engleski

GYMNASTICS AND CROATIAN SOCIETY – WHAT HAS THE MEDIA GOT TO DO WITH IT?

Croatia has attained its best gymnastics results in the past three Olympic cycles, mostly at world cup events. When gymnast Filip Ude won a silver medal in the pommel horse at the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, gymnastics entered the Croatian media space through the “back door”. Until then, despite tradition, gymnastics had held the status of a “small sport” in Croatian society. Shortly before the Olympic Games in 2008, Ude was not mentioned as a potential Olympic medal winner. In fact, the newspapers wrote nearly nothing about gymnastics. “Big” sports took the foreground, such as handball or athletics. After successes at the Olympic Games in Beijing, the status of gymnastics in the Croatian media changed, however, what happens with media interpretations when results begin to flounder? From a sociological perspective, an analysis of media discourse related to gymnastics is noteworthy because it enables us to understand the relationship between “small” sports and society. The goal of this research is to answer three questions: how does the Croatian print media perceive Filip Ude as an athlete, how did the media discourse change in three Olympic cycles according to sporting successes or “failures”, and how does media discourse affect the perception of gymnastics in Croatian society? Different qualitative methods were used – an interview with Filip Ude and his coaches, as well as a content and discourse analysis of print media and documents. The analysis was performed on all texts concerning this topic published in three high-circulation Croatian daily newspapers – Jutarnji list, Večernji list, and Sportske novosti, three days before tournaments, during tournaments, and three days after tournaments. We analysed three sporting events – the 2008 Olympics, the 2012 Olympics and the 2016 Olympics.

gymnastics, Croatian society, media

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