PLANES DE ACCIÓN PROPUESTOS

                       The  media  influence  theme  emerged  by  directly  targeting  the  media  as  a  focal  point   in  interviews  with  participants.  During  the  interviews  the  participants  expressed  the   media’s  ability  to  influence  their  thoughts  and  actions.  Under  the  scope  of  influence  the   participants  revealed:  I)  media  bias  and  stereotypes,  II)  media’s  omnipresence,  and  III)  the   internalization  of  the  media’s  content.  Altogether,  the  participants  constructed  a  picture  of   the  media  as  a  dominant  curriculum  to  be  learned  from.  They  leaned  heavily  on,  but  not   limited  to,  internet  and  televisual  news  reporting,  sports  broadcasting  and  social  media  to   elucidate  the  media’s  influence.      

                       I.  Media  Bias  and  Stereotypes.  

participants  discussed  the  media  through:  a)  its  proxy  to  interaction  with  BCFPs,  b)  

engaging  with  framing  and  capitalism,  c)  experiencing  bias,  d)  misconstruing  stories  based   on  bias,  and  e)  drama,  the  hero,  and  the  villain.  Many  people  do  not  have  physical  

interaction  with  BCFPs  but  they  interact  with  their  persona  in  the  media  via  

consumerism.    Thereby,  the  interaction  with  media  personas  of  BCFPs  serves  as  a  proxy  for   ontic  interaction.  This  concept  is  exemplified  through  the  testimony  of  redshirt  senior   Willie  at  the  University  of  North  (UN).Willie  is  referring  to  his  knee  injury  among  other   adversity  he  went  through  prior  to  his  senior  year  and  his  observation  with  the  way  the   media  positioned  him.  Willie  states:    

The  media  has  a  big  impact  on  how  you’re  even  viewed.  How  you’re  treated,  how   people  feel  about  you,  some  have  never  met  you  before.    The  media  has  a  strange   way  of  introducing  you  to  somebody  that  you  have  never  met  in  your  life,  you  know   I  think  of  my  college  experience  and  I  had  some  adversity  that  I  had  to  over  come,   while  in  this  time  I  had  a  lot  of  people  who  wanted  to  reach  out  and  show  their   support  and  they  don’t  know  me  they  just  know  that  I’m  fighting  this  adversity,  um   I’m  staying  positive,  I’m  smiling,  that’s  what  they  see  through  media  but  they  don’t   see  the  struggle  they  didn’t  see  the  frowns,  they  didn’t  see  the  anger,  they  didn’t  see   the  frustration,  they  saw  what  the  media  portrayed…  you  know  its  just  crazy  to  me   they  just  paint  a  picture  and  people  just  believe  it,  people  believe  it  and  I  used  to  fall   into  that  bubble  where  anything  that  I  read  or  seen  I  believe  until  I  got  older  and  I   started  to  mature  and  I  started  to  say,  “Okay  that’s  a  great  story  now  let  me  look  him   up  and  find  out  more”,  so.      

Willie’s  representation  in  the  media  solely  portrayed  him  in  a  way  that  made  it  easy  for   people  to  relate  to.  The  compartmentalization  of  his  identity  helped  the  consumer  to  utilize   the  representation  to  inform  their  treatment  of  BCFPs.  Willie’s  teammate  and  sophomore,   Dominic,  expressed  his  observation  of  people  compartmentalizing  meaning  stating:  

Umm  because  I  feel  like,  one  its  human  nature  to  try  to  compartmentalize  things  and   when  we  compartmentalize  things  we  attach  certain  meaning  to  things  and  I  feel   like  that’s  where  the  stereotypes  come  from  and  so  people  are  comfortable  seeing   their  own  views  validated  and  that’s  what  media  does  basically  like  perpetuate   stereotypes  that  validates  people  views  if  that  makes  sense.      

