Tewari P. Sport visuals and theprint media in India: A comparativeanalysis of photographic 1 coverage in leadingnewspapers. J Sport Human Perf 2015;3(4):1-10. ORIGINAL RESEARCH OPEN ACCESS SPORT VISUALS AND THE PRINT MEDIA IN INDIA: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF PHOTOGRAPHIC COVERAGE IN LEADING NEWSPAPERS Tewari P1 1The Tribune Publication, Chandigarh, India ABSTRACT This research is focused on the use of sport visuals in the leading vernacular and English newspapers in India. The focus of the paper is a comparison across one decade of the 430 sports visuals from the 672 front pages of eight selected newspapers in 2001 (141 visuals) and 2011 (289 visuals). These newspapers, all Chandigarh (India) editions, were content analyzed and the results revealed a focus on the sport of cricket and an increase in the use of sport visuals across the time span of the study. This increase was both in the number of visuals as well as the size of the visuals, with the most growth found in The Times of India. The findings reveal the need for more balanced photographic reporting of sports and this commentary calls for Indian universities to commence with specialized courses and training in sport journalism. Keywords:Sport visuals, photojournalism in India,sports communication, sport journalism INTRODUCTION Kinkema and Harris (1998) noted, in the United States there are occasions when as The newspaper is a medium of news many as 10 sporting events are communication which performs the functions televisedsimultaneously. This wide enjoyment of informing, educating, influencing, and of televised sport has helped justify and lead entertaining through the use of words and to the mushroomed growth of sports channels. visuals. Sports and the media are two of the In the print industry, newspapers have marked most commonly recognized elements of one or two pages for sports coverage, and modern society. The importance of sport is often all important sports events are used on evidenced by its continued popularity among the front page in Indian newspapers. individuals from all over the globe. As 2 Navneet Singh, a senior sports It also explores the idea that a visual journalist from the leading English daily in note bearing text has the power to inform and India, the Hindustan Times, noted this educate. Visual communication applies increase in coverage.“Over the past decade, it artistic license to communicate thoughts and has been noticed young generation is taking ideas through sight. People who are skilled in keen interest in sports,” Singh said. “Taking visual communication can work in various cue, leading newspapers in the country has fields of communication such as journalism, started giving more display to sports advertising, web designing and publishing. stories/pictures on the main page.” They use many simple and advanced mediums, materials and techniques – Sports pictures/stories break the everything from pencils to computers - to get monotony on the front page, which is their message across. generally dominated by politics. An action- packed or colorful visual is supposed to add Jerome Bruner, a psychologist from spice to the page. New York University, discussed the importance of visuals communication with his The front page is crucial for every research, noting that “people only remember newspaper as important news is reported on a 10% of what they hear and 20% of what they daily basis, mostly with supporting visuals. read, but about 80 percent of what they see The front page is a major selling point of and do” as cited by Paul Martin Lester in every newspaper and acts like a window to “Syntactic Theory of Visual Communication” news inside. It attracts the reader to buy [9]. newspapers, while visuals create interest to read further, specifically the story or stories Sports journalism became a rapidly that goes with those visuals. growing field around the globe after World War II. Now, sports coverage is an important part of every newspaper and for many readers Visual Communication and Sport it’s their basic feed on the breakfast table. Journalism Most newspapers today have a separate Visual communication is a process of section for sports, with the office often further communication through images. Any form of subdivided into specialized sections including image that is used to communicate an idea sports journalists, sports photojournalists and (e.g., a sign, poster, drawing, photograph, the sports desk. Sports journalists concentrate television advertisement) can be included in on reporting amateur and professional sports the field of visual communications. news and events, while photojournalists take visuals of sporting events. The work of both Visual communication is an effective these vital cogs of the sports section are mode of communication, presenting ideas and conceptualized and presented for the reader information which can be read or viewed. by the sports desk. Visual communication is primarily represented by two-dimensional images This study is important to which can include