Newspaper Representation of Women Athletes in 1984 and 1994

Abstract

This research was to assess changes in Great Britain (GB) in the percent coverage of women’s sports in six national and Sunday newspapers (Telegraph, Guardian, Independent, Express, Mail and Mirror) between 1984 and 1994. Measurements were taken of all sports articles on the front pages, editorial pages and sports pages for the period 1st-14th July in both years. Data were categorized into male only, female only and mixed articles per day, square centimetres per day and photos per day. There was a decrease in percentage coverage of women’s sport coverage (articles per day down 5.2%; cm2 per day down 5.2%; photos per day down 7.1%) while the overall coverage of sport increased. During the time period the portion of GB Olympians who were women increased by 7% and there was a 3% increase in proportion of sports participants in the general population who were women. An adjustment index is presented which uses population figures and sport participation figures to calculate the proportion of sport participants who are female. This index was used to assess fairness in reporting sport.

‘A splendid effort!’ Print media reporting of England’s women’s performance in the 2009 Cricket World Cup

“…Smith (1995) (cited in Boyle and Haynes) found that on average women's sport accounted for only 3 percent of the total sports pages of most papers, rising slightly during high profile athletics or tennis events. Matheson and Flatten (1996) concurred, with similar low percentage figures in their British newspaper review of 1984-1994. On a positive note, Biscomb et al (1998) did identify a movement of reporting towards a focus upon women's performance and away from reporting upon their appearance.…”

“…The extent of self-reflection displayed by the British print media in this particular period had not been witnessed in previous studies (Matheson and Flatten, 1996;Matheson et al, 2006aMatheson et al, , 2006b) so this represents a different style of reporting which included some very positive comments about the performance:…”

“…This differs from other research (such as Matheson and Flatten, 1996;Matheson et al, 2006aMatheson et al, , 2006b) as hard copy newspapers were used for these previous examples. The aims of this study, to explore specific event reporting, were suitable for a key word search as it allows for efficiency in research time.…”

A Unified Version of London 2012: New-Media Coverage of Gender, Nationality, and Sport for Olympics Consumers in Six Countries

“…This standard was based on the total number of female (n = 4,862) and male (n -6,098) athletes competing in the Olympic Games and was consistent with the independent standard used by previous research on gender equity in the media (e.g., Burch et al, 2012;Jones, 2004;Pedersen, 2002). In addition to these studies, other scholars (e.g., Mathesen & Flatten, 1996;Urquhart& Crossman, 1999) have argued that the use of participation numbers as an independent standard is the most accurate way to assess gender equity in media coverage, because this standard reflects the proportionality of coverage in relation to the number of participating athletes of specific genders. In line with these previous scholars, the rationale for using this independent standard in the current study was that truly equitable coverage would match the proportion of coverage of male and female athletes to the proportion of these athletes competing in the Games.…”

Online coverage of the 2008 Olympic Games on the ABC, BBC, CBC and TVNZ

“…Newspapers, regardless of the type, have 'seriously underreported women's sports in proportions that reflect the findings of television studies' (Duncan, 2006, p. 235). Flatten and Matheson (1996) reported inequity and unfairness in the British press where women's share of sports articles was just 7 percent. Research on Australian, Canadian and New Zealand newspapers has yielded comparable results (Lumby, Caple, & Greenwood, 2010;Mikosza, 1997).…”