Dominic  explains  that  we  as  people  use  strata  as  a  way  of  efficiently  understanding  BCFPs   based  on  the  person’s  comfort  level  with  the  stereotype  being  portrayed.  The  validation  of   people’s  views  often  benefit  the  hegemonic  way  of  thinking  towards  BCFPs.  Both  Willie  and   Dominic  explicate  that  the  understandings  people  get  from  the  media  inform  a  curriculum   that  efficiently  helps  to  understand  BCFPs  they  may  not  have  contact  with.  This  becomes   problematic  when  the  representations  of  BCFPs  are  founded  in  capitalism  and  hegemonic   frames  aimed  at  forcing  the  reproduction  of  negative  scripts.  In  an  interview  with  Tracey,   an  athletic  administrator  from  Technical  A  &  M  University  (TAMU),  she  clarifies  the  

marriage  of  capitalism  and  media  framing  on  the  media  content.  Tracey  was  asked  if  media   content  is  bias  and  she  states:  

Definitely.  Very,  I  believe  that  the  media  does  a  great  deal  of  framing  to  try  and  lure   in  viewers  and  therefor  based  on  viewer  which  brings  in  revenue  its  

bottom  line  is  the  more  viewers  they  have  the  more  dollars  they  receive  so  they  will   frame  things  like  I  said  to  have  that  amount  be  higher.  

The  lure  of  money  and  viewers  builds  an  agenda  for  different  media  outlets.  The  more   viewers  the  more  influence  a  media  outlet  garners.  Some  scholars  call  this  process  agenda   setting  (McCombs  &  Shaw,  1972;  Scheufele  &  Tewksbury,  2007),  which  refers  to  a  distinct   plan  to  shape  thinking  towards  a  political  understanding  of  phenomena  or  people.    Mike,  an   athletic  administrator  at  TAMU,  corroborates  Tracey’s  comprehension  of  the  political   nature  of  the  media,  positing,    

…I  think  people  in  general  indirectly  and  directly  put  in  spins  for  some  type  of   agenda  maybe  to  benefit  themselves  individually  but  also  maybe  to  benefit  some   type  of  group  organization  especially  when  you’re  getting  paid  to  produce  material   that  is  going  to  sell  that’s  going  to  promote  yourself  and  further  yourself  along  in   your  career,  um,  there’s  some  type  of  agenda  to  that.  

Mike  also  alludes  to  the  benefit  of  agenda  setting  to  an  organization,  namely  a  collegiate   athletic  department.  The  agenda  that  benefits  most  high  profile  athletic  departments  is  one   that  positions  BCFPs  as  one  dimensional  beings  or  solely  athletes  (Edwards,  2000).    The   game  of  football  sells  the  persona  of  a  football  player  according  to  hegemonic  standards,   thereby  accompanies  the  understanding  consumers  subscribed  to.  Dominic  also  explicates   the  media’s  bias,  representation,  and  the  need  for  drama  to  be  entertaining,  which  also   brings  in  the  money.  He  responded  to  the  question  if  the  media  is  bias  or  not  stating:  

I  would  say  so  yeah  because  at  the  end  of  the  day  it’s  a  money  making  machine  so  I   feel  like  it  has  certain  interest  that  it  is  going  to  try  to  cater  to…Uhh  well  yeah  just   like  I  was  saying  earlier  like  just  to  try  to  portray  all  the  drama  and  things  like  that  

so  because  of  that  they  might  portray  certain  people,  especially  Black  people  in  a   certain  light  that  the  masses  will  find  entertaining.  

