Invincible Black Bodies: Sport Media's Dehumanizing Coverage of Black College Athletes

• In Event: Media, Culture, and Learning SIG: The Role of Technology in Communities

Abstract

College GameDay (CGD) commentary and imagery is one source of socialization that reinforces ideologies which rationalize police violence (and our tolerance thereof). As the most watched college sport broadcast of all time (Volner, 2016), CGD primes audiences to make certain associations (Moy, Tewksbury, & Rinky, 2016). Through analysis of regular-season CGD pre-game and game-of-the-week broadcasts during the 2016 football season, we examine the belief that Black people possess super-strength and/or the inability to feel pain. We document prominent narratives that promoted Black players as invulnerable in the broadcasts while making the case that these narratives serve to prime audiences—including law enforcement—to ascribe inhuman abilities to Black people and believe the use of lethal force against them is justified.

Authors

• Siduri J. Haslerig, The University of Oklahoma

• Sara Grummert, University of California Riverside

• Rican Vue, Oregon State University