EXAMINING the REPRESENTATION of the FEMALE SIDELINE REPORTER by LORI AMBER ROESSNER (Under the Direction O
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SIDELINED BY GENDER: EXAMINING THE REPRESENTATION OF THE FEMALE SIDELINE REPORTER by LORI AMBER ROESSNER (Under the Direction of Leara Rhodes) ABSTRACT Tune into college football on any given autumn Saturday, and you are like to observe young, beautiful female sideline reporters. In this study, feminist critical theory and textual analysis are utilized to examine the representation of the female sideline reporter in the 2005- 2006 NCAA Division I-A college football bowl season. To date, little research has been conducted on the representation and role of female sideline reporters. Analysis showed that female sideline reporters were under-represented, objectified and commodified in four select games of the 2005-2006 NCAA Division I-A college football bowl season. The study revealed that representations of female sideline reporters reproduce masculine hegemony. This study adds to the knowledge of masculine hegemony in sports casting which was more stated than corroborated. This study lays the groundwork for future examination of representations of women in journalism through the lenses of feminist critical theory and textual analysis. INDEX WORDS: Female Sideline Reporter, Sports Broadcasting, Journalism, Textual Analysis, Feminist Critical Theory, Masculine Hegemony, Patriarchy. SIDELINED BY GENDER: EXAMINING THE REPRESENTATION OF THE FEMALE SIDELINE REPORTER by LORI AMBER ROESSNER B.S.ED., The University of Georgia, 2003 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts Athens, Georgia 2006 © 2006 Lori Amber Roessner All Rights Reserved SIDELINED BY GENDER: EXAMINING THE REPRESENTATION OF THE FEMALE SIDELINE REPORTER by LORI AMBER ROESSNER Major Professor: Leara Rhodes Committee: Dwight Brooks Billy Hawkins Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia December 2006 DEDICATION I dedicate my thesis to my beloved family and especially my husband David. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe great thanks to my mentor and major professor, Dr. Leara Rhodes, for her constant support and her ability to assist me in simplifying. I would also like to thank Dr. Dwight Brooks and Dr. Billy Hawkins for their insights and assistance with this study. In addition, I owe my utmost thanks to my family for their constant support, especially to the most important women in my life—my mother, my grandmother and my dear great grandmother, Nellie, who taught me that perseverance, prayer and hard work, make success tangible. In addition, thanks to everyone for encouraging words while I pursued my graduate degree. v PREFACE I would be remiss, if I failed to disclose the impetus for this study. As a fledgling female sports journalist, I encountered firsthand a lack of gender equity in the field. This, of course, did not surprise me; I was aware that sports journalism was still largely a man’s world. However, what astonished me was the gender discrimination that I often encountered. While a young reporter at my college newspaper, a male colleague suggested that I move to the news department. When I did not move to the news department, I was placed in a lesser sports beat. Once out in the real world, I encountered even more blatant gender discrimination on an almost daily basis from coaches that felt the need to over-explain sport plays and strategies to being assigned to cover women’s sports base solely on my gender to learning from a publisher that one local newspaper did not hire female sports editors. Thus, upon entering graduate school and noticing the latest trend in sports casting—the female sideline reporter—I felt compelled to examine the subject in detail. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………………V PREFACE……………………………………………………………………………………….VI CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………….1 2 LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………………………………..5 SPORTS CULTURE…………….……………………………………………….5 WOMEN IN SPORT…..…………………………………………………………9 WOMEN IN JOURNALISM………..…………………………………………..13 3 THEORY…………………………………………………………………………….23 FEMINIST CRITICAL THEORY……………..………………………………..23 RESEARCH QUESTION……..………………………………………………...30 4 METHODOLOGY…………………………………………………………………..31 TEXTUAL ANALYSIS………..………………………………………………..31 5 ANALYSIS………………….……………………………………………………….37 TIME SEGMENTATION……………………………………………………….37 ON-AIR CONTENT……………………………………………………………..38 TRANSITIONS……………...…………………………………………………..45 CONTINUATION………...……………………………………………………..48 vii FRAMING THE SHOT…….……………………………………………..…….51 APPEARANCE…………..……………………………………………………...53 6 CONCLUSSION………………………………………………………………….....58 REPRESENTATION OF THE FEMALE SIDELINE REPORTERS….……....58 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CHANGE….…………………………………..63 SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH..