https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4291-8779
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Abstract
Since Cuba’s revolution in 1959, the country has found itself among the Olympic medal world leaders in terms of medals won against population size. Given the growing importance of the relationship between politics, major sporting events, and the media, this research uses predominantly qualitative methodology to analyze Cuban newspaper Granma’s coverage of the sporting successes of Cuba between the 1976 Montreal Olympics and the 2016 Rio Olympics. The longitudinal study of this 40-year period reveals that, in addition to its extensive coverage of the island’s ‘star’ sports – baseball, boxing, athletics, and volleyball – the news publication has systematically and effectively used sporting achievements as a way of putting the country on the map and lending it political legitimacy, both locally and worldwide. The epic language that has dominated Granma’s narrative has served to extol the successes of government policies, making the country a guiding light for the whole of Latin America. Thanks to the constant presence of winning athletes, who have filled the pages with their highly politically charged and emotive declarations, the narrative adopted by the publication has also acted as the mouthpiece for the key values and ideas of the revolution.
Keywords:
Acknowledgments
The authors of this work would like to express their thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable contributions, which have helped us to make substantial improvements to the final text.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
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18 Serazio Power of Sports, 293
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22 M.L. Butterworth, ‘Do You Believe in Nationalism? American Patriotism in Miracle’, in Examining identity in sport media, ed. Heather L. Hundley and Andrew C. Billings (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2009), 133–52.
23 Billings et al., ‘Superpowers on the Olympic basketball court’.
24 Gao, ‘Politics / Nationalism’.
25 D. Rowe, ‘The Worlds That Are Watching: Media, Politics, Diplomacy, and the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics’, Communication & Sport 7, no. 1 (2019): 3–22.
26 Slack, ‘Cuba’s Political Involvement in Sport Since the Socialist Revolution’.
27 T. Carter, ‘Game Changer: The Role of Sport in Revolution’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 31, no. 7 (2014): 735–46.
28 Carter, ‘New Rules to the Old Game’; S. Pye, ‘The Ideology of Cuban Sport’, Journal of Sport History 13, no. 2 (1986): 119–27; J. T. Sugden, ‘The Making and Remaking of White Lightning in Cuba: Politics, Sport and Physical Education 30 Years after the Revolution’, Arena Review 14, no. 1 (1990): 101–9.
29 V. Girginov, ‘Totalitarian Sport: Towards an Understanding of Its Logic, Practice and Legacy’, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 5, no. 1 (2004): 25–8.
30 Carter, ‘New Rules to the Old Game’.
31 Ibid.; Huish, ‘Punching above Its Weight’.
32 Carter, ‘Game Changer’.
33 J. Hargreaves, ‘Olympism and Nationalism’, International Review for Sociology of Sport no. 27 (1992): 119–35.
34 E. Diaz Rodríguez, ‘Blog y Periodismo en Cuba: entre el "deber ser" y la realidad”. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 64, no. 3 (2009): 1–17.
35 A. Sosa-Valcarcel, M. De-Aguilera-Moyano, and L.A. De-la-Noval-Bautista, ‘Communication System, Power and Socialism: The Cuban Case’, El profesional de la información 28, no. 6 (2019): e280616, 2.
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39 J.L. Ruiz Olébuenaga, I. Aristegi, and L. Melgosa, Cómo elaborar un proyecto de investigación social (Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, 1998).
40 Billings, et al., Olympic Television; R. De Miguel Pascual, ‘La entrevista’, in Investigar en comunicación, ed. M. Berganza Conde, & J. Ruiz San Román (Madrid: McGraw Hill, 2005), 251–63.
