Representation of UFC female atlhetes: media and sociocultural practices

Abstract

This project addresses the following issues: How does Ultimate Fighter Championship (UFC) athletes are mediatically represented? How and to what extent do these representations intersect with gender relations in a traditionally male sport? Does the insertion of women in this sport point to reproduction and imposition of male behavioral patterns so that they can be socially recognized? Overall objective is to reflect on the representation of UFC fighters, given the urgency of a more in-depth discussion about media patterns and the gender issue in Brazilian society. The specific objectives are: to reflect on how these representations intersect with gender relations in a traditionally male sport. To problematize the nature of female images of the athletes and their mediatic, discursive and aesthetic representations. Understand how gender relations are produced and reproduced symbolically by the media and what regime visibilities prevail in them. The theoretical framework on gender relations will be guided by authors such as Scott (1990), Buttler (2003) and Preciado (2010). The social view of the visibility regimes will be supported by Thompson's (2008, 2005, 2000) analyzes and the communicational problem of images by Baitello Junior (2005, 2012). Lazzarato (2011) will aid in the understanding of how these subjectivities are being modulated, how gender appears mediatically and the importance of images, besides the concept of Foucault's device (2002) and its resumption by Deleuze (1990) and Agamben (2005). From the point of view of methodology, this research will be based on the culture circuit of Paul Du Guy et. al. (1997). The news on websites, newspapers and specialized magazines about the fighters will be the corpus of the research. It is a question of researching the discourse as a social practice, based on the narratives of Brazilian news sites about the UFC and its athletes. The importance of this theme lies in the need to broaden the range of research on sports in communication as well as on issues of gender and the media as a producer of narratives that represent and replicate models of sociability. (AU)