Page 164 - Sport Culture and the Media

FRAMED AND MOUNTED || 145

Frozen in time: action appeal and the judgement of history
Picture by Darren Pateman, courtesy of the Newcastle Herald

screen out all these reminders of the conditions of its production. The
viewer impact sought is to instil a feeling that the sports event can be accessed
directly through the photograph by its presentation of a pivotal moment in
determining the result (who won and why) or in conveying the atmosphere of
the event (what it felt like to be there). The latter type of sports photograph
tends to be more self-consciously aesthetic, sometimes making a claim to be
taken more seriously as an art object. But it is the action shot that is the staple
of sports photography, reinforcing and conferring status on the elite sporting
body by showing it doing the extraordinary things that so many people admire
and envy.
If the action sports photograph is the premium sports image, and a con-
siderable degree of cultural power attaches to being conspicuous in the sports
media, then we might ask who gets to be shown ‘doing the business’. It is here
that ideology, power and media representation connect. Issues of visibility and
invisibility, and images of domination and subordination, are always central to
the reading of the media sports text. Understanding the politics of the still
photographic image requires an analysis of what is seen and what is obscured,
and of the seemingly natural hierarchies that are routinely offered for consump-
tion. Most current studies of gender and media sport are of television (such as