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A REVIEW OF LITERATURE ON THE STATUS, EFFECTS, AND CAUSAL FACTORS
INVOLVED IN THE DIFFERENCES IN MEDIA COVERAGE FOR MEN'S AND WOMEN'S ATHLETICS
Elizabeth Ann Gibler
Student
University of Missouri-Columbia, School of Journalism
[log in to unmask]
(816) 522-8330
8 Dorsey St. #3, Columbia, MO 65201
STATEMENT OF STUDENT AUTHORSHIP
This paper was written exclusively by Elizabeth Ann Gibler, a
graduate student at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism.
ABSTRACT
In this paper, the literature on gender differences in sports
coverage is examined for an understanding of the issue's current
status as well as its causes and effects. Despite the continuing
increase in interest and participation in women's sports, media
coverage for female athletes has actually declined over the past
decade. This unequal media coverage affects female participation and
body image as well as the professional opportunities available to
female athletes.
A REVIEW OF LITERATURE ON THE STATUS, EFFECTS, AND CAUSAL FACTORS
INVOLVED IN THE DIFFERENCES OF MEDIA COVERAGE FOR MEN'S AND WOMEN'S ATHLETICS
It is widely understood that media coverage differs between men's and
women's athletics. Since the 1972 adoption of Title IX, which set
standards of equality among female and male collegiate athletes,
there has been rising national interest in not only equal opportunity
and participation for female athletes, but also equality in media
coverage of women's athletics. The general belief held about sports
coverage is that male athletes receive far more coverage than female
athletes in the media. Beyond this are less widely held theories on
the quality of media coverage for women's sports, the most popular
being the sexualization of female athletes. Research in this area is
designed to identify the problems in coverage and their causes, as
well as demonstrate how this coverage can have a detrimental effect
on the athletes, their audience, and society as a whole.
Gendered media coverage of athletes is one of the most heavily
studied topics in the area of sports media. The scope of the research
in this area, however, could be much more comprehensive. Studies on
the topic focus primarily on the perceived bias against women in the
sports media. The majority of research is also confined to finding
evidence on the status of media coverage for men's and women's
athletics using content analyses to determine quantity and
quality. There are slightly fewer studies that also examine possible
causes for this phenomenon and even fewer studies that touch on its effects.
This paper will examine the breadth of research available on coverage
of athletes by gender to determine where research in this field
currently stands, in order to discover where it would be beneficial
for future research to go. First, the status of gendered media
coverage lies in two areas, quantity and quality. In terms of
quantity, it is clear the large majority of coverage is devoted to
male athletics, although there are a few instances where female
athletes reach or surpass their male counterparts in this
arena. Furthermore, although one would assume the emphasis on female
athlete equality would result in an increase in coverage, when
examining the media as a whole, this is not the case. Regarding
quality, there has been conflicting evidence found, especially
regarding the use of stereotypical descriptors, but the emphasis on
non-sport activities and sexuality in women's athletics is
clear. The placement and production value of women's sports also
reflects a possible bias.
Next, this paper will explore the effects of sports media on the
audience and the athlete through framing effects, participation, body
image, the creation of role models, and endorsements and
opportunities. The last aspect of research the paper examines is the
factors affecting media coverage of men's and women's athletics
including the gender of the media personnel, the gender of the
audience, the source of media funding, awareness of inequity,
traditional gender constructions of sport, and the market value of
sexuality. By and large, these factors have been unsubstantiated in
research or lie mostly in speculation. Finally, the paper will
identify holes in the literature and provide suggestions for further research.
STATUS OF GENDERED MEDIA COVERAGE
The first step towards determining whether differences in coverage
affect opportunities for female athletes, is to understand the way
the media is covering the athletes differently based upon their
gender. Coverage differs in two primary areas, quantity and
quality. Quantity of coverage involves how much time and space is
devoted to female athletes in the media compared to the time and
space devoted to male athletes in the same media. Women are
typically covered less than men except for in specific instances
where a concentrated emphasis has been placed upon women, such as the
1996 Olympics, the NCAA News, tennis, and women's sports
magazines. There are also significant differences in the amount of
time devoted within the coverage of women's sports. The research in
this area shows that while media coverage of women's athletics peaked
in the mid-nineties, it has been declining ever since.
