Page 97 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

86 • Sport, Media and Society

Medical Offi cer for the USOC, as quoted in Janofsky 1988a: D29). At this point in
time, the way forward was perceived to be random, out-of-competition testing: ‘more
regular and sensitive tests would surely eliminate drugs from most athletes’ training
program’ (‘Winking at Steroids’ 1988: A26). One of the key issues at this time was
whether or not random testing would be an infringement on athletes’ civil rights:
‘athletes should agree to not only train, but also agree to year-round random testing
which is done in a way that preserves their dignity and their civil rights’ (Helmick,
President of the USOC, as cited in Wallace 1988: B16). Perhaps the only discourse
that was critical of governing bodies addressed the need for independent testing agen-
cies to eliminate the possibility of organisations concealing positive tests to protect
their athletes and themselves. A simile (a strategy for comparing unlike things that
have one type of resemblance, typically using like or as) was used to reinforce the
point: ‘you can’t have a sport test itself and be trustworthy. It’s like the fox guarding
the henhouse’ (Janofsky and Alfano 1988: D31). Johnson’s positive test, therefore,
was viewed as proof of the IOC’s seriousness about stopping drug use: ‘no matter
who is offsides, we are prepared to act’ (Pound, Vice President of the IOC, as cited
in Janofsky 1988b: D32). Overall, the tone of coverage portrayed governing bodies
as reformers who must ‘clean up’ sport by controlling deviant athletes and, to a lesser

extent, their coaches and doctors. The definition of the issues was primarily reliant

on official discourses and views that prevailed in setting out and framing the issues
and solutions (Gans 1979).
The vilification and distancing of drug-using athletes, the creation of a sense of

their threat to sport and society and the emphasis on surveillance and punishment
contributed to the ongoing themes of stories of drug use that have continued for
the past twenty years. The issue of performance-enhancing drug use seems to have
evolved into a subgenre of sport reporting, a regular feature that is addressed as a part
of a newspaper’s overall coverage of sport alongside injury, violence, racism, games-
manship and other sporting ‘problems’. A search of New York Times articles on the
term steroids shows that 4,733 articles have been published since 1981 and that 2,688
of these are in the sport pages. In the year from 14 February 2007 to 15 February
2008 alone, there have been 496 articles on steroids in the sport pages of The New
York Times. One-hundred-metre sprint stars have continued to make the headlines

for their associations with drug use, and a number of high-profile and even world
record–holding 100-metre runners have been suspended for steroid use, including
Justin Gatlin, Marion Jones, Linford Christie, Dwain Chambers and Tim Montgom-
ery. Many of the stories that have been sensationalised have featured African Ameri-
can or African Caribbean athletes infusing intertextual, racialised discourses into the
ongoing narrative (Jackson 1998). Stories of performance-enhancing drug use ap-
pear to have become intertwined with sport and sport reporting as a sensationalised,
controversial topic that contributes to the spectacle of sport.
Reports of spectacular victories also require journalists to draw on a range of
social meanings to dramatise an event. Hills and Kennedy (2009) discussed the