1989/09/01 by Margaret Carlisle Duncan, Barry Brummett
Social Sciences · #Media, Gender, and Advertising #Sport and Mega-Event Impacts #Sports, Gender, and Society
paper · doi:10.1123/ssj.6.3.195
openalex publication_date 1989/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Although scholars have increasingly turned their attention to sport spectatorship, few have examined the particular appeals of television sports spectatorship. This study explains the pleasures of televised sports viewing by building on the work of media theorists. In particular, it argues that three types of specular pleasure (fetishism, voyeurism, narcissism) are found in televised sports. Further, it identifies discursive, technological, and social dimensions of televised sport spectating as the sources of those visual pleasures. The voyeurism, fetishism, and narcissism of televised sport are illustrated with examples drawn from videotapes of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games.