The quality of coverage refers to the differences in media content
when covering male and female athletes. Research in this area has
focused primarily on the use of gendered descriptors and
stereotypical feminine or masculine language, but it has also
examined the general content of stories and photographs as well as
the placement and production value of the media coverage. By and
large the research on descriptors is inconclusive as a whole, but
clear patterns emerge in the analysis of general content, placement,
and production value.
Quantity of Coverage Devoted to Men's and Women's Athletics
Typically, men's sports receive far more coverage than women's
sports regardless of the sport or the medium. Studies on the
Olympics, the most popular single sporting event in the world, have
found that aside from the 1996 Olympics, dubbed "the women's games",
men's competitions have garnered far more airtime than the women's
competitions. In studies of the 1992 and 2000 Olympics broadcast by
NBC, not only did the men receive more coverage overall than the
women, but men's team sports received more coverage than women's team
sports, and when men and women placed equally in the same sport, the
men still received at least twice the coverage of the women (Tuggle,
Huffman, & Rosengard, 2002; Higgs, Weiller, & Martin, 2003).
In a study of broadcast media sports coverage done by Messner,
Duncan, and Cooky (2003), the three major network newscasts in Los
Angeles were found to not only cover women less, but to give women
virtually no airtime on weekdays, saving the bulk of women's coverage
for the weekends. The same study also found that despite the lack of
women's coverage on the networks, ESPN's SportsCenter was still found
to air an even smaller proportion of women's sports coverage.
SportsCenter, one of the top sports highlight shows in the nation,
has been the subject of several studies for its extreme lack of
coverage of women's sports. Over a one month period in 2002,
SportsCenter aired 778 stories about male athletes, 16 stories about
female athletes, and 13 stories focused on both genders. The
boundaries of the study were designed to include ESPN's designated
"Women in Sports Weekend", which produced only one women's story on
SportsCenter (Adams & Tuggle, 2004). In a previous study by Tuggle
(1997), SportsCenter and CNN's Sports Tonight were only found to give
about five percent of the airtime to women's athletics. In terms of
the print media, Sports Illustrated is the most widely read sports
publication in the United States and it was found to only devote ten
percent of its coverage to female athletes (Fink & Kensicki, 2002).
Unlike national media outlets, market forces do not drive campus
media, however, there is evidence to suggest that campus media
organizations still follow the lead of the mainstream media in
limiting the coverage of women's athletics. In a study of university
print and broadcast news, Huffman, Tuggle, and Rosengard (2004) found
that male athletes made up 72.2 percent of the stories in campus
newspapers and 81.5 percent of the stories in campus news
broadcasts. A study of university softball and baseball web sites in
1999 also found that women's teams received inequitable coverage
during both preseason and in-season coverage of the sports (Sagas,
Cunningham, Wigley, & Ashley, 2000). In terms of coverage quantity
within the sports broadcast, Women's NCAA basketball was found not to
generate as many lines of broadcaster commentary as the men's games
during the broadcasts of the 2000 NCAA Final Four (Billings, Halone,
& Denham, 2002). Although, a similar study the year before on NCAA
regular season games found women's and men's teams generated equal
amounts of commentary (Eastman & Billings, 2001). Although a measure
of quantity, lines of commentary may also be an issue of quality,
because the amount of time the broadcaster spends talking about the
game likely affects the viewer's experience of the sports cast.
