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The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
Core and Periphery in Sports News: An Application of World System Theory to
Media Coverage of 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa
Sungmin Kang and Rin Woo
School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea
INTRODUCTION
The FIFA World Cup is one of biggest sports events in the world. All eyes are focused on
everything that happens among the participating countries, especially sports media. However,
all participants are not evenly covered by such media since most people are interested in
some major participants such as Brazil, Argentina, England, Italy, Germany, Portugal, etc.,
which consist of star players and a coach. According to Wallerstein’s world system theory
(1974, 1976, 1996), countries in the world belong to three strata—core, semi-periphery, and
periphery - based on their political and economic power. In international news, the core
countries have been covered more easily and frequently than the countries in the other two
zones. In other words, the whole world has a systematized hierarchy.
How about sports news? This study assumes that not only the political and economic power
of a country are expected to influence media coverage, but the significance of a country in a
particular sport also predicts how prominently the country is covered. For example, it is
without question that Brazil, a country famous for soccer, would be covered prominently;
however, we expect that the US, unrecognized as one of the countries that excel in soccer,
also receives considerable coverage due to its political and economic power. Moreover, Côte
d'Ivoire, having star players even though it's one of the less developed countries, would be
prominently covered as much as some of the developed countries.
Therefore, this study examines how news media differently covered the countries that
participated in the 2010 World Cup South Africa, based on Wallenstein’s world system
theory.
LITERATURE REVIEW
World System Theory
Wallerstein proposed the world system theory to extend the dependency theory
because dependency theory's idea of two levels is so simple (Wallerstein, 1974, 1979,
1996). Dependency theory consists of the power hierarchy between the core and the
periphery. This means that "the core" which is vigorous and rich dominates "the
periphery" which is weak and poor. The developed countries play a role as the center
of a present system while the less-developed countries play a role in the periphery.
Modern world system exhibits the parts consisted of the discernible communication
and behavioral rules among the countries through the capitalist/market logic (Chang,
1998).
According to the world system theory, the core-periphery hierarchy has understood the
social structures and stratification of countries. Core countries (the United States,
Europe, and Japan) have greater economic and political/military power than peripheral
countries (most countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America). In between is a group
of countries (the semi-periphery) which has an intermediate level of power. These
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