is neutralised. The thesis raises questions about the neo-fascist representations of male sports bodies, and argues that telerugby can be seen as a vehicle for the continuing innovation of surveillance technologies, as part of the apparatus of bio-power.A distinctive feature of the thesis is its attempt to combine both 'inside' and 'outside' views of rugby culture. Having grown up within this culture the writer feels that discussions of rugby are limited by their tendency to be strongly 'for' or 'against', with few attempts to acknowledge the opposite position. To accommodate both 'inside' and 'outside' views the thesis incorporates some experiments in method, such as alternating between 'personal' and 'creative' writing and abstract theoretical writing