The vast under-representation of female athletes that appears almost
standard in the media does not apply across the board. There are
instances where female athletes do take center-stage in the
media. For example, the 1996 Olympics were dubbed "the Woman's
games" and for the first time in NBC Olympic coverage, women received
more television coverage than the men in same sport competitions
(Higgs et al., 2003). NCAA not-for-profit media outlets are also
often a showcase for women's athletics. In the NCAA News, for
example, women receive coverage almost exactly proportional to the
percentage of female athletes competing in the NCAA (Cunningham,
Sagas, Sartore, Amsden, & Schelihase, 2004).
The biggest equalizer in the disparate coverage of men's and women's
athletics is found in the sport of tennis, both collegiate and
professional. In internet coverage of men's and women's collegiate
tennis teams on university sponsored web sites, women equaled and
surpassed the men in both the presence of team information and the
amount of in-season coverage (Cunningham, 2003). Female collegiate
athletes are also more likely to receive coverage in tennis than any
other sport on university newscasts (Huffman et al.,
2004). Professionally, tennis is the only sport in which women
challenge and supercede the men in either airtime or endorsements
(Spencer & McClung, 2001).
Women's sports magazines also give extra opportunity for coverage of
women's sports. In a study by Fink and Kensicki (2002), women
received more coverage than men in Sports Illustrated for Women. The
women, however, still did not receive as much coverage in Sports
Illustrated for Women as men received in Sports Illustrated.
The gender bias in the quantity of media coverage is not confined to
the proportion of men's and women's sports coverage alone. There are
time and length discrepancies within the coverage of women's
athletics as well. By far, women's individual sports receive more
coverage than women's team sports. In 1995, individual sports made
up 95 percent of women's sports coverage on Sports Center and Sports
Tonight (Tuggle, 1997). Of the stories SportsCenter aired on women
in one month in 2002, nine were on French Open tennis, three were on
women's golf, two were on the WNBA, one was on softball, and one was
on track, 13 of 16 stories on individual sports (Adams & Tuggle,
2004). Although the Olympic games include more individual events for
women than team events, the individual events still received a
disproportionate amount of airtime in 2000 (Tuggle et al.,
2002). Outside the individual event bias, women's sports requiring
physical power or hard body contact also receive little to no
coverage in the media (Tuggle et al., 2002).
In contrast to popular belief, an analysis of the available research
suggests that the proportion of coverage devoted to women's athletics
in the media is actually decreasing. Coverage began increasing in
the seventies with the introduction of Title IX and peaked in the
mid-nineties, around Women's World Cup Soccer and the 1996 Olympics,
before beginning the decline it is currently suffering from. In
terms of Olympic coverage, women's coverage increased from the 1992
games to the 1996 games, with the biggest increases occurring in
basketball, a 26 percent increase, and volleyball, a 69 percent
increase (Higgs et al., 2003). Women's sports coverage declined
proportionally, however, from the 1996 Olympics to the 2000 Olympics
(Tuggle et al., 2002).
In Sports Illustrated, a composite of studies spanning 40 years by
Bishop (2003) found that there was no increase in the proportion of
women's coverage for the entire time period. In fact, articles with
a shared focus of men and women had decreased and the percentage of
photographs featuring women also decreased. Despite its poor
statistics, SportsCenter did manage to slightly increase the
proportion of coverage it devoted to women from 1989 to 1999 (Messner
et al., 2003), however, it experienced a decrease in the proportion
of women's coverage from 1995 to 2002 (Adams & Tuggle, 2004),
supporting the peak and decline analysis.
Quality of Coverage Devoted to Men's and Women's Athletics
In sports media, female athletes not only receive a disproportionate
amount of coverage time and space, they also often receive a
different quality of coverage than male athletes. Literature in the
area of quality examines a wide range of indicating factors including
the use of gender and racially stereotypical descriptors, the context
of the coverage, an emphasis on sexuality and femininity, and
potential biases in segment placement and production.
