Lost in CCI bloggers are proud to welcome back Toussaint Nothias from presenting a paper at the International Conference on Media and Sport in Portugal. Toussaint based the paper on his MA CCI dissertation on afro-pessimism in French and UK newspapers during the 2010 South African World Cup. Encouraged by his MA supervisor, Dr Hatty Oliver, to apply to the University of Porto hosted conference, Toussaint told CCI that the experience was a lovely post-dissertation reward (sun and port wine!) and a great chance to network with other researchers.
Toussaint’s research analysed the way in which the media’s reporting of sports mega events reinforced the stereotypical vision of Africa as the ‘Dark Continent’, and implied that South Africa would be unable to successfully host the World Cup due to issues of poverty, violence and insecurity. Toussaint argued that the success of the 2010 World Cup contributes to the trumping of this afro-pessimist ideology, as least in terms of media reporting. He told us that ‘this links two major creative industries: the media and sports mega events. It’s also relevant to the question of symbolic impact of cultural events on identify formation and representation of race’.
Pictured here demonstrating ‘le hand ball’, Toussaint is now pursuing PhD applications. He told CCI that the conference was an exciting opportunity to exchange ideas with other researchers and hear new perspectives on his work. We’d like to wish Toussaint all the best and to keep us posted in all his future success!
More information can be found on the ECREA blog.
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