In a league of her own: WISPA Foundation Member Toni Bruce wins major award

Sports media researcher and sociologist Professor Toni Bruce from Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland has led the contemporary study of women in sports media internationally and has now been recognised with a major award.

Professor Bruce has received the International Communication Association’s (ICA) Sport Communication Legacy Award, given to scholars with a distinguished record of research who have positively influenced the development and growth of sport communication at the highest level.

She is delighted with the accolade, and particularly its acknowledgement of her work in the area of gender and media representation.

“I am truly humbled that my work has made a difference," she says. " I recognise that I stand on the shoulders of others who have inspired and challenged me. In this endlessly fascinating field, I'm constantly learning from others who, like me, are grappling with how to address issues in sports media representation in more sophisticated and complex ways.”

Quite simply, the contemporary study of women in sport and sport media is largely built on the foundation provided by Professor Bruce."

Professor Michael ButterworthUniversity of Texas at Austin

Her groundbreaking studies of race, national identity, disability and especially gender, were noted by Sport Communication Interest Group (SCIG) executive committee chair Professor Michael Butterworth, from the University of Texas at Austin.

“Quite simply, the contemporary study of women in sport and sport media is largely built on the foundation provided by Professor Bruce," he says.

“Professor Bruce is among a very select group of scholars to have legitimised the communicative study of sport, especially through her efforts to synthesise scholarly conversations in mass communication and sociology.”

The committee also recognised Professor Bruce’s mentoring of countless students and scholars, and her service to organisations like the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport, for whom she served as the first non-North American president, as well as her contributions to the many journals for which she sits on the editorial board.

Toni Bruce is currently an associate editor for Communication and Sport, and is on the editorial boards of Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health and the European Journal for Sport in Society. She also serves on the executive board of WomenSport International.

Established in 2015, this award is only given at the discretion of the SCIG, and Professor Bruce, who is based at the University’s Faculty of Education and Social Work, is its third recipient. She’ll be presented with it at the ICA Conference on the Gold Coast in June.