FORE! : How Saudi Arabia is using golf to change its image

 It is no secret that Saudi Arabia does not have the best track record when it comes to human rights, the whole world knows it. Like many of their gulf neighbors, Saudi Arabia is attempting to use sport as a way to change the international and internal image of itself. They are using the billions of “blood money” dollars to lure some of the world's best golfers away from the already established and prestigious PGA Tour to their own LIV Golf series as a form of “sportwashing” and to help change the narrative of their nation. This attempt, as outlined in this New York Times article, is the most bold of any of the gulf nations as a way to sport wash people from viewing Saudi Arabia as a human rights disaster to a more “conservative muslim nation” that backs and particpiates in world sport. What makes this attempt so bold is that instead of backing a sport or like its neighbor Qatar, hosting a FIFA World Cup, they are attempting to completely take over a sport, one that has its own controversial history with inclusion and diversity. 

The attempt to overrun the historical white elitist sport of golf (which the PGA Tour has had its own struggles rebranding itself as a more diverse sport) and upsetting the nearly one hundred year PGA Tour system of professional golf is by far the boldest attempt yet by a middle eastern nation attempting to change their image. The emergence of the LIV Golf Series and the departure of top PGA players to join them for reported absurd amounts of money, have all raised the questions and concerns of the LIV Golf motives and then also the history of the PGA Tour and how it has historically treated its players and its lack of equal opportunities to those of color. 

Despite the LIV Golf Series gaining traction and more players resigning from the PGA Tour to join LIV, it really hasn’t changed professional golf yet as still the majority of the world's top players continue to play for the PGA Tour. And with every player that joins LIV they get grilled by the media about Saudi Arabia’s history of human rights violations and whether or not they condone it because of the money they are willing to accept from them to support this PR movement by the Saudi Arabian government. So, at least right now Saudi Arabia is not being left off the hook for backing LIV golf as currently people see through it. But as more and more players jump ship over to LIV and they play more and more events, especially when the start to play events in the US starting in July, it will be interesting to see just how effective this “sportwashing” can be and if it truly does change the narrative of Saudi Arabia.

Module 15 - Cultural Hegemony (Module 9)

Domination of one social class or a group in society describes hegemony. As of lately, hegemony has become a strong part of mass media, in the news particularly. For my example of, I chose to write about hegemony and how it is involved with the news. Each news station is viewed as something that is independent or differing from other news stations. What many of the viewers do not realize is that many states require news channels to cover certain parts of the news, and leave other parts out for the sake of the state ultimately controlling what the public knows and does not know, or trying their best to at least. Many stations are required certain topics, and are held accountable if they do not report on the proper things, as the state has the idea that by controlling what the viewers see, naturally they can control what they viewers think about said topics depending on the presentation of those topics. Often times, you may notice something that is portrayed in the news as a positive thing although in your mind you know it isn’t a positive thing, like framing the raising of tax percentage by providing pros to the topic and leaving out the cons, for this topic specifically the con would be ultimately needing to pay more in taxes, which is more money coming out of the tax payers pocket at the end of the day to go towards doing something that may not necessarily benefit all tax payers. By using the framing technique, media often controls the crowd by making an idea or thought seem ideal to the viewer when in actuality it is affecting them more than helping them.