Boulou Ebanda de b Béri & Peter Hogarth,

Journal of International and Intercultural Communication Volume 2 , Issue 2, May 2009

The case of Ron Artest as a model of racial ideology and secret in the speech of the NBA

This article mobilizes the work of Stuart Hall, Colin King, and George Yancy as conceptual lenses for a discursive analysis of a major sporting event, which happened during a match of the Detroit Pistons against the Indiana Pacers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) in Auburn Hills, Michigan in December. 19, 2004.

This event began when Ron Artest, a member of the Indiana Pacers, shook up the player of the Detroit Pistons Ben Wallace after a serious fault. The fight escalated when Artest was hit by a drink thrown from the stands. Artest jumped into the stands and started fighting fans of the Pistons, which has prompted other teammates, and fans to join them, leading to a brawl mass between the fans and the players to whom Artest was suspended for the remainder of the basketball season. The analysis of this case in this article provides some interesting indicators of ideology, discourse and the meanings of race that shape the sports media in America.

Some of the issues that are at the heart of this analysis are the following : how does the coverage of black players fighting fans white is framed in the context of a sport predominantly black and a white audience ; how it does with the scientific discourse existing in relation to the representation of racial sports, and other media ; what is the relationship fan-player in a sport which consists largely of white fans who watch black players ; in addition, how this relationship is manifested in the media coverage and discourse player-fan ?