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Prior research into the portrayal of females in sport media has demonstrated that females are given less written coverage than males (e.g., Fink & Kensicki, 2002), and that the coverage given is more sexual in nature (Hardin, Lynn, & Walsdorf, 2005). Internet-based sports blogs have become both an alternative and a competitor to traditional sport media (Fleming, 2008; Hardin & Zhong, 2009; King, 2009). As such, it becomes necessary to examine the portrayal of females in sports blogs, to compare the medium’s content to traditional forms of sport media, and to establish a baseline for future research. Utilizing content analysis of the 10 most popular sports blogs, the study discovered that males received significantly more photographic coverage in sports blogs than did females, and that female portrayals were far more likely to be sexually suggestive in nature. These and other findings are discussed, and recommendations for future studies are included.

Traditional media coverage of the Olympic Games has been shown to exhibit biases in terms of gender, nation ality, and the type of sports covered, which can contribute to negative societal consequences and inaccurate historical records of such events. Scholars have suggested that because of the Internet's expanded spatial parameters, new media have the ability to provide more equitable coverage of events such as the Olympics. In this study, we used agenda setting theory to employ a content analysis methodology to determine whether different constructions of the 2012 London Olympics were presented to media consumers on news websites in Australia, Brazil, China, Great Britain, Kenya, and the United States. Findings indicated that very few gender, nationalistic, or sport biases existed in any of the countries' coverage, lending credence to the notion that the Internet affords media managers with an opportunity to provide more equitable coverage and thus a more accurate depiction of events.

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