The majority of research regarding the quality of media coverage on
women's sports deals with gendered descriptors. Typically, male
athletes are more often referred to in terms of their physicality,
athleticism, and commitment, while female athletes are referred to in
terms of their personality, appearance, and background (Billings &
Eastman, 2002; Billings et al., 2002; Higgs et al., 2003). This
theory was supported in a study of the 2000 NCAA Final Four
basketball tournament (Billings et al., 2002) and a study of the 2000
summer Olympics (Billings & Eastman, 2002). A similar study of the
1992 and 1996 Olympics found that the use of descriptors was
prevalant in individual sports such as gymnastics and swimming, but
much less significant in team sports like basketball and volleyball
(Higgs et al., 2003).
In coverage of the 1999 Women's World Cup Soccer Championship, an
event touted in the United States as bringing an increase in
popularity, coverage, and equality to women's sports, the women were
described using both stereotypically feminine and masculine
characteristics (Christopherson, Janning, & McConnell, 2002). The
coverage also resembled what sports scholars refer to as the
"essentialist perspective" which occurs when women's sports and
female athletes are described as playing a "cleaner" game
(Christopherson et al., 2002).
Within woman-specific coverage like Sports Illustrated for Women,
stereotypically feminine descriptors are still used (Fink & Kensicki,
2002). Racial issues are also more likely to turn up in women's
games than in men's games. For example, in regular season women's
NCAA basketball games, whites received more commentary than blacks,
there were proportionally fewer black commentators, and there were
more racially stereotypical descriptors used in women's games than in
men's games (Eastman & Billings, 2001). This is likely because men's
basketball is an older institution so the men's commentators have had
more time and experience to work out unconscious stereotypical
commentary. In addition, the commentators for men's games have
likely been instructed to watch for racially biased commentary while
the women's games are still primarily concerned with gender
stereotypes at this stage.
The context and type of the media coverage given to female athletes
also hints at biases in the coverage of men's and women's
athletics. According to Messner et al. (2003), coverage of women on
SportsCenter and network newscasts in 1999, during the theoretical
women's sports boom caused by Women's World Cup Soccer, women's
stories were typically in the form of humorous features on
non-serious women's sports. Although Fink and Kensicki (2002) found
that Sports Illustrated for Women depicted women in more sports
related settings in both articles and photographs, they also found
that the men in Sports Illustrated were still featured more
athletically than the women in Sports Illustrated for
Women. Furthermore, 55 percent of the photographs of women in Sports
Illustrated were in non-sport settings compared to 25 percent of male
photographs. Bishop (2003) also found that the photographs of women
in Sports Illustrated highlighted femininity instead of athleticism
and often the women pictured were not even athletes. In contrast,
women's articles in the NCAA News were more likely to contain factual
information than personal information and in the photographs, women
were more likely to be in competition than men (Cunningham et al., 2004).
A major area of speculative research in the quality of coverage of
women's athletics involves the perceived emphasis on sexuality and
femininity. Many researchers feel the "Kournikova effect" of
exploiting sexuality undermines the legitimacy of women's sports
(Spencer & McClung, 2001). In an analysis of media coverage of
women's sport in the nineties, Shugart (2003) found that the media
often uses passive objectification and sexualization of performances
in coverage of female athletes. Outside of sexuality, the large
majority of print coverage of the 1999 U.S. Women's World Cup soccer
players emphasized the fact that the players were women when covering
them (Christopherson et al., 2002).
The placement and production of athletic events, including the
gender of quoted sources, says a lot about the perceived importance
of that event. In the coverage of the 2000 Olympics, male sources
outnumbered the female sources (Tuggle et al., 2002). In one month
on SportsCenter and Sports Tonight, however, more men were quoted on
the shows, but a higher percentage of the women's stories used quoted
sources (Tuggle, 1997). In terms of placement, when the men's and
women's stories were on the same sport, the men's story typically
appeared first (Tuggle, 1997), and in Adams and Tuggle's study on
SportsCenter (2004), no female story involved a reporter or appeared
in the first two blocks. In the NCAA News, however, women maintained
preferential treatment by receiving more prominent placement in the
paper than the male athletes (Cunningham, et al., 2004).
