An Examination and Interpretive Anaylsis Of
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Cardinal Scholar AN EXAMINATION AND INTERPRETIVE ANAYLSIS OF THE DEPICTION OF WOMEN IN SPORTS MEDIA A RESEARCH PAPER SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE MASTER OF PUBLIC RELATIONS BY SUSAN E. MCKENNA UNDER ADVISMENT OF PROFESSOR ROBERT S. PRITCHARD, ADVISOR AND PROFESSOR JEFFERY NEWTON, CO-ADVISOR BALL STATE UNIVERSITY MUNCIE, INDIANA DECEMBER 2008 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES.................................................ii LIST OF FIGURES...............................................iii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION..............................................1 2. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE..............................3 3. METHODOLOGY..............................................22 4. FINDINGS.................................................26 5. DISCUSSION...............................................33 6. SUMMARY..................................................42 BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................45 LIST OF TABLES Tables 1. Classification of Sports Illustrated Covers by Year......26 2. Active Versus Posed on Sports Illustrated Covers.........27 3. Male Active vs. Posed on Sports Illustrated Covers.......28 4. Female Active vs. Posed on Sports Illustrated Covers.....29 5. Percentage of Coded Female Covers by Sport...............31 ii LIST OF FIGURES Figures 1. Types of Sports featured on Sports Illustrated Covers, 1990 – 1999.........................................30 2. Marge Schott Cover, May 20,1996..........................34 3. Nancy Kerrigan Cover, January 17, 1994...................35 iii INTRODUCTION The status of women’s sports is at an all time high. Women are playing in men’s golf tournaments, professional women’s sports teams are a reality, and more young women than ever before are participating in sports. However, the media coverage of women’s sports and female athletes continues to lag behind their male counterparts. Numerous studies have been conducted over the years on how men and women are portrayed in the media and advertisements across multiple mediums including magazines, television, and newspapers. Researchers have consistently found women athletes and sports are under-represented compared to the coverage of men’s sports. The research in this area has examined both articles and photographs in newspapers, magazines, and television. Overall, research on gender inequality in sports shows that females athletes and their respective sports are grossly under- represented. The research on this subject continues to grow and has now entered the phase where studies need to be replicated to determine if progress has been made and to further examine the effect this inequality is having on society. If the evidence continues to show that women’s sports are treated as inferior to men’s sports, this could be the reason why they have not reached their full potential. The further implications of this 2 inequality is that the media is perpetuating gender stereotypes that women have worked for decades to overcome. In a March 2004 opinion article in the Indianapolis Business Journal commentator Susan Williams discusses the economic impact of hosting the Women’s Final Four will have on Indianapolis. Williams states the economic impact of the 2003 Women’s Final Four in Atlanta was $26.7 million but the media has not responded as positively. Williams believes the, “…under- reporting indicates there is an under appreciation for the talent and skills of women athletes, not to mention an underestimation of the public’s interest in women’s sports.” (Indianapolis Business Journal [Indianapolis], 1-7 March 2004). In summary, conclusions will be drawn about how this effects decisions and influences the plans of public relations practitioners and how they can have a direct impact. Suggestions for future research will also be given. 3 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE The literature of gender inequality in sports focuses on two main areas: the superior amount of coverage that men receive over women in sports and the way women’s sports in general, as well as individual female athletes, are portrayed in the coverage that does exist. The literature reviewed focuses on studies that examined print media, which is limited to newspapers and magazines. Researchers have examined articles, placement of stories and themes to delve deeper into this issue of inequality. One particular area of focus across all mediums has been photographs. A photograph can catch the reader's eye and lead them into a story. Also, since a picture is worth a thousand words, the emotion and subject matter of the photo can convey its own message and even perpetuate traditional gender stereotypes. The research below is organized into two categories: research that examines general print media, for example the Washington Post, and research that looks at sports specific publications such as Sports Illustrated. Within the context of those two categories, the studies are discussed in chronological order. Miller (1975) examined women’s and men’s roles in photographs from two newspapers, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. The study looked at every eighth issue of each paper from July 2, 1973 to June 27, 1974. The roles in which men 4 and women were depicted by the photographs were classified into 10 categories, one of which was sports figure. In total, the sample of 46 issues yielded 2,168 pictures in the Washington Post and 1,493 pictures in the Los Angeles Times. Overall, photographs of men were more prevalent. The ratio of women’s sports pictures to men’s was 1 to 13. In total, only 5 to 6 percent of the pictures of women were located in the sports section of the papers, whereas nearly 25 percent of all the men’s photographs were in the sports section. In 1983, Miller’s (1975) study was replicated by Roy Blackwood to see if any progress had been made in seven years. Blackwood (1983), like Miller, wanted to see if the photographic coverage of women in the media reflected their roles in society since newspapers are supposed to be a reflection of what is occurring in our society at a given time (Blackwood 1983). Blackwood looked at every eighth issue of the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times from July 1, 1980 to June 26, 1981. His methodology was the same as Miller’s, with one exception. Blackwood used the number of representations instead of the number of photographs. The sample of 92 papers yielded a total of 3,248 photographs resulting in 4,841 representations between the two papers. He discovered only slightly more than 5 percent of photographs of women appeared in the sports section, but one- third of pictures of men appeared there. Overall, Blackwood 5 discovered that the roles of men and women depicted in the photographs of these selected papers have made little progress, despite the advancement of women in our society. Hilliard (1984) focused his research on magazine articles that featured top male or female tennis players. Tennis players were chosen because both men and women compete in the sport and both play in high level, visible tournaments. The sample was 115 articles from June 1979 to September 1983 that were found in the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature. Hilliard found that more coverage was given to male tennis players than female players. He also found that men authored all the articles on major championships as well. In addition, he discovered that if an article discussed both male and female players, then males were discussed first. In the articles about female tennis players, Hilliard uncovered some disturbing themes. These themes, such as the inability to develop their full talent, female player’s co- dependence on others, and extreme emotional states such as depression, convey weakness in the female tennis players. These same themes were not found in the articles about male players. Male players were portrayed as determined, aggressive, honest and independent. Hilliard concluded that there was not only an imbalance of coverage, but also the coverage that did exist reinforced traditional views of masculinity and femininity. 6 Wann, et al. (1988) took a different approach and looked at university-sponsored newspapers instead of national publications. Wann, et al. compared the amount of coverage to three factors, the enrollment of the chosen universities, the number of athletes participating in varsity sports, and the total number of varsity sports on each campus. A small, medium, and large university was selected for the study. The sample for the content analysis was the Friday sports sections from each school newspaper from September 1, 1993 to February 28, 1994. Articles and photographs were coded as male or female and articles were further coded as to the number of lines each contained about male or female athletes. As expected by the researchers, there was more coverage of male athletes and sports. This also held true when compared to the university’s enrollment of males and females and the number of sports offered for each gender. However, when compared with the actual number of females competing in sports, the percentage of coverage was fair. Even so, overall the coverage favored males. Judith George and Neal Watson (1989) examined sports coverage in the Indianapolis Star and the New York Times. A content analysis of 52 Saturday editions was performed. George and Watson found women’s sports represented 2.7 percent of all the sports coverage in The