From Marginalization to Visibility: Discursive Constructions of Saudi Women in Local Sport News

Abstract

This study examines how Saudi women are discursively constructed in local sports news and explores how their engagement in sport is represented within the country’s broader sociopolitical transformation. Adopting a corpus-assisted discourse analytical approach, the study analyses a specialised corpus of Saudi Gazette online news articles published between 2020 and 2024. Corpus linguistic tools are used to identify dominant thematic patterns, social actors, and social actions, which are subsequently interpreted through Theo van Leeuwen’s socio-semantic framework. The findings reveal that Saudi women are increasingly constructed as visible and active participants across multiple sport domains, particularly in global competitions such as football and the Olympics. Material processes associated with participation, achievement, and institutional development dominate the discourse, positioning women as contributors to a rapidly expanding sporting landscape, although leadership and decision-making roles remain largely linked to institutional actors. By analysing Saudi women’s representations in local media discourse, this study contributes to scholarship on Muslim women and sport by offering an internally grounded account that challenges dominant external portrayals of Muslim women as passive and marginalised. The findings demonstrate how sport discourse participates in constructing a progressive narrative of Saudi women’s empowerment aligned with the national reform agenda of Saudi Vision 2030.