Gender Stereotyping in Televised Media Sport Coverage

Sex Roles: A Journal of Research,  Oct, 1999  by Nathalie Koivula

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The television audience of athletic events is largely comprised of men, although some sports such as gymnastics and figure skating attract more women (e.g., Guttman, 1986; Luecke-Aleksa, Anderson, Collins, & Schmitt, 1995). In fact, sport is the only type of television programming where numbers are higher for men than women (Condry, 1998). In a study of the Swedish television audience in 1991, 48% of the females and 77% of males (aged 16-74 years) reported that they had watched sports at least once during the last week (Ahlin, 1993). It has been proposed that one of the functions of sport in society is the construction and validation of masculinity and male superiority, both inside and outside the realm of sport. Boys may be exposed to sport and its ideology as a means of proving their masculinity, with sport evolving into a symbolic act in which traditional views of gender and gender differences are confirmed and enhanced (Harry, 1995; Kane & Greendorfer, 1994; Kane & Snyder, 1989; Messner, 1988, 1990; Sabo & Messner, 1993).

Many boys, when reaching the age at which they become aware that they will grow up to be men, are said to develop a greater interest in sports programs because these programs provide simple portrayals of men in action who behave and perform differently from women (Luecke-Aleksa et al., 1995). But it has been reported that if girls watch television programs where men and women are pictured in nontraditional portrayals, the girls report more willingness to participate in activities labeled as masculine (Johnston & Ettema, 1982, cited in Calvert & Huston, 1987). The same may apply to watching women in sports, especially in sports traditionally viewed as masculine. This would require more media coverage of female athletes in a manner which does not devalue women athletes or strengthen traditional gender stereotypes.

The content analyses of news media coverage of sports, including both "quantity" and "quality" (i.e., how media portray men and women in sports) are each vital to understanding the role of sport and media as conservators of convention and reinforcement of traditional values which hinder the advancement of women in sport. Studies addressing the quantity of sport news of men and women athletes have dominated the literature of media coverage of sports (Salwen & Wood, 1994), but research on the quality of sport coverage has grown (e.g., Kane & Parks, 1992), as have studies examining work routines of sport editors and journalists at media sport departments (e.g., Theberge & Cronk, 1986).

Much of the previous research concerning televised media sport coverage has focused on either specific sports or athletic events such as the Olympic Games, or general sport broadcasting during brief periods of time ranging from a few weeks to several months, especially in North America (e.g., Duncan et al., 1994). The purpose of the present study was to examine televised media coverage of sport in sports news broadcasts of three Swedish national television networks during an entire year, with a follow-up examination 19 and 23 months later. Further, how we experience, understand, and relate to sport varies with time due to the contemporaneous processes of changes in society, where sport itself is one of the influential institutions in creating changes. Moreover, our notions about gender and especially perceived gender differences, which construct divisions in social structures, are historically specific cultural representations. Therefore, in order to reveal current cultural values embedded in sport, as well as possible changes, and to understand how mass media might influence attitudes regarding gender and sport, repeated analyses of media sport coverage in different cultures are necessary. The aim was, hence, to detect possible patterns of differentiation based on gender across different sports in televised media coverage of sports in Sweden.