This  notion  of  entertainment  Dominic  mentions  is  enlightening  because,  historically   hegemonic  society  has  casted  Black  people  based  on  the  moral  judgments  of  White  people.   The  drama  casted  in  the  media  leads  the  consumer  to  a  dichotomy  of  the  hero  or  villain,  or   to  choose  sides  between  sides  of  an  altercation.    Dominic  furthers  his  positioning  on  drama   and  the  media  positing:  

Well  I  think  part  of  the  nature  of  media  is  people  like  gravitate  towards  dramas  and   things  like  that  so  a  lot  of  the  times  like  you’ll  get  a  story  about  how  successful   somebody  has  been  in  college  and  how  they  turned  their  life  around  and  really   pulled  themselves  out  of  a  bad  situation  but  I  feel  like  the  majority  of  it  is  about   people  messing  up  and  things  like  that,  so  like  when  Johnny  Manziel  was  in  college   they  would  always  talk  about  things  he  was  doing  wrong  but  Trevone  Boykin  he   was  having  an  amazing  yeah  and  you  didn’t  really  see  that  but  as  soon  as  he  makes   the  mistake  of  having  that  bar  fight  he  was  all  over  ESPN  so  you  know  just  the   nature  of  people  wanting  to  see  the  drama  and  other  people  fall  rather  than  be   successful,  I  think  because  of  that  someone  who  isn’t  really  from  here  and  doesn’t   know  the  nature  of  the  media  they  will  probably  only  see  the  bad  and  think  that   that’s  all  that  their  really  is.  

Patricia,  an  athletic  administrator  at  UN,  furthers  the  ideas  of  drama  and  the  hero-­‐villain   portrayal  likening  it  to  the  reason  people  watch  soap  opera.  She  states:    

someone  who  made  a  bad  choice  and  had  a  poor  decision  and  make  it  look  like  the   worse  decision  of  their  entire  life  and  make  it  define  who  they  are  as  a  whole  it  just   makes  it  more  interesting  for  people  to  read  and  want  to  know  more  and  ask.  

questions  and  so  the  more  juicy  something  is  just  like  a  soap  opera  as  much  as  it  is  a   guilty  pleasure  people  will  continue  to  watch  it  and  people  will  continue  to  read  it.   Cody,  a  BCFP  and  doctoral  student  from  Big  State  University  (BSU)  explains  why  he   believes  the  media  focuses  on  drama  and  negative  portrayals  using  the  example  of  bad   graduation  rates  for  Black  student  athletes.  Cody  says:  

I  mean  the  media  loves  to  talk  about  bad  graduation  rates  that  was  all  over  the  news   the  last  couple  of  weeks  with  march  madness  and  everything  talking  about  

graduation  rates  for  basketball  players.  That’s  all  they  would  talk  about  is  low   graduation  rates  they  wouldn’t  talk  about  the  troubles  of  being  a  basketball  player   or  why  there  are  low  graduation  rates  and  what  we  can  do  to  help.  All  they  wanna   talk  about  is  just  the  graduation  rates  themselves,  but  again  that’s  the  medias  job  is   to  get  that  out  because  that’s  what  people  want  to  hear….they  love  to  talk  about  the   negative  but  most  of  the  time,  I  would  say  99  percent  of  the  reporters  and  

journalists  have  never  even  played  division  I  sports  or  collegiate  sports,  so  they   don’t  even  know  what  its  like  to  go  through  that  process  and  everything  which  is   real  frustrating  as  an  athlete  when  you’re  reading  that,  so  yeah.  

Cody  made  it  a  point  to  recognize  not  only  does  drama  and  negativity  fuel  the  media,  but  it   comes  from  sources  that  may  not  have  had  the  experience  of  being  an  athlete,  let  alone  a   Black  athlete.  The  negative  portrayal  of  BCFPs  controls  the  representation  and  

reading  or  hearing  media  bias  first  hand.  The  media  outlets  the  participants  are  referring  to   focused  on  BCFPs  that  were  at  their  institution.  Patricia  states:  