Although SportsCenter and Sports Tonight have a bad record for
giving women unequal coverage, there is no difference in production
value between their male and female stories (Tuggle, 1997). In NCAA
Division I basketball, however, researchers found a difference in the
types and length of camera shots. Men's games had more court level
and full court camera shots and more on-screen graphics, while the
duration of close-ups were longer in the women's games. This type of
production makes the men's games appear more exciting and action
oriented while asking viewers of the women's games to identify with
the personal aspects of the players and coaches (Hallmark & Armstrong, 1999).
EFFECTS OF UNEQUAL COVERAGE ON THE AUDIENCE AND THE ATHLETE
The lack of gender balance in sports media coverage is only
important if it generates positive or negative effects on the
audience, athlete or society. So far, research suggests that the
absence of equality in coverage affects all three interest
groups. In terms of academic theory, researchers are most concerned
with how the absence of women's coverage frames women's sports as
less important. The tangible effects on the viewers and society are
most notably available when looking at increases in sports
participation among young women, the effects on body image and eating
disorders, and the development of role models. For the athletes, an
increase in media coverage can mean more endorsements and more
opportunities for women to compete at an elite or professional level.
Framing Theory Effects
The most common theory used to explain the possible effects of
gender biased sports media coverage is framing. The lack of coverage
for women's athletics implies to the audience that women's sports are
marginal and unimportant (Adams & Tuggle, 2004). Under this
analysis, the less women's sports are covered, the less there will be
an audience demand for them, and the more the media outlets can get
away with not covering them and not putting them on the public
agenda. Giving society the impression that women's sports are
inconsequential can have detrimental effects on the development of
women's sports programs and the opportunities women and girls have to
participate in athletics. The media also frames women's sports by
telling them what type of sports participation is appropriate and
acceptable for females (Huffman et al., 2004). According to the
current coverage, the audience is being told that it its acceptable
for women to participate in individual sports and sports that allow
for traditional roles of femininity but not to participate in sports
with traditionally masculine roles such as ones involving physical
power and hard body contact.
Effects on Participation
Since Title IX was put into place in 1972, and a corresponding
emphasis was placed on female athletes in the media, there has been a
dramatic increase in participation in women's athletics. According
to the National Federation of State High School Athletic
Associations, from 1971 to 2001, women in high school athletics
increased from 300,000 to 2,800,000 (Adams & Tuggle, 2004). There
was a 25 percent increase in participation of females from the age of
six and up in basketball from 1987 to 1997, during the same decade in
which women's professional basketball leagues were created and gained
prominence (Spencer & McClung, 2001). According to Women's Sports
Foundation Executive Director Donna Lopiano, the nineties saw a 37
percent increase in women's high school softball participation and
youth softball teams increased from 1.3 to 1.85 million (Spencer &
McClung, 2001). These are the same time periods in which media
coverage of women's sports was increasing.
Effects on Body Image and Eating Disorders
Researchers often worry about the images in the media because of the
impressionability of the children and teens watching. It is
relatively well known that sports participation is directly related
to better self-esteem and body image among women (Bissell, 2004), and
if media coverage increases participation, then an increase in media
coverage could indirectly improve the body images of the nation's
female youth. A study by Bissell (2004) also suggests that just the
exposure to sports media promotes better body image among
females. Increases in media coverage can also directly affect the
audience's body image and tendencies towards eating disorders as
well. Bissell (2004) found that women who view women's sports are
less likely than women who watch men's sports to have tendencies
towards eating disorders. The media also gives women polarized body
images of the strong athlete and the skinny super model, making it
difficult for young women to identify the ideal role model
(Christopherson et al., 2002). Christopherson et al. (2002)
suggests that the potential for female athletes to be good role
models and gain popularity comes from having both feminine and
masculine characteristics.
