As a social and cultural phenomenon, modern sport is deeply intertwined with the social
institution of the media. It represents an important element of mass culture and collective
national identity. With the rise of the media and the process of commercialization sport has
turned into an industry that goes beyond sports competitions. The media, especially television,
created a spectacle around sports, therefore sports and athletes became an important means of
marketing. Spectacularization of sports produces a celebrity cult, and top athletes become stars
due to media recognition. In the assignment, my focus was on the phenomenon of sports and
the transformation of an athlete into a brand. I was interested in how the media commodifies
athletes and how nationalism contributes to the rise of athletes as media stars. In the theoretical
part, I defined sport as a social and cultural phenomenon, justified the process of
spectacularization of sport and the role of television in sports events, and explained the concept
of stardom in sport. I also explored the concepts of nationalism and commodification and
defined the spectacle of the NBA. In the empirical part, I used a critical discourse analysis in
the period between March 16 and April 16 2023 to analyze the media reports about Luka Dončić
in the Sports section of Pop TV. I was looking for elements of nationalism and
commodification, which I defined in the theoretical part and showed the process of transforming
an athlete into a star using the example of Luka Dončić. The analysis showed that the media
artificially constructs the image of the athlete as a star. This leads to commodification of Dončić,
who simultaneously serves as a Slovenian national symbol and a connecting link of collective
national identity.
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