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The relationships between censorship, politics and sport have not been widely studied despite being linked in important ways which are largely obscured from public view. By using censorship as a focus for an intersectional analysis of human rights violations in sport as experienced by athletes and workers in sport-related contexts, this important book makes a necessary contribution to the field of critical sport studies.
Censorship, Politics and Sport exposes how most of the rules governing athletes’ eligibility, behaviour and expression constitute a form of censorship, and how international sport federations have unchecked power to enforce them. Author Helen Lenskyj delves into the overt and hidden acts of censorship that the International Olympic Committee, through international federations and national sports organizations, impose on athletes of all ages and levels globally. Applying an intersectional analysis, Lenskyj examines the content, implementation and impacts of rules and regulations developed by sport governing bodies, with a focus on the ways in which women and minoritised athletes experience those restrictions. Moving beyond this, the chapters also show how censorship and self-censorship within legacy media journalism shapes the coverage of sport megaevents, allowing biased and discriminatory content to flourish. An analysis of censorship in the specific contexts of US high school and university/college sport reveals how the presumption of sport exceptionalism and the political ‘neutrality’ of sport shape policies and practices while restricting young athletes’ free speech and expression.
With new insights into the hidden impacts of censorship on global sport and the dangers of sport exceptionalism rhetoric, this is ground-breaking reading for scholars of sociology and critical sport studies on the urgent need to uncover, critique and challenge the relationship between censorship, politics and sport.
As a longtime critical scholar of the Olympic industry, Helen Jefferson Lenskyj brings decades of expertise to an underexamined subject: how censorship actually operates inside sport. The book moves confidently from the IOC's Rule 50 and FIFA's disciplinary codes to newsroom self-censorship and the quiet suppression of critical scholarship inside universities. The evidence is wide-ranging and carefully assembled, drawing together sport history, media studies, and academic freedom debates that are rarely considered together. Lenskyj's long engagement with gender, sexuality, and power in sport gives her particular insight into why censorship falls hardest on athletes, journalists, and scholars with the least institutional power. This is a valuable resource for anyone teaching or researching sport, politics, or media, and it gives sport administrators and journalists plenty to reckon with.
— Prof Mike Sam, School of Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Science, University of Otago, New Zealand
As the leading scholar of sport governance, politics, and social justice, Helen Jefferson Lenskyj delivers another powerful critique of sport's enduring myth of political neutrality. In this groundbreaking analysis, she reveals how the Olympic industry, universities, media organizations, and professional leagues maintain their power through censorship by regulating speech, suppressing dissent, and promoting narratives that protect institutional authority and commercial interests. Provocative, timely, and incisive, this book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the politics behind the spectacle.
— Jaime Schultz, Professor of Kinesiology, Pennsylvania State University, USA
Helen Jefferson Lenskyj is simply the world’s foremost researcher and activist writing about sports. Her work on sports, gender, and the environment, for example, has been pathbreaking. Here her focus shifts to censorship—the many and varied ways that international organizations and others try to shut athletes up. Professor Lenskyj provides comparative historical and geographical perspectives as well as numerous contemporary examples. Her call for free expression in sport as a basic human right is expressed clearly, bracingly, brilliantly. Three cheers!
— Toby Miller, Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico
It wasn’t long ago that athlete activism appeared to shatter the illusion it has ever been possible to “stick to sports.” More recently, protest has faded, initiatives to make sports more inclusive have been muted, and corporatized sports have largely returned to norms governed by white masculinity. There is no single explanation for this retreat, but Helen Lenskyj offers important answers in Censorship, Politics and Sport. Building on an enterprise of critical sport scholarship in which she has participated prominently, Lenskyj addresses a wide range of contexts revealing the persistence of politics in sport and the contradictory actions and statements made by international sporting bodies, leagues, and media. The book centers the ideological manipulations of nations in the Global North—i.e., the so-called liberal democratic states for whom an investment in games and tournaments exemplifies what she calls “sport exceptionalism.” It specifically isolates censorship as a primary factor in the expansion of empowered interests that have also restricted progressive interventions. And, it takes to task those voices in sports media and academia whose platform affords them an opportunity to scrutinize the political machinations of corporatized sports but who nevertheless endorse and comply with an exceptionalist ethos. Throughout, Lenskyj blends historical context with contemporary issues to describe the forms of state-sanctioned and self-imposed censorship that keep precarious voices in sports—Indigenous populations, trans athletes, dissidents, and more—on the margins. It is a must read for any critical reader who insists we cannot, and should not, “stick to sports
— Michael L. Butterworth, The University of Texas at Austin, USA
Helen Jefferson Lenskyj (she/her) is Professor Emerita, University of Toronto, Canada.
Chapter 1. Introduction: Censorship, Politics and Sport
Chapter 2. Politics and Sport: Fertile Ground for Censorship
Chapter 3. Censorship, Media, and Media-Makers
Chapter 4. Athletes’ Freedoms under Threat
Chapter 5. Censorship and Academic Freedom
Chapter 6. Football, Politics, and Censorship
Chapter 7. Conclusion