Effects on Endorsements and Opportunities
Endorsement opportunities increase for athletes as media coverage
increases for that athlete or that sport. The more endorsements that
are available to women, the more chances women have to compete at an
elite or professional level in sports, which in turn increases the
likelihood of coverage of women's sports. Currently the only sport
that women have equality with men in endorsements is in tennis. This
also happens to be the only sport in which women receive equal media
coverage with men (Spencer & McClung, 2001).
FACTORS AFFECTING SPORTS MEDIA COVERAGE
If improvements are ever going to be effectively made in the
coverage of women's sports, scholars, media personnel, and sports
personnel will have to have a greater understanding of what factors
cause the lack of coverage and what factors will improve the equality
of coverage. The gender of media personnel, although a popular focus
of this research, has not been found to have an effect on
coverage. Instead, more market-driven factors like the gender of the
expected audience, the type of media funding, and the marketability
of sexuality are more supported in research. Other factors include
the awareness of inequity, and socio-cultural issues like the
traditional gender constructions of sport.
The Gender of Media Personnel
The gender of media personnel has not been found to have any effect
on the coverage of women's sports. In 1995, even though SportsCenter
had a higher percentage of women on staff than Sports Tonight,
SportsCenter still aired a lower percentage of stories on women
(Tuggle, 1997). In collegiate basketball, the gender of the
commentator was found to make no difference in the quality of the
commentary (Billings et al., 2002), and in coverage of Florida high
school athletics, no association was found between media staff gender
and quantity or quality of sports coverage for women (Pedersen,
Whisenant, & Schneider, 2003). The female and male sports staff
wrote virtually the same percentage of articles about females and
males (Pedersen et al., 2003). In addition, the gender of the
athletic director, as an agenda-builder, was also found not to be a
factor in the perception of coverage that should go to women's
athletics (Whisenant & Pedersen, 2004).
The Gender of the Audience
The gender and gender preferences of the audience is often used as
an excuse by media executives for providing unequal coverage of men's
and women's athletics. As of 2003, Sports Illustrated's readership
was 78 percent male (Bishop, 2003). In 1995, Sports Tonight had a 44
percent audience makeup of women and SportsCenter had a 22 percent
audience makeup of women (Tuggle, 1997). The actual proportion of
coverage of women's sports is significantly lower than the female
audience in each medium. ESPN executives argue the content is
market-driven. The audience wants to see mostly coverage about men
and wants women's coverage to be non-serious and sexual (Messner,
Duncan, & Cooky, 2003). ESPN has also said it will increase coverage
to meet market demand. According to ESPN Senior Vice President and
Managing Editor Bob Eaton on On the Basis of Sex June 22, 2002,
SportsCenter's job is to cover the sports that our audience is
interested in because that's how we get the most people to watch. As
women's sports have increased in importance, and interest has
increased… we cover more of that… We can't generate the interest on
our own – the audience has to tell us what they want… Our first job
is to generate the highest rating we can for the program, and to do
that, we're going to put on the sports that more people want to see
(Adams & Tuggle, 2004).
But, although ESPN says it increases its coverage to meet the
increasing audience interest, there has been a decrease in the
proportion of women's coverage on SportsCenter (Adams & Tuggle, 2004).
In addition, even when the audience is expected to be mostly female,
the coverage still does not compare proportionally. NBC executives
expected the 2000 summer Olympics audience to be a majority of women,
however women's coverage still decreased from the 1996 games (Tuggle
et al., 2002). Plus, although Sports Illustrated for Women, a
magazine designed for women, covers more women than men, it still
does not give women the same proportion of coverage that men receive
in Sports Illustrated (Fink & Kensicki, 2002).
Marketability of Sexuality
Female athletes are often marketed on sexuality because "sex sells"
(Shugart, 2003). In 1999, Anna Kournikova was second in endorsements
for women's tennis with 11 million dollars in endorsements without
ever having won a major tournament (Spencer & McClung, 2001). This
was possible because of her strong sex appeal. According to Spencer
and McClung (2001), sex and scandal get viewers to tune in for better
or for worse.
