Abstract

This study advances research on high school students’ attitudes about sex, gender, and identity in sport before and after a digital media literacy intervention. Expanding on past research that typically utilizes digital media literacy as a mechanism for health awareness, this study ascertains how student athletes, spectators, non-athletes, and non-fans differ in gaining critical distance from gendered hierarchies in sport. Results show that reproduction of hegemonic gendered hierarchies in sport is dependent upon collaborative versus individual analysis and production, and it also points to the power of media literacy, mentors, and mentor texts to inspire critical distance from mediated messages. Across all sub-populations, participants in this digital media literacy intervention expressed knowledge of inequities in sports due to gendered hierarchies, envisioned at least partial inroads to sports egalitarianism, and scored significantly higher on a post-intervention “Attitudes about Sex and Gender in Sports” survey.