signs, typography, understanding the development of sports in drawing, graphic design, illustrations, colour India. Through this study, scholars will know and electronic resources. about the growth of sports coverage on the front page of leading Indian newspapers between 2001 and 2011. Fromthisstudy, we J Sport Hum Perf ISSN: 2326-6333 3 will come to know the changing trends for newspapers - Hürriyet, Cumhuriyet, and newspapers ports coverage. We willa cquire Zaman - to examine the sportswomen and the data of newspapers which have published gender stereotypes. Findings indicated the maximum sports visuals and allowed gendered nature of sport coverage within maximum space for sports coverage in 2011 Turkish newspapers. Male coverage on the front page. This study also helps to dominated as 87.02% of all sports coverage know the newspapers’ trend regarding the went to men, whereas female athletes only publishing of sports visuals with captions or received 6.05% and 6.93% covering both without captions, and with story or without genders (man and woman). Gender story visuals on thefront page. stereotypes of visual representations were found in the Cumhuriyet (28.6%) and the Sport Visual Research Hürriyet (11.9%). However, there were no Several scholars have examined the gender stereotypes in the Zaman. portrayals of male and female athletes in newspapers. However, very little research has Shaun Allen Kohn of the University of been done in the field of sports visuals in the Oregon studied men versus women in newspapers. Cemil and Oguz [21] studied the newspaper sports section photographs under sports coverage in national dailies of Turkey. the supervision of Kim Sheehan in 2000. A A content analysis method was used as the content analysis of sports section photographs authors examined how much the coverage the from four newspapers covering a 20-year newspapers gave to sports, and how sports span starting in 1978 found that gatekeepers news was distributed by type, photograph and attached more salience to male athletes, and gender. The sample was taken from the top presented female athletes in a higher five papers (Milliyet, Sabah , Zaman , percentage of photos indicating dominance, Hurriyet and Posta) in Turkey. Results indicating being dominated, and indicating indicated that the minimal covered sports emotion, when compared to males. branches are wrestling and weight lifting and Additionally, it was found that the presence of soccer is most covered sports. Coverage of female athletes is increasing in the sports male athletes was most frequent, while news section, though there was still a large gender on female athletes was almost nil. Zaman gap in 1998. used the most visuals in sports news. While there have been a few studies Quantitative analysis methods were on sport visuals in the print media, the used for most of the studies. For example, objective of the current study was to find out Billings and Angelini [3] used quantitative the changes, if any, in the use of sports content analysis for comparing male and visuals on the front pages of leading Indian female focus during NBC’s coverage of the newspapers. The Chandigarh editions of these 2004 Olympic Games, in diving, gymnastics, vernacular and English newspapers were swimming, and track and field. Per their considered for this study. Therefore, the study findings, gymnastics and diving sports were upon which this scholarly commentary is more likely to contain gender biases. Out of based is a content analysis of the sport visuals the four sports examined, the biggest on the front pages of The Tribune, The Times differences were found in gymnastics. of India, The Indian Express, Punjabi Tribune, Ajit, Dainik Tribune, Punjab Kesri, Bengü Arslan and Canan Koca [1] and DainikBhaskarChandigarh editions. The studied three different Turkish daily newspapers selected for this study were J Sport Hum Perf ISSN: 2326-6333 4 chosen because they represented the three A coding sheet was prepared and different languages of the readers (i.e., visual content was coded in various categories English, Hindi, and Punjabi) and because of for collecting the data. This process was done their readership range, popularity, and for each edition of all the selected newspapers circulation rates. In order to make a under study. The author of this research paper comparison across the decade, the periods previously had 18 years of photojournalism examined were the first week of each of the experience and coded all of the sports visuals. first six months of 2001 and 2011. For checking coder reliability, Scott's pi formula was used. Fifty visuals not included The following research questions in the final study were coded twice to get the guided this study: Scott's Pi reliability value of 0.534 and 80% agreement. RQ1: How many sports visuals were used in 2001 and 2011 by each newspaper? Content analysis is a research technique for objective, systematic, and RQ2: How much space (area) was given to quantitative description of the manifest sports visuals in 2001 and 2011 by each content of communication.