Communication ETDs

Publication Date

Winter 12-14-2023

Abstract

In this dissertation project, I utilize a Critical Mixed Race Studies (CMRS) lens to examine how mixed-race Black/White players in the National Basketball Association (NBA) are represented, discussed, racialized, and gendered by major sports media platforms. More specifically, I utilize this project to elucidate how media centered on professional basketball continue to partake in hegemonic and essentialist rhetoric surrounding Black and White masculinity—that which has been used to discuss Black and White men in basketball throughout the entire history of the sport—to homogenize mixed-race Black/White men in the NBA and present them in a way that diminishes the potentially deconstructive nature of their mixedness. However, by utilizing a CMRS perspective, I argue that we must focus on counter-hegemonic media narratives centered on mixedness to reframe commonplace racialized discourses about Black and White masculinity in professional basketball.

Language

English

Keywords

Critical Mixed Race Studies, Mixedness, Media, Race, Masculinity

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Communication

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Department of Communication and Journalism

First Committee Member (Chair)

Dr. Michael Lechuga

Second Committee Member

Dr. Ilia Rodriguez Nazario

Third Committee Member

Dr. Shinsuke Eguchi

Fourth Committee Member

Dr. Myra Washington

Download

Share

COinS