Media Representation and Celebrity Discourse: Editorial Approaches to Sachin Tendulkar’s Retirement

JAYAKRISHNAN SREEKUMAR
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India

Abstract
The retirement of Sachin Tendulkar, unarguably one of the greatest cricketers the world has ever witnessed, was a major landmark in the recent history of sport and generated a widespread media discourse across the world. This paper analyses how differently Indian and foreign media engaged with this celebrity discourse through a comparative analysis of the online editorials of three leading international dailies namely, The Hindu (India), The Guardian (UK) and The New York Times (US) during a given period. During the study, the researcher identified contrasting online editorial approaches (Indian and non-Indian pattern) to the treatment of Tendulkar ’s retirement. The retirement articles of other Indian greats in these three newspapers were also analysed and compared with the articles on Tendulkar. A number of variables and sub-variables were identified and analysed to discuss the key differences in the two ‘patterns’ of media representation. The paper concluded that while the Indian pattern idolised Tendulkar and made comparisons to God; the ‘non-Indian pattern’ was objective and neutral.

Keywords: Comparative analysis, editorials, media discourse, media representation, retirement, Sachin Tendulkar

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Jayakrishnan Sreekumar is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Amrita University, Tamil Nadu, India. His major research interests include film studies, news broadcasting, and sport and the media.