Content analysis of biological sex-specific media coverage of sport: The case of National Collegiate Athletic Association athletic department home webpages

2021 ◽  
pp. 101269022110296
Author(s):  
Benjamin Burroughs ◽  
Margo Malik ◽  
Richard Johnson ◽  
Miles Romney
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
National Collegiate Athletic Association ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Women's Sports ◽  
Athletic Department ◽  
Male Athletes ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Biological Sex ◽  
Not For Profit ◽  
Women’S Sports

Studies have found that media coverage of women's sports is inadequate when compared with coverage of men's sports with regards to the amount of coverage as well as the type of coverage across men's and women’s sports. With few exceptions, past research has found inequitable coverage of female and male athletes in every media form studied, from print and television to the internet. Some exceptions to the findings include not-for-profit media, such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association News, and internet-based publications. The current study combined the two media types to determine if athletic departments that are affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association offer more balanced coverage of female and male athletes on their official websites than has been found in past research. The results revealed that although the type of coverage the athletes received was similar, the amount was not. In articles and photographs on National Collegiate Athletic Association athletic department home webpages, females were underrepresented in comparison to their participation rates in collegiate athletics. These webpages from 30 not-for-profit, National Collegiate Athletic Association affiliated institutions, across six conferences, did not lead to the overall balance in coverage that was originally expected. implications for Title IX are discussed.

Website Coverage of NCAA Basketball: Are Women Getting Equal Playing Time?

2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle L. Redmond ◽  
Lynn L. Ridinger ◽  
Frederick L. Battenfield
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Female Athletes ◽  
Women's Sports ◽  
Male Athletes ◽  
College Basketball ◽  
Main Page ◽  
Women’S Sports ◽  
The Media ◽  
Playing Time ◽  
Sports News

Opportunities for girls and women to participate in sports have been increasing since the enactment of Title IX; however, the media attention given to female athletes and women’s sports has lagged behind. Media coverage of female athletes has been investigated extensively in newspapers and magazines; however, few studies have examined the attention given to women’s sports on the Internet.This study focused on one sports news website to examine and compared the coverage of female and male athletes and coaches in one specific sport, college basketball. A content analysis was conducted on ESPN.com during the 2007 NCAA Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments. Results showed that women and men do not receive the same attention on the main page; however, equity was evident when the webpage for women’s college basketball was compared to the webpage for men’s college basketball.

“I Can’t Stand Women’s Sports”: The Perception of Women’s Sports by Polish Sports Journalists

2019 ◽  
pp. 216747951987688 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Organista ◽  
Zuzanna Mazur ◽  
Michał Lenartowicz
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Women's Sports ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Sports Media ◽  
Radio Stations ◽  
Women’S Sports ◽  
Sports Coverage ◽  
Inferior Status ◽  
Female Sports ◽  
Socializing Agents

This article analyzes the opinions of Polish male ( n = 18) and female ( n = 18) sports journalists on the representation of women’s sports in media coverage. The surveyed journalists represented journalists from national television stations, radio stations, and press and Internet media. Some of them were working simultaneously in various mass media outlets. In-depth interviews were conducted in various locations in Poland in 2018. An analysis of the journalists’ views from 36 semi-structured interviews indicated a general consensus among the surveyed sports journalists, both male and female, on the inferior status of women’s sports and women’s sports coverage, a negation of need to realign the inequitable coverage of women’s sports and the perception that sports are a neutral institution with respect to gender. The investigated female sports journalists presented more negative and straightforward views on women’s sports than their male colleagues. This article also indicates the minority status of female sports journalists in Poland and their process of socialization in the profession; it discusses the first male socializing agents that introduced and influenced the female journalists with respect to sports as factors that may be responsible for the journalists’ biased belief in the subordinate nature of women’s sports in general and their secondary position in sports media.

scholarly journals Gender Representation of Athletes in Finnish and Swedish Tabloids

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antti Laine
Keyword(s):  
Media Studies ◽  
Female Athletes ◽  
Gender Representation ◽  
Sporting Events ◽  
Women's Sports ◽  
Sports Journalism ◽  
Male Athletes ◽  
Winter Olympics ◽  
Women’S Sports ◽  
Sports Coverage

Abstract The study examines quantitatively and qualitatively gender representation in Finnish and Swedish tabloids’ sports coverage during Athens 2004 summer and Turin 2006 winter Olympics. Several media studies argue that sports journalism marginalises women’s sports and sexualises female athletes. The results of this study show that male athletes received more coverage than female athletes in every tabloid, but when the number of domestic participants and their level of success were considered, neither country’s tabloids quantitatively marginalised women’s sports. Qualitative analysis found that research stereotypes showing trivialisation and sexualisation of female athletes were incorrect, with the exception of Finnish tabloids representations of female athletes participating in sports that are considered masculine. For the most part, female athletes were represented in the same way as male athletes. However, it should be emphasised that the material is limited to Olympics coverage: during such major sporting events women are treated more equally, particularly quantitatively.

