Co-framing the 2024 WNBA Playoffs
ESPN’s Deferential Approach to Selling Misogynoir
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19225323 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Zoe Tzanis (0009-0006-1298-343X, University of Pittsburgh, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-17 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Television & New Media (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1527-4764 • E-ISSN: 1552-8316 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/15274764261436364 |
| OpenAlex | W7154844784 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 43 |
As the 2024 Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) season drew record viewership, it also became a site of intense media discourse about race, racism, and rivalry. This article examines ESPN’s broadcast commentary during the 2024 WNBA playoffs, a period marked by heightened racial harassment of players, to explore how, under economic and political constraints, sports broadcasters enlist engaged audiences as co-authors of meaning. I theorize this rhetorical practice as co-framing —a process through which broadcasters invite and incorporate audience engagement in narrating conflict, rivalry, and controversy. Through close analysis of broadcast discourse, this study demonstrates how racial conflict is rendered legible as entertainment and how narratives surrounding gender, race, and responsibility are negotiated, amplified, or muted. By tracing these dynamics, this research contributes to ongoing debates about power, agency, and authority in an evolving sports media ecosystem
Basketball · Entertainment · Harassment · Journalism · Narrative · Period (music) · Politics · Reality tv · Rhetorical question · Media Studies and Communication · Rhetoric and Communication Studies · Sports, Gender, and Society
Affective Publics
Misogynoir Transformed
Algorithms of Oppression
Black Women as Genres of Skin
Ordinary People and the Media
This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
Racism, Hate Speech, and Social Media
This Isn’t Just About Us”
Sport and the Quest for Unity
An Analysis of Colin Kaepernick, Megan Rapinoe, and the National Anthem Protests
Competing as the First Out Transgender Female Olympian
Commodifying Black Latinidad in US Film and Television
From Broadcast Scarcity to Digital Plenitude
MasculinitySoFragile
New Audiences, New Textualities
Brittney Griner, Intersectionality, and “Woke Politics”
It’s Not About the Game
Intersecting Selves
New Rules for New Times
White Men Playing a Black Man’s Game
The second persona
Profanity from the heart as exceptional civic rhetoric
Love No Limit
The Routinization of Media Events
A Perfect Storm
Reading Sport Critically
Telling My Sons How Angel Reese Stood Toe to Toe with the KKK and Won
Grounded Theory in Global Perspective
The Intersection of Race, Gender, and Nationality in Sport
Reading the Catsuit
Serena Williams and (the perception of) violence
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |