Dunja Antunovic
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Pronouns: she, her, hers
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Associate Professor, Sport Sociology; Honors Faculty Representative; College Consultative Committee
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Office Hours
By appointment
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School of Kinesiology
202B Cooke Hall
1900 University Ave SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455-0376 - 612-310-0421
- dunjaant@umn.edu
Areas of interest
Gender, sport and media; sport sociology; sport communication; sport history
PhD, Mass Communications, Pennsylvania State University, 2015
MA, Journalism, DePaul University, 2011
BA, Journalism; Women’s and Gender Studies, DePaul University, 2009
Dunja Antunovic (PhD) is an Associate Professor in Sport Sociology. She teaches courses on the cultural, historical and philosophical dimensions of sport.
Her research focuses on the intersection of gender, sport, and media, including:
- media practices in women’s sport
- cross-national analyses of media coverage in international sport
- theoretical and methodological approaches on media in sport sociology
Antunovic's research on media practicecs in women's sport builds upon the initiatives of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport to examine the amount and type of coverage (e.g., in newspapers, magazines, advertisements, film). In addition, her publications critically analyze the historical and contemporary changes in the sport industry, for example the hiring of first women in sport media organization, emergence of digital media platforms, and collective initiatives to promote women’s sport. She is also working on studies that examine how sport organizations (teams, leagues), sponsors, and athletes use media for advocacy.
Antunovic is also conducts cross-national comparative research that examines representations of sports, gender, national, identity and disability in United States and in Central and Eastern Europe.
Her interdisciplinary publications have appeared in top international journals in the fields of sport sociology, sport history, and sport communication. Antunovic also regularly contributes to edited collections with articles on digital media and sport, feminist theoretical and methodological approaches, and global perspectives. She has served on the editorial boards for Sociology of Sport Journal and Communication & Sport.
Antunovic was nationally ranked tennis player in Division I intercollegiate athletics and she played for the Hungarian national team at the FISU World University Games in Bangkok 2007 and Belgrade 2009.
Awards and Recognitions
Antunovic is a recipient of numerous international awards across the disciplines including:
- 2022 Sociology of Sport Journal (SSJ) Early Career Researcher Award from Human Kinetics. Awarded at the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport (NASSS) annual conference
- 2021 Mary Ann Yodelis Smith Award for Feminist Scholarship. Awarded by the Commission on the Status of Women at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC)
Antunovic is a Page Center Legacy Scholar, a recognition for receiving a grant in corporate social advocacy from the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication at Penn State University.
At the University of Minnesota, Antunovic received the 2022 Women's Philanthropic Leadership Circle's "Rising Star" Award given to a faculty member "committed to empowering women" in the College of Education and Human Development.
Cooky, C. & Antunovic, D. (2022). Serving Equality: Feminism, Media, and Women's Sport. Peter Lang. https://www.peterlang.com/document/1145661
Antunovic, D. & Bartoluci, S. (2022). Sport, gender, and national interest during the Olympics: A comparative analysis of media representations in Central and Eastern Europe. International Review for the Sociology of Sport. https://doi.org/10.1177/10126902221095686
Antunovic, D. & Bundon, A. (2022). Media coverage of the Paralympics: Recommendations for sports journalism practice and education. International Journal of Sport Communication, 15(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsc.2021-0061
Lebel, K., Mumcu, C., Pegoraro, A., LaVoi, N., Lough, N. & Antunovic, D. (2021). Re-thinking women's sport research: Looking in the mirror and reflecting forward. Frontiers in Sports and Active Liviing 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2021.746441
Antunovic, D. & Linden, A. D. (2020). “Powerful lessons” in women’s sport: ESPN’s Nine for IX Series. Journal of Sport and Social Issues. https://doi.org/10.1177/0193723519899245
Antunovic, D. (2019). “We wouldn’t say it to their faces”: Online harassment, women sports journalists, and feminism. Feminist Media Studies,19(3), 428-442. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2018.1446454
Antunovic, D. & Whiteside, E. (2018). Feminist sports media studies: State of the field. In D. Harp, J. Loke, & I. Bachmann (Eds.) Feminist Approaches to Media Theory and Research, pp. 111-130. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Antunovic, D. (2017). “You had to cover Nadia Comaneci”: “Points of change” in coverage of women’s sport. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 33(13), 1551-1573. doi: 10.1080/09523367.2016.1254623.
Antunovic, D., Soltis, K., Pegoraro, A., Mumcu, C., LaVoi, M., Lebel K., & Lough, N. (2022, August 3). "To build a more just society": WNBA teams' uses of digital platforms for advocacy and community relations. Paper presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication conference. Detroit, MI.
Antunovic, D., Licen, S. & Bartoluci, S. (2022, May 26). “Our” region, many voices: Sport media research in Central and Eastern Europe. Paper presented at the “One World, Many Voices: The Future of Sports Communication” pre-conference at the meeting of the International Communication Association. Paris, France.
Antunovic, D. & Cooky, C. (2021, May 27-31). “Take a Stand” and “Kick Inequality”: Articulations of feminism in promotional culture of women’s sports. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association. (Virtual.)
Antunovic, D. & Cooky. C. (2018, November). “A beautiful triumph”: Feminism in sport films. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport. Vancouver, BC.