………………………………..64 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………..65 APPENDICES………………………………………………………………………………….74 A 2005-06 BOWL SIDELINE REPORTERS………………….…………………….74 B 2005-06 BOWL GAME TV RATINGS……………………………………….…..75 C FEMALE SIDELINE REPORTER SEGMENT INFORMATION……………….76 D TRANSCRIPTS……………………………………………………………………78 viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION In the 1960s, a glance around any press box, media booth or sideline at a major university sporting event would have revealed an unsurprising lack of estrogen. In the 1970s, the first wave of female sportscasters entered the industry. Today, tune into college football on any given autumn Saturday, and you are like to observe young, beautiful female sideline reporters. But, turn your head for a moment, and you could miss them entirely. Extremely prevalent in the world of sport, female sideline reporters provide viewers with sideline commentary of game coverage. Historically, women have had few opportunities for careers as sports broadcasters. The play-by-play analyst and color commentator are almost always men. Football female sideline reporters came onto the scene in the early 1980s. But, it was not until the mid-1990s that the major television networks began the trend of utilizing female sideline reporters on a large scale. In recent years, female sideline reporters have become more mainstream; however, female sideline reporters have been increasingly commodified and over-sexualized in these roles (Skerski, 2005). In addition, female sports reporters in print and electronic media have been marginalized, minimalized and relegated to the sidelines. Skerski (2005) asserts that the female sideline reporter largely serves to provide sex appeal while delivering juicy player gossip and injury reports to viewers. Many of these female sideline reporters have been further objectified in mainstream print publications such as Maxim and Playboy. Although female sideline reporters 1 have found a small niche in the industry, Skerski (2005) stresses that female sideline reporters reinforce patriarchal values. In 2006, televised sport “permeates modern life from the family room…to the board room” (Bryant & Raney, 2000, p. 153). Thus, powerful images of objectified female sideline reporters reaffirm traditional gender norms that have historically served as societal barriers for women. In the early twentieth century, sport was utilized as a tool to socialize young boys into strong warriors ready to take on the business world or defend the United States in times of war (Lenskyj, 1986). During this era, women were strongly forbidden from participating in sporting events, and those that dared to participate were labeled as “tomboys” or “muscle molls.” Willis (1994) argues that representations of sport are ideological tools that reproduce male-dominated power structures in order to strengthen the dominant social order. Images of female sideline reporters that objectify women and cast them in support roles, then, reproduce hegemonic masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity is defined as a method of legitimization and reproduction of social relations that generate male dominance, according to Henson and Parameswaran (2005). Masculine hegemony is a type of ideological hegemony where the oppressor (in this case, the owners of transnational media corporations who act as message producers) creates a set of dominant notions that become the common-sense method of looking at a situation. Hanke reports that hegemonic masculinity “refers to the social ascendancy of a particular version or model of masculinity that, operating on the terrain of ‘common sense’ and conventional morality defines ‘what it means to be a man,’” (cited in Henson & Parameswaran, 2005, p.8). Representations of traditional gender roles in sports reaffirm and reproduce hegemonic masculinity. Historically, much research has been conducted on the representation of the female athlete. Many studies revealed that these images reinforce hegemonic masculinity by rendering 2 female athletes invisible or by objectifying and over-sexualizing female athletes. Only minimal research has been conducted to explore the representation and role of the female sideline reporter. Thus, this thesis examines the representation and role of female sideline reporters in the traditionally male domain of college football. Some people might argue that men should be afforded an all-male domain; however, as sport increasingly becomes a tool to succeed in the workplace, gender equity is necessary in all sporting arenas. Research in this area would be helpful in exposing and combating a patriarchal system firmly entrenched in sport and in highlighting areas for potential reform to achieve gender equity. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the representation of female sideline reporters. I