Newswork, News Values, and Audience Considerations

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 647-668 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merryn Sherwood ◽  
Angela Osborne ◽  
Matthew Nicholson ◽  
Emma Sherry
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Female Athletes ◽  
Women's Sports ◽  
News Values ◽  
Sports Media ◽  
Repetitive Nature ◽  
Women’S Sports ◽  
Sports Coverage ◽  
Male Dominated ◽  
Sports News

Substantial research indicates that women’s sports and female athletes gain only a small fraction of sports media coverage worldwide. Research that has examined why this is the case suggested this can be attributed to three particular factors that govern sports newswork: the male-dominated sports newsroom, ingrained assumptions about readership, and the systematic, repetitive nature of sports news. This study sought to explore women’s sports coverage using a different perspective, exploring cases where women’s sports gained coverage. It identified Australian newspapers that published more articles on women’s sports, relative to their competitors, and conducted interviews with both journalists and editors at these newspapers. It found that small, subtle changes to the three newswork elements that had previously relegated the coverage of women’s sports now facilitated it. This research provides evidence that, at least in some newspapers in Australia, sports newswork has developed to include the coverage of women’s sports.

Epidemiology of Concussions in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Sports: 2014/15-2018/19

2021 ◽  
pp. 036354652110603
Author(s):  
Avinash Chandran ◽  
Adrian J. Boltz ◽  
Sarah N. Morris ◽  
Hannah J. Robison ◽  
Aliza K. Nedimyer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
National Collegiate Athletic Association ◽  
Injury Rate ◽  
Ice Hockey ◽  
Surveillance Program ◽  
Women's Sports ◽  
Recurrent Injury ◽  
Women’S Sports ◽  
Rate Ratios ◽  
Epidemiology Studies ◽  
Women's Soccer

Background: Updated epidemiology studies examining sports-related concussions (SRCs) are critical in evaluating recent efforts aimed at reducing the incidence of SRCs in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sports. Purpose: To describe the epidemiology of SRCs in 23 NCAA sports during the 2014/15-2018/19 academic years. Study Design: Descriptive epidemiology study. Methods: SRC and exposure data collected in the NCAA Injury Surveillance Program were analyzed. Injury counts, rates, and proportions were used to describe injury characteristics by sport, event type (practices, competitions), injury mechanism (player contact, surface contact, equipment/apparatus contact), and injury history (new, recurrent). Injury rate ratios (IRRs) were used to examine differential injury rates, and injury proportion ratios (IPRs) were used to examine differential distributions. Results: A total of 3497 SRCs from 8,474,400 athlete-exposures (AEs) were reported during the study period (4.13 per 10,000 AEs); the competition-related SRC rate was higher than was the practice-related SRC rate (IRR, 4.12; 95% CI, 3.86-4.41). The highest SRC rates were observed in men’s ice hockey (7.35 per 10,000 AEs) and women’s soccer (7.15 per 10,000 AEs); rates in women’s soccer and volleyball increased during 2015/16-2018/19. Player contact was the most prevalently reported mechanism in men’s sports (77.0%), whereas equipment/apparatus contact was the most prevalently reported mechanism in women’s sports (39.2%). Sex-related differences were observed in soccer, basketball, softball/baseball, and swimming and diving. Most SRCs reported in men’s sports (84.3%) and women’s sports (81.1%) were reported as new injuries. Conclusion: Given the increasing SRC rates observed in women’s soccer and volleyball during the latter years of the study, these results indicate the need to direct further attention toward trajectories of SRC incidence in these sports. The prevalence of equipment/apparatus contact SRCs in women’s sports also suggests that SRC mechanisms in women’s sports warrant further investigation. As most SRCs during the study period were reported as new injuries, the prevalence of recurrent SRCs in men’s and women’s ice hockey is also noteworthy.