41 E. Dore, ‘Opening the Tap: Doing Oral History in Cuba’, Oral History, 45, no. 2 (2017): 106–8.
42 E. Constantín, ‘Apertura de la XII Olimpiada: una página inigualable’, Granma, July 20, 1980, 4.
43 F. Castro, ‘El deporte es una prueba del gran desarrollo alcanzado por nuestro país’, Granma, August 12, 2008, 3–5.
44 Castro, ‘El deporte es una prueba del gran desarrollo alcanzado por nuestro país’.
45 In order to evaluate the sporting agenda, the coding process followed a scoring system used by Ramon, ‘Sports journalism ethics and quality of information’, 113. If a journalistic piece was dedicated to just one sport, it received the value of n = 1, if it covered two, three or four sports the value n = 1 was divided by the number of sports covered in each article. For example, in an article reporting on two sports, each sport received the value n = 0.5. Lastly, pieces dedicated to more than four sports were coded as ‘multi-sport’.
46 T. Carter, ‘Baseball Arguments: Aficionismo and Masculinity at the Core of Cubanidad’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 18, no. 3 (2001): 117; Huish, ‘Punching above its Weight’; J. Nauright and S. Zipp, ‘The Complex World of Global Sport’, Sport in Society 21, no. 8 (2018): 1113–9.
47 Redacción Granma, ‘Juantorena, la hazaña más grande del atletismo Olímpico’, Granma, July 30, 1976, 1.
48 Redacción Granma, ‘Alberto Juantorena primer bicampeón olímpico cubano en Atletismo’. Granma, July 30, 1976, 4.
49 M. Hernández , ‘La primera medalla’, Granma, July 28, 1976, 5.
50 M. Hernández, ‘Muy contento de haber cumplido con la revolución’, Granma, July 30, 1976, 4. The storming of the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba was an armed operation led by Fidel Castro, a lawyer by profession, and was carried out on July 26, 1953. Castro led a group of young revolutionary men and women with the aim of overthrowing the dictator Fulgencio Batista. The operation was a failure. However, the Cuban Government considers that this was the first stepping stone in the ultimately successful revolutionary process, to the extent that the date of July 26 was established as a public holiday.
51 Hernández, ‘Muy contento de haber cumplido con la revolución’.
52 Ibid.
53 Redacción Granma, ‘Destaca prensa en Montreal triunfos de Juantorena y Stevenson’, Granma, July 31, 1976, 4.
54 D. Reguera, ‘Diez millones de cubanos lanzaron la jabalina hasta los 68,40 metros’, Granma, July 28, 1980, 6.
55 D. Reguera, ‘María Caridad es centro de atención en la Villa’, Granma, July 31, 1980, 2.
56 Redacción Granma, ‘Despreciable desertor’, Granma, July 16, 1980, 2.
57 M. Hernández, ‘Aseguradas más medallas olímpicas que nunca’, Granma, August 5, 1992, 1.
58 M. Hernández, ‘Triunfo en el deporte nacional’, Granma, August 6, 1992, 1.
59 Redacción Granma, ‘El oro en el béisbol es nuestro’, Granma, August 6, 1992, 4.
60 M. Hernández, ‘Hazaña dorada de las muchachas’, Granma, August 8, 1992, 7.
61 O. Sánchez, ‘Para saborear el éxito’, Granma, August 11, 1992, 3.
62 Cuba won a total of 31 medals in Barcelona (1992), compared to the three of Brazil, two of Venezuela, and one of Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Colombia, and Puerto Rico. If we consider only gold medals, Cuba won 82% of all the gold medals awarded to Latin American countries. The Caribbean country won 14 golds, compared to Brazil and Venezuela with two and one, respectively.
