Women, men, and five Olympic rings: An examination of Chinese Central Television’s broadcast of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics

Abstract

This study conducts a content analysis on Chinese Central Television’s broadcasting of figure skating, short track speed skating, and freestyle skiing—the three most popular winter sports in the People’s Republic of China—at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics from the perspective of biological sex. A full examination of 100% (over 37 h) of Chinese Central Television’s broadcast coverage was analyzed in terms of clock-time, name-mentions, and descriptors. In each sport examined, female athletes received less clock-time and fewer name-mentions compared to their male counterparts. However, in the analysis of 7765 descriptors, relatively few significant differences between depictions of male and female athletes were uncovered, potentially explained by the Communist legacy of erasing women’s feminine characteristics and the relatively equal number of male and female commentators in Chinese Central Television’s sports newsrooms. Also, compared to many Western countries, male figure skaters in the People’s Republic of China received more clock-time and name-mentions, possibly attributed to cultural differences in defining ideal masculinity across East Asia and the West.

Television commentary on women's and men's Australian Rules football: A thematic analysis

“…A substantial number of studies on media representation of men's and women's sport have focused on the Olympic Games, where female athletes typically receive significantly more exposure than in other mainstream sports media presentations, and traditional gender framings are argued to be less likely to occur (Angelini et al, 2012; Godoy-Pressland, 2014; Kian et al, 2013). Xu et al’s (2020) content analysis of Chinese TV broadcasting of the 2018 Winter Olympics supported this claim, identifying few differences in descriptions of male and female athletes. Moreover, analysis of the Australian TV broadcast of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games (Xu et al, 2019) also reported differences that were somewhat inconsistent with previously described gender stereotypes.…”

Feminist Sport Media Studies in SSJ: Mapping Theoretical Frameworks and Geographies of Knowledge Production

“…Previously, Coche has published on televised Olympic broadcasts in the United States (e.g., Coche & Tuggle, 2018), but also conducted a comparative analysis of media coverage of women's sports in Canada, France, Great Britain, and the United States (Coche, 2015). In the SSJ article, Xu and Billings (2021) analyzed the content of the Olympic Channel, but in other publications, Xu and co-authors also analyzed sports coverage in China (e.g., Xu et al, 2018Xu et al, , 2020 and Australia (Xu et al, 2019). As such, individual publications in SSJ might not reflect the scope of the authors' work.…”

Fitness Training of Athletes in Freestyle Skiing

“…It reflects the maximum frequency band relaxation and contraction strength of the lower limb muscle movement of the human body. 10 This value is generally related to the type of nerve fiber.…”