Ohh  because  it  was  so  blatant  like,  the  details,  the  descriptions,  the  allegations,  um  it   was  very  evident  and  pretty  ridiculous  because  I  knew  the  facts  of,  um,  situations   that  they  would  talk  about  in  the  article  and  I  had  known  the  person  personally  for  a   very  long  time  and  I  mean  their  definitely  parts  of  it  where  I  could  be  like  okay  that   can  possibly  be  true  but  there  were  definitely  there  were  definitely  clear  aspects   that  were  not  true.  Um,  and  was  very,  I  donno,  it  made  me  very  disappointed  in  what   media  and  what  reports  do,  I  donno  it  was  just,  it  was  hard  to  see  that  on  a  first  hand   basis.  Sometimes  just  because  of  the  field  we  work  in,  also  seeing  like  articles  of   what  reports  will  write  about  specific  student  athletes  as  well  just…that’s  not  their   personality,  that’s  not  actually  how  they  are  in  real  life  but  that’s  how  they  are   presenting  themselves,  how  when  you  interview  them  so  it  can  be  um  a  lot  that’s   gets  changed  and  fluctuated  off  of  that  persona  or  the  way  the  angle  that  they  are   trying  to  take  it.  

Patricia’s  response  showed  the  inaccuracy  of  the  media’s  portrayal  of  the  BCFP  they  spoke   about  and  the  only  way  she  knew  was  due  to  her  interaction  with  him.  Milley,  another   administrator  at  UN,  details  her  bad  experiences  with  the  media’s  incongruent  portrayals   forcing  her  to  ignore  responding  to  requests  from  the  media.  Milley  expresses:  

Umm,  I  have  the  unique  ability  to  sometimes  know  the  story  first  hand  when  it   comes  to  certain  stories,  especially  athletic  stories,  um  I  have  been  interviewed   sometimes  for  those  stories  I  don’t  talk  to  the  media  anymore  because  I  have  had  

before  they  talked  to  me  and  they  were  just  trying  to  get  a  quote  that  they  could  just   insert  to  support  their  story  and  in  those  two  cases  where  I  didn’t  give  them  the   quote  they  made  one  up  and  yes….and  in  one  case  it  was  bad,  I  never  said  anything   close  to  what  they  said  and  it  was  about  how  a  student  athlete  having  nothing  to  go   home  for  when  that  student  athlete  had  a  very  great  loving  relationship  with  his   mom  and  a  really  close  relationship  with  his  two  bothers  and  it  was  kinda  offensive   that  they  would  say  that  I  said  that  because  its  not  true.    

Much  of  the  offensive  content  she  referred  to  dealt  with  the  character  judgments  of  BCFPs   after  an  incident  or  fabrication  of  their  expressions  to  fit  a  pre-­‐selected  story.  After  an   incident  media  outlets  use  these  stories  to  paint  a  picture  that  can  often  turn  into  a  blanket   understanding  of  all  BCFPs  who  may  be  in  the  same  predicament.    But  the  story  is  often   counter-­‐positional  for  White  college  football  players  feeding  the  hero-­‐villain  dichotomy.   Marcus,  a  senior  football  player  at  TAMU,  writes:  

Never  has  been.  I  think  Blacks  are  always  looked  upon  as  the  negative  ones  where  as   you  have  the  issue  of  Johnny  Manziel,  White  kid  that  stays  in  a  lot  of  trouble  umm   does  a  lot  of  bad  things  you  know  but  he’s  still  in  that  position  to  be  successful  and   you  have  umm,  Black  quarterback  at  Florida  State,  and  issue  with  him  and  he’s   kicked  off  the  team  and  both  of  them  are  quarterbacks  ones  Black  and  ones  White.  I   mean  that  goes  to  show  like  how  media  looks  at  Black  people  in  general,  just  “oh   he’s  ruthless,  he’s  gonna  do  it  again”  and  the  White  kid,  “oh  it  was  just  a  mistake,   he’s  not  gonna  do  it  again”  that’s  exactly  how  media  portrays  everything  to  be.   According  to  Marcus,  to  be  a  BCFP  that  may  be  involved  in  an  incident  is  to  be  ruthless  and   a  telling  act  of  their  character.  However,  for  White  college  football  players  it  can  be  seen  as  

a  mistake  and  not  a  tribute  to  his  character.  Understanding  that  the  negative  aspects  of   BCFPs  are  constantly  highlighted,  as  a  consumer  it  is  then  difficult  to  counter  balance  the   positive  aspects  without  seeing  them.  Patricia  corroborates  this  logic  through  her  example   of  how  the  UNC  academic  fraud  allegations  highlighted  that  BCFP  were  dumb  jocks  stating:  

