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Analysing Media Sport • 17

magazine, there were anticolonial struggles in Algeria, and the crisis was widely
reported in the French press. Yet the power of this simple image lies in the way it
indicates support for the empire without requiring assent or disagreement.
There are, therefore, two processes of analysis that are necessary in attempting
to capture the meanings of media sport. To arrive at the denotative meanings of an
image or television programme or advertisement, the fi rst stage of analysis must be

performed. We must decode the signifiers to describe what is going on in the image.
Only then can we proceed to the second stage of analysis, which involves consider-
ing its connotations or social and cultural implications. As we have seen, myth works

by making these two stages of signification blur into one. Analysts must halt this
process and take account of what each signifier is being made to signify. The careful,

detailed description of all the signifying elements in media sport is crucial to enable
their connotations to be examined.

Analysing the Spectacle of Sport I: Semiotics of Sport Celebrity

The Observer is a British Sunday newspaper that carries a glossy magazine called
Sport Monthly as a Sunday supplement. Owned by the Guardian Media Group, The
Observer has a liberal political orientation and is one of the British newspapers ‘de-
signed to sell to the richer social classes’ (Richardson 2007: 80). According to its
own readers’ editor, ‘Observer readers are generally assumed to be middle-aged,
middle-class, university educated and relatively affluent’ (Pritchard 2002: para. 1).

The cover images of Sport Monthly tend to be photographic portraits of sportsmen
and, less regularly, sportswomen. The sports stars are drawn from a range of sports,
but football is arguably the national game in England, and football stars are fre-
quently shown on the Sport Monthly covers (Bower 2007). Traditionally, football
has been associated with working-class culture in the United Kingdom because of its
historical development (Walvin 1975), which contrasts sharply with the class profi le
of Observer readers. Class connotations form part of the richness of the imagery of
Sport Monthly covers, which can be unpacked using the tools of semiotic analysis.
The cover of Sport Monthly from February 2003 featured the celebrity football
player Paul Gascoigne. Paul Gascoigne is a white, working-class footballer from
the north-east of England. At the time of the magazine’s publication, Gascoigne
was at the end of his career, which included playing for a number of high-profi le
clubs, including Newcastle, Tottenham Hotspur, Lazio, Rangers and the England
national team. Gascoigne was as famous for his indulgent, often obscene behaviour

off (and on) the pitch as he was for his magnificent feats of football. Gascoigne’s
physicality—his drinking, his belching, his sobbing, his football—has been the sub-
ject of a great deal of media interest throughout his career. He has also been associ-
ated with criminal behaviour linked to domestic violence and fi ghting.