ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. Sports Politics, Policy and Law
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1640762
This article is part of the Research TopicSports Policy and Management in the Era of Sustainable Development Goals: Challenges and OpportunitiesView all 11 articles
"It Should Just Be About Sport!": Centering Italian Athletes' Perspectives in Paralympic Media Coverage
Provisionally accepted
- University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
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This study explores how Italian Paralympic athletes perceive their representation in the media, shifting the analytical focus from media texts to the lived experiences of the athletes themselves across their sporting careers. Using semi-structured interviews and a hybrid inductive-deductive thematic analysis, the research identifies key themes in how athletes evaluate current media coverage. Findings reveal that while visibility has improved, narratives remain dominated by stereotypical frames-such as the "supercrip" or pity narratives-that marginalise athletic performance. Athletes advocate for more balanced, sport-centered coverage and highlight the role of self-representation through social media in challenging mainstream portrayals. Drawing on theories of framing, representation, and disability models, the study underscores the importance of incorporating athletes' voices to advance inclusive and accurate media narratives.
Keywords: paralympic sport, media representation, Disability, framing theory, Athlete Perception, Lived experience
Received: 04 Jun 2025; Accepted: 01 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Pappous and Gomez-Iniesta. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Pablo Gomez-Iniesta, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
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