The world of sport is forever growing, and as sport grows so does the interest and attention of the media, whether this be television or newspapers, sport is everywhere. The interest of the media has led to multi million pound sponsorships of players clubs and major events. The attention that the media gives sport is not always in a positive light, it is the case that scandal receives far more attention that normality, and failure is often more interesting than success. Therefore sportsmen and women are often very wary of the media and what they might be writing about them. The media has become a powerful tool which can make brake heroes just as quickly as they produced them. During this essay I am going to examine the British media, concentrating on the tabloids, mid tabloids and the broadsheets. I am going to look at how they portray foreign sport stars and also the jingoistic tendencies of the media which is fueled by great national interest and national identity.
When the media cover major events they often use nationalistic tendencies to increase the potential audience of viewers, this could be done through encouraging national identity and pride. The media often use jingoistic headlines to excite the reader of viewer. Never is this more apparent then when England meet Germany in the sporting arena. The two nations have always had a fierce rivalry dating back to the two world wars in the early 20th century. One clear example arose when during the 1990 World Cup in Italy the two met in the semi-finals, The Sun had a field day, running with headlines as follows,.
"we beat them in "45, we beat them in "66 now the battle of "90." (Blain et al. 1993 p50).
This quote combines triumphs both on the battleground as well as the English World Cup win in 1966 against the Germans. Other puns used in the report referred to the Germans as "The auld enemy". In contrast when examining how the mainstream German press dealt with the game and occasion a different story is portrayed.