63 Castro, ‘El deporte es una prueba del gran desarrollo alcanzado por nuestro país’.
64 Redacción Granma, ‘El Honor de nuestros atletas nos interesas más que las medallas’, Granma, July 12, 1996, 4.
65 M. Benito, ‘Sin medallas olímpica los medios de comunicación, Granma, August 9, 1996, 7.
66 S. Barros, ‘No podía defraudar a tanta gente’, Granma, July 25, 1996, 6.
67 S. Barros, ‘Ana Fidelia, proeza moral y deportiva’, Granma, July 30, 1996, 1.
68 S. Barros, ‘Yo les gano a los americanos’, Granma, July 26, 1996, 3.
69 A. Nacianceno, ‘¡Como se habla del Cuba-EEUU’, Granma, July 27, 1996, 3.
70 M. Hernández, ‘Béisbol alzó nuestra bandera’, Granma, August 3, 1996, 1.
71 M. Hernández, ‘¿Se acabó el mundo?’, Granma, September 28, 2000, 3.
72 F. Triana, ‘Fustiga Cuba el doping y la comercialización’, Granma, September 28, 2000, 4.
73 M. Hernández, ‘¡Savón ya es leyenda!’, Granma, September 30, 2000, 6.
74 Redacción Granma, ‘Mujeres que tocaron el cielo’, Granma, September 30, 2000, 6.
75 O. Sánchez and R. López Hevia, ‘Los peloteros coronaron a su pueblo con el oro olímpico’, Granma, August 26, 2004, 5.
76 F. Castro, ‘Reflexiones del compañero Fidel. Para el honor, Medalla de Oro’, Granma, August 25, 2008, 2.
77 S. Barros, ‘Más allá del revés’, Granma, August 25, 2008, 3.
78 H. Iglesias Manresa, ‘Dos décadas de llaves dorados y…’, Granma, August 16, 2012, 7.
79 B.A. Coya, ‘Idalys es…¡de oro!’, Granma, August 4, 2012, 7.
80 A. Nacianceno, ‘La Cruz, campeón olímpico.” Granma, August 18, 2016, (special supplement), 2.
81 C. Lane, The Rites of Rulers: Ritual in Industrial Society-the Soviet Case (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
82 Slack, ‘Cuba’s Political Involvement in Sport Since the Socialist Revolution’.
83 Angelini et al. ‘Nationalism in the United States and Canadian Primetime Broadcast Coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympics’; Billings et al. ‘The Patriotism Down Under’; Vincent and Crossman, ‘Patriots at Play’.
84 Allen, ‘National Heroes’; S. Ličen and A.C. Billings, ‘Cheering for “Our” Champs by Watching “Sexy” Female Throwers: Representation of Nationality and Gender in Slovenian 2008 Summer Olympic Television Coverage’, European Journal of Communication 28, no. 4 (2013): 379–6.
85 Ramon, ‘Sports Journalism Ethics and Quality of Information’.
86 S.C. Hong and K.S. Oh, ‘Determinants of Sports Coverage: Newsworthiness in US Media Coverage of Foreign Athletes during the London 2012 Olympic Games’, Journalism, 21, no. 7 (2017).
87 Billings et al., Olympic Television.
88 Despite Cuba not taking part in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, four articles about the Games were found in the sample. In these articles, all of which appeared in the days leading up to the Games, Granma explains the reasons for the boycott and the consequences for the future of Cuban sport.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Victor Hasbani
Victor Hasbani is a PhD student at the Department of Communication of Pompeu Fabra University (UPF). His doctoral thesis focuses on how print media has addressed the Cuban successes in the Olympic Games from Montreal 1976 to Rio 2016. He lectures in sports journalism in the MA in Sports Journalism at the UPF Barcelona School of Management (BSM-UPF). Hasbani graduated in History from the University of Milan and holds a degree in Social Communication from the UPF.
Sergi Cortiñas-Rovira
Sergi Cortiñas-Rovira is a tenured professor at the Department of Communication of Pompeu Fabra University (UPF). He coordinates the Scientific Communication Research Group (GRECC-OCC). He is the director of the MA in Sports Journalism at the UPF Barcelona School of Management (BSM-UPF). Dr. Cortiñas holds a PhD in Social Communication from UPF, a BA in Chemical Sciences from the University of Barcelona (UB) and another one in Journalism from the UPF.
Xavier Ramon
Xavier Ramon is a lecturer at the Department of Communication of Pompeu Fabra University (UPF). He holds a PhD in Communication from the UPF. His research interests lie in the intersection of sports communication, journalism ethics and the Olympic studies. His research has been published in Communication & Sport, International Journal of Sport Communication, Digital Journalism, Journalism Studies and Journal of Sport and Social Issues. He has been a visiting researcher at the University of Stirling, the University of Glasgow, the University of Alabama and the IOC Olympic Studies Centre.