Michael A. Messner, Michele Dunbar, and Darnell Hunt

In the following essay, three researchers report on their study of sports television programs such as ESPN's SportsCenter and TNT's Monday Night Nitro wrestling as well as football, basketball, and baseball broadcasts. The researchers reached several conclusions on how masculinity, violence, race, and gender are presented in coverage of sports. They found, for example, that women and minorities are underrepresented in sports television and that the media's coverage of sports encourages violence and other aggressive behavior. The researchers conclude that mainstream pro sports reinforce prevailing, and often harmful, stereotypes about what it takes to "be a man." Michael A. Messner is a professor of sociology and gender studies at the University of Southern California. His books include Power at Play: Sports and the Problem of Masculinity and Sex, Violence, and Power...