Runner's World meets Runners' Worlds: Female Recreational Athletes, Ideal Bodies, and Fitness Advertising

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dc.contributor.advisorRadford, K. Scott
dc.contributor.advisorNelson, Fiona
dc.contributor.authorDrake, Carly
dc.contributor.committeememberMourali, Mehdi
dc.contributor.committeememberWoiceshyn, Jaana
dc.contributor.committeememberMoules, Nancy Jean
dc.contributor.committeememberFischer, Eileen M.
dc.date2019-06
dc.date.accessioned2019-04-25T18:07:16Z
dc.date.available2019-04-25T18:07:16Z
dc.date.issued2019-04-24
dc.description.abstractThe historically masculine realm of sport has not always been welcoming to women. Today, women have found a place in sport culture, but contemporary media remind them they may only occupy a certain place – namely, as objects whose bodies are public goods available for interested parties to judge. In this dissertation, I argue that this discourse is linked to a combination of neoliberal ideology and post-feminist sentiment that valorizes a form of aspirational femininity in which women are both subjects and objects. I combine the use of post-structuralist feminist theory and a hermeneutic methodology to investigate if and how advertisements in fitness magazines participate in sport culture’s “here is a place for you”/“know your place” discourse, and how female recreational athletes engage with such advertisements to construct an embodied sense of self. Focusing on the context of recreational endurance running, I accomplish these tasks across two interlinked studies: (1) a critical reading of fitness advertisements found in popular North American running magazines, including Runner’s World; and (2) semi-structured interviews with 26 female recreational runners. Through the critical reading, I argue that advertisements address the body as a machine, prescribing and normalizing an obsession with athletics. They glorify the pursuit of the ideal running body through athletics, and discount women’s potential in and contributions to sport. In this way, advertisements function as a “biopedagogy,” or “body-becoming pedagogy,” that teaches consumers how a suitable body appears and functions. My interpretation of the semi-structured interviews shows that participants engage in a process I title “strategic ideological filtering” in order to negotiate advertising’s images of the ideal body. Through this process, the women assess advertising’s gendered neoliberal sentiment in order to take up aspects that suit them and discard or modify those that do not. For this reason, I argue that although fitness advertising is indeed a powerful force in consumer culture, female consumers exhibit a form of agency that counters a common narrative surrounding their victimization. These findings contribute to theory on gendered sporting embodiment, as well as advertising, and offer implications for marketing and advertising practitioners seeking to create advertisements that support, rather than marginalize, women in sport.en_US
dc.identifier.citationDrake, C. (2019). Runner's World meets runners' worlds: female recreational athletes, ideal bodies, and fitness advertising (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.en_US
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/36397
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1880/110212
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.publisher.facultyHaskayne School of Businessen_US
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Calgaryen
dc.rightsUniversity of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.en_US
dc.subjectgenderen_US
dc.subjectembodimenten_US
dc.subjectadvertisingen_US
dc.subjectidentityen_US
dc.subject.classificationMass Communicationsen_US
dc.subject.classificationMarketingen_US
dc.subject.classificationGender Studiesen_US
dc.subject.classificationWomen's Studiesen_US
dc.titleRunner's World meets Runners' Worlds: Female Recreational Athletes, Ideal Bodies, and Fitness Advertisingen_US
dc.typedoctoral thesisen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineHaskayne School of Business: Managementen_US
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Calgaryen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophy (PhD)en_US
ucalgary.item.requestcopytrue
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