Anything Can Happen in Women’s Tennis, or Can It? An Empirical Investigation Into Bias in Sports Journalism

2019 ◽  
pp. 216747951989057
Author(s):  
Alice N. Tejkalova ◽  
Ladislav Kristoufek
Keyword(s):  
Female Athletes ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Women's Sports ◽  
Sports Journalism ◽  
Male Athletes ◽  
Special Events ◽  
Women’S Sports ◽  
Rank Difference ◽  
The Common ◽  
Year 2000

The claim that “anything is possible in women’s sports” frequently employed by both sports journalists and general audiences highlights the widespread perception of a seemingly uncontested truth about female athletes and their (in)ability to perform consistently at peak levels in comparison to male athletes. We focus on this treatment of female athletes in the world of women’s tennis and contest the “common sense” and “experience” justifications of the unpredictability in women’s sports with actual data to reveal clear media bias. Utilising a database of the Association of Tennis Professionals and Women’s Tennis Association tournaments dating back to the late 1960s and covering approximately 225,000 fully described matches, we examine the “anything can happen in women’s tennis” assumption through logistic regression, focusing on the effect of rank differential on the winning probability in the match while controlling for other factors (tournament type and stage, court surface, age differential, and elite players). The results are rather shocking. The women’s matches do not show higher instability or lower predictability at all, but rather the contrary—the men’s matches show lower dependence on the rank difference. The results are robust as checked for data sets of the year 2000 onwards and those including only special events such as Grand Slams.

BCS Conference Coverage: An Investigation of the Gender Coverage Provided on Intercollegiate Athletic Websites within a Major NCAA Power Conference

2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-27
Author(s):  
Coyte Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Title Ix ◽  
National Collegiate Athletic Association ◽  
Athletic Departments ◽  
Intercollegiate Athletic ◽  
Ethical Concerns ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Not For Profit ◽  
Units Of Measurement ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Academic Year

The current study was an investigation of the gender coverage provided on intercollegiate athletic websites within a major BCS conference during the 2005-06 academic year. Due to Title IX and ethical concerns, the expectation was that the BCS sites would provide equitable gender coverage because the athletic departments were part of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Overall, the results revealed that females received highly favorable article (41.2%) and photographic (46.0%) coverage allocations when compared to past content analyses on not-for-profit media outlets. Despite this fact, the results demonstrated that there was a statistically significant difference in the coverage provided to females and males within each of the units of measurement analyzed. Furthermore, the analysis revealed that females received their least favorable coverage allocations within the following units of measurement: advertisements (15.5%) and multimedia (2.5%).

scholarly journals Guardians of the Hegemonic Structure of Sports? Women’s Sports as Perceived by Polish Female Sports Journalists

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-64
Author(s):  
Natalia Organista ◽  
Zuzanna Mazur
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Professional Socialization ◽  
Minority Status ◽  
Women's Sports ◽  
Women's Sport ◽  
Amount Of Information ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
Women’S Sports ◽  
Female Journalists ◽  
Female Sports

The under-representation of media coverage of women’s sports has been a long-standing phenomenon, which can also be observed in Poland (Dziubiński, Organista and Mazur 2019; Jakubowska 2015; Kluczyńska 2011). One of the possible reasons for less information on women’s sports is a small number of female sports journalists. Due to the lack of Polish research on female sports journalists, the authors of this article aimed at analyzing their beliefs about women’s sports and the under-representation of media coverage of women’s sports in the Polish media. The analysis has shown that the female journalists perceive women’s sports as inferior to men’s sports and are not in favor of increasing the amount of information about women’s sports. The authors point to the socialization into sport, the professional socialization of the research participants, their minority status in the profession as well as their perception of masculinity, femininity, and professionalism in journalism as possible reasons for the way in which women’s sport is perceived by them.

Still marginalized: Gender inequalities in the largest Polish daily’s sports coverage

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dziubiński Zbigniew ◽  
Natalia Organista ◽  
Zuzanna Mazur
Keyword(s):  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Press Coverage ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Women's Sports ◽  
Women’S Sports ◽  
Sports Coverage ◽  
Female Sports ◽  
The Media ◽  
English Speaking

Abstract The studies conducted over recent decades on media sports coverage indicatedmajor underrepresentation of women’s sports. The underrepresentation of women’s sports in the media is aligned with the perception of sport as a masculine construct with sportswomen as the ‘other’. However, most studies were conducted in English-speaking countries. In this article we present our findings of press media coverage in Poland. The aim of the study was to provide an analysis of sports press coverage in the largest Polish daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, with respect to gender inequality. The chosen method was content analysis. The results show an underrepresentation of women’s sports in the examined press coverage – only 12.5% of all articles concerned female sports. Qualitative analysis demonstrates that the articles differed in terms of the athletes’ gender as well. The study highlighted the gender-dependent nature of the examined sports press coverage in Poland.

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