…it  is  very  disappointing  to  see  what  happened  at  UNC  but  they  really  played  to  the   point  of,  this  was  what  negatives  were  happening  with  these  student  athletes  but   they  never  really  highlight  the  positives  of  other  student  athletes  and  athletes  who   may  have  also  been  on  that  team  or  with  other  sports  that  don’t  necessarily  follow   that  same  stereotype.  You  never  hear  about  the  engineer  or  the  person  who  is  going   to  med  school  or  any  of  that  piece.  You  always  here  about  the  typical  ones  that  fall   into  that  stereotype  of  the  dumb  jock  and  not  saying  that  there  are  no  unprepared   student  athletes  because  I  know  that  that  can  be  the  case  but  each  program  has   different  support  services  to  help  them  be  successful  and  they  of  course  highlighted   an  institution  that  didn’t  do  it  very  well  but  the  media  really  went  with  that  for  both   of  those  cases,  played  on  the  stereotypes  and  just  kept  going.      

The  stereotype  of  the  dumb  jock  was  very  apparent  in  the  way  Patricia  viewed  the  story  of   the  UNC  allegations,  but  her  knowledge  of  the  BCFPs  she  works  with  affords  her  a  full   spectrum  of  BCFPs  to  learn  from.  For  the  general  consumer  there  may  not  be  another   example  of  a  BCFP,  especially  to  interact  with  in-­‐person,  so  the  negative  reporting  of   incidents  can  stick  in  their  consciousness  making  it  hard  to  know  the  story  without  bias.   Alexis,  an  athletic  administrator  at  UN,  explained  her  experience  with  media  political   nature  bias  and  how  it  takes  a  critical  eye  to  notice  there  is  more  to  the  story  that  what  is  

Yeah  for  sure,  I  think  part  of  my  education  and  my  own  experience  is  having  to  look   at  what  media  and  what  things  are  coming  at  me  with  a  critical  eye  because  I  think  if   you  don’t  do  that  for  both  side  of  a  particular  argument  or  understand  fully  what  the   message  is  that  is  being  delivered  intentionally  or  unintentionally,  most  of  it  I  guess   is  intentional  I  think  it  would  be  easy  to  get  swayed  in  that  specific  direction,  but   yeah  I  think  a  fair  amount  of  it  both  written  word  and  talk  radio  for  sure,  even  TV   broadcast,  Magazines  commentary,  newspaper,  all  of  that  I  think  has  a  political   direction  and  or  purpose  at  some  level.  

The  combination  of  a  hegemonic  understanding  of  BCFPs  and  a  hegemonic  portrayal  of   them  creates  an  acceptance  of  the  way  they  are  positioned.  Alexis  as  well  as  many  of  the   other  participants  have  alluded  to  the  nature  of  media  bias,  portrayal  of  stereotypes,  the   hero-­‐villain  dichotomy,  and  media  serving  as  a  proxy  to  interaction.  The  following  

subsection  describes  the  media’s  coverage  of  BCFPs  and  the  importance  of  the  availability   of  media.        

II.  Media  Omnipresence.  

Media  omnipresence  illuminates  the  repetition  of  media  images  of  BCFPs  as   experienced  by  the  participants.  The  data  collected  has  been  arranged  into  various  topics   within  the  subsection.  More  specifically  the  interviewees  allude  to:  a)  the  repetition  of   BCFPs,  b)  the  fear  of  sexual  assault  and  domestic  violence  by  BCFPs,  and  c)  individual   incident  used  to  essentialize  all  BCFPs.    The  omnipresence  of  media  has  reached  a  level  that   it  is  considered  irregular  to  not  see  a  news  report,  read  a  story,  repost  something  on  social   media,  or  hear  a  broadcast  on  a  daily  basis.      The  marketing  directors  at  various  media