Abstract
This essay undertakes an analysis of ESPN's coverage of the "Penn State sex abuse scandal" during the first week following the release of the November 2011 Grand Jury presentment, which indicted former Penn State college football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky on 40 counts of criminal sexual abuse. Understanding ESPN's coverage-its particular framing of this story-is important and instructive, for it reveals how the news media shape public attitudes and opinions, pressure public officials, and model agentive citizenship in response to public traumas. Specifically, it is argued that ESPN's visualnarrative framing of the scandal perpetuates a hypermasculine (and heteronormative) fantasy of violent vigilante justice that reduces political agency to personal and private acts.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 330-332 |
Number of pages | 3 |
Journal | Cultural Studies - Critical Methodologies |
Volume | 12 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Aug 2012 |
Keywords
- ESPN
- citizenship
- hypermasculinity
- news media
- sexuality