Italian black sporting stars in the media: The representation of Paola Egonu and Mario Balotelli.

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the media representation of the most prominent black Italian sport personalities of the last decade. Paola Egonu is the star of the women’s national volleyball team and one of the most visible female athletes in Italy. Mario Balotelli was hailed as the testimonial of the “new Italians” when the national men’s football team reached the final at the 2012 UEFA Men’s European Football Championship (Euro 2012). The chapter provides a comparative overview of the ways Egonu and Balotelli have been represented as “Italians” in the field of sport and beyond. Their blackness has never escaped media framing, but Egonu, as a female black Italian, has been allowed a certain degree of “fluidity” in her articulation of identity, which has been generally denied to Balotelli. Drawing on qualitative analysis of popular sports media, the chapter discusses the ways race and whiteness are embedded and made invisible in the articulation of Italianness. At the same time, it emphasises the importance of using an intersectional lens in analysing media representation of race and national identity of sport personalities.