“It Feels Like It’s in Our Back Yard”: Centering “Place” in Local Women’s Sports Media Coverage

Emerald Studies in Sport and Gender promotes research on two important and related areas within sport studies: women and gender. The concept of gender is included in the series title in order to problematise traditional binary thinking that classifies individuals as male or female, rather than looking at the full gender spectrum. In sport contexts, this is a particularly relevant and controversial issue, for example, in the case of transgendered athletes and female athletes with hyperandrogenism. The concept of sport is interpreted broadly to include activities ranging from physical recreation to high-performance sport. The interdisciplinary nature of the series will encompass social and cultural history and philosophy as well as sociological analyses of contemporary issues. Since any analysis of sport and gender has political implications and advocacy applications, learning from history is essential. Contributors to the series are encouraged to develop an intersectional analysis where appropriate, by examining how multiple identities, including gender, sexuality, ethnicity, social class and ability, intersect to shape the sport experiences of women and men who are Indigenous, racialised, members of ethnic minorities, LGBTQ, working class or disabled. We welcome submissions from both early career and more established researchers.

Although women and are competing in in ever increasing numbers from local youth recreational leagues to the Olympics, many studies show that they have been, and remain, shortchanged in both the quantity and quality of sport media coverage. Relative to the quantity of sport media coverage, work by Graydon (1983) indicated that 90 percent of all reporting was devoted to men's sports. Similarly, research by McKay and Row (1987) revealed that in city newspapers, 98 percent of the available coverage space was devoted to men's sports. In 1991, Duncan, Messner, and Williams (1991) analyzed the coverage of women's in four daily newspapers: USA Today, the Boston Globe, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Morning News. They found [s]tories focusing exclusively on men's outnumbered stories addressing only women's by a ratio of 23:1 (p. 3). Further, their research showed that even when men's baseball and football stories were removed from the mix ... men's stories still outnumbered women's stories by an 8.7:1 margin (p.3). A 1998 study by Kinnick, that reviewed the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, the Atlanta Constitution, and the LA Times, revealed gender based disparities in sport media coverage that reached as high as 62%:38%. Similarly, Evarts (1996) reported men's dominance in sport media column inch allocations in four Midwestern daily newspapers. A 1996 media study by Shields, Gilbert, and Finkelstein found that in the Tennessean, the New York Times, and USA Today, women's received 11.1 percent of the print media coverage compared with 82.1 percent allocated to the men's sports. This same study found 19 percent of the men's articles had accompanying photographs, while only 4 percent of the women's articles did. In addition to a quantitative advantage, Duncan et al. (1991) found that men's sport stories received better section placement and received more and better accompanying photo coverage. According to Sage (1990), sport media coverage for women has often focused more on personal aspects of sex-appeal, feminine characteristics, and/orstereotypicalrole perceptions, than on athletic ability and performance. In 1990, based on study findings, Duncan, Messner, Williams, and Jensen stated, weight of the evidence clearly suggests that women's are under-reported and that what coverage does exist is inferior to that afforded men's sports (p. 1). A 1994 follow-up study by Duncan and Messner, showed persistent evidence that female athletes were described as less competent than their male counterparts. According to the 1994-1995 Women's Sports Foundation report Words to Watch, When women athletes are the subject of reports and commentary they are sometimes referred to in words that treat them differently than men, often in ways which downplay of trivialize their achievements (p. 3). The report went on to say that identifying female athletes as girls or ladies, using first names instead of last names, and descriptions that emphasize physical appearance or skills not related to performance, are all examples ways women in sport are marginalized as inferior to men in sport (Women's Sports Foundation, 1995). Studies conducted outside the United States have revealed similar sport media disparities. Hall (1997) commented extensively on a sport media study of newspapers, magazines, national television broadcasts and radio stations conducted by the Australian Sports Commission (ASC). The ASC study revealed an overall increase in women's sport media coverage from 2 percent in 1980 to 10.7 percent in 1996. Even so, the men's sport media coverage loomed considerably larger, at 79.1 percent in 1996. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] A more recent study by Eastman and Billings (2000) looked at sports-casting on ESPN and CNN, and print media reporting in USA Today and the New York Times. …

In recent decades, a lot