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Studies that have engaged para-sport broadcasting, particularly through a narrative lens, have al... more Studies that have engaged para-sport broadcasting, particularly through a narrative lens, have almost exclusively relied on textual and/or content analysis of the Paralympic Games as the source of cultural critique. We know far less about the decisions taken inside Paralympic broadcasters that have led to such representations. In this study – based on interviews with senior production and promotion staff at the UK's Paralympic broadcaster, Channel 4 – we provide the first detailed examination of mediated para-sport from this vantage point. We explore the use of promotional devices such as athletes' backstories – the " Hollywood treatment " – to both hook audiences and serve as a vehicle for achieving its social enterprise mandate to change public attitudes toward disability. In so doing, we reveal myriad tensions that coalesce around representing the Paralympics; with respect to the efforts made to balance the competing goals of key stakeholders and a stated desire to make the Paralympics both a commercial and socially progressive success.
Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 2018
Based on ethnographic data collected during the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games in Rio... more Based on ethnographic data collected during the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this article is interested to examine urban processes which reinvent the changing (sexual) landscape. Focusing on the way (host) cities shape sex work both imaginatively and physically, we explore the (lived) realities of neoliberal imaginaries that shape urban space. Often thought to exist in the urban shadow as an absent-presence in cosmopolitan processes, we demonstrate the manner in which sexualized and racialized women creatively resist the political and economic trajectories of neoliberal urbanism that seek to expropriate land and dispossess certain bodies. In the context of Rio de Janeiro—as in other host cities—this is particularly evident in the routine encounter between sexual minorities and local law enforcement. Mindful of the literature on state incursion into social-sexual life, we remain attentive to the everyday strategies through which those deemed sexually deviant and/or victim navigate local authorities in search of new opportunities for economic salvation in the midst of the sport mega-event.
Studies that have engaged para-sport broadcasting, particularly through a narrative lens, have al... more Studies that have engaged para-sport broadcasting, particularly through a narrative lens, have almost exclusively relied on textual and/or content analysis of the Paralympic Games as the source of cultural critique. We know far less about the decisions taken inside Paralympic broadcasters that have led to such representations. In this study – based on interviews with senior production and promotion staff at the UK's Paralympic broadcaster, Channel 4 – we provide the first detailed examination of mediated para-sport from this vantage point. We explore the use of promotional devices such as athletes' backstories – the " Hollywood treatment " – to both hook audiences and serve as a vehicle for achieving its social enterprise mandate to change public attitudes toward disability. In so doing, we reveal myriad tensions that coalesce around representing the Paralympics; with respect to the efforts made to balance the competing goals of key stakeholders and a stated desire to make the Paralympics both a commercial and socially progressive success.
Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 2018
Based on ethnographic data collected during the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games in Rio... more Based on ethnographic data collected during the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this article is interested to examine urban processes which reinvent the changing (sexual) landscape. Focusing on the way (host) cities shape sex work both imaginatively and physically, we explore the (lived) realities of neoliberal imaginaries that shape urban space. Often thought to exist in the urban shadow as an absent-presence in cosmopolitan processes, we demonstrate the manner in which sexualized and racialized women creatively resist the political and economic trajectories of neoliberal urbanism that seek to expropriate land and dispossess certain bodies. In the context of Rio de Janeiro—as in other host cities—this is particularly evident in the routine encounter between sexual minorities and local law enforcement. Mindful of the literature on state incursion into social-sexual life, we remain attentive to the everyday strategies through which those deemed sexually deviant and/or victim navigate local authorities in search of new opportunities for economic salvation in the midst of the sport mega-event.