How the Media is Funded
The gender of the audience and the media's emphasis on sex appeal
are both market-driven explanations for coverage. Any market-driven
media outlet follows these preferences. This is why the mainstream
media is far more likely to give women inequitable coverage when they
feel the audience is primarily interested in men's sports (Higgs et
al., 2003). This is clear in the status section of this paper in
terms of the quantity value of Olympic coverage, network sports
casts, cable sports shows, and mainstream magazines. Women receive
far more equitable coverage in not for profit media because the
coverage is not market driven and has the freedom to be more fair
with its coverage (Cunningham, 2003; Cunningham et al., 2004). This
was especially apparent in coverage by the NCAA News and university
tennis web sites.
Awareness of Inequity
The NCAA is not just a leader in equitable coverage for male and
female athletes. It also leads the way in media inequity awareness
and education. Awareness of inequity is, at the very least, an
important step in improvement of coverage, however, in an analysis of
the available research, it also appears to be a factor of its own in
promoting more equitable coverage. The NCAA regularly holds Title IX
seminars on gender equity in the media, promoting awareness of what
problems exist, and as a result, the NCAA News and many university
web sites are far more equitable in their coverage than the average
media outlet (Cunningham, 2003; Cunningham et al., 2004).
Traditional Gender Constructions of Sport
Some factors affecting gender bias in the media are not entirely
market-driven. Research suggests that there has been an emphasis on
"socially acceptable" sports for women. Individual sports may
receive the majority of women's coverage because they allow for more
traditional roles of femininity (Spencer & McClung, 2001). In
addition, the fact that there is virtually no coverage of women's
sports that require physical power or hard body contact is likely
because these are traditionally masculine roles of sport and do not
fit within stereotypes of femininity (Tuggle et al., 2002). The
emphasis on femininity has also been suggested to come from the
"lesbian taboo" in sports, where there is a stigma in elite female
sports that the athletes are homosexual. Because of this, women are
covered in the media in terms of their heterosexual characteristics
to debunk the taboo (Christopherson et al., 2002). Shugart (2003)
refers to this media practice as "vigilant heterosexuality". In
these cases, the coverage of the sport is determined by a cultural
comfort zone held by both the audience and the media.
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
The majority of the research in the area of gendered media coverage
has been confined to content analyses of either the quantity or
quality of media coverage of women. This focus has left
investigation of the factors to primarily two areas, the gender
makeup of the media, and the traditional socio-cultural ideas of
sport and femininity. The first factor is regularly disproved and
the second factor is often no more than speculation. I would suggest
that future research would be best served trying to determine
specific problem areas in the effects of sports media, especially in
terms of the gender of the viewer, the gender of the athlete, and the
type of sport. It would also be immensely valuable to have research
in the available audience of women's sports. Several questions need
to be answered in order to argue that women's sports coverage should
be increased including "is there a large audience with the desire for
more coverage?" and "will the audience demand increase to meet or
exceed an increase in coverage?" These are important in order to
prove to the market-driven media that women's sports coverage can be
profitable.
Further research is necessary to improve the situation in sports
media for the female athlete. At current standing, women's sports
receive proportionally less coverage than their male
counterparts. Although interest and participation in women's sports
continues to increase, the amount of time and space devoted to the
female athlete in the media has begun to decrease over the past
decade. Quality of coverage appears to be improving for the female
athlete at a better rate than quantity, however, market forces are
perpetuating the emphasis on femininity and sexuality. There are
significant benefits to pursuing more equitable coverage including
improving female sports participation and body image and increasing
professional opportunities for female athletes. However, without
further evidence that change is needed, what changes are needed, and
why they are needed; tennis, intercollegiate sports media, and
women's magazines will remain the only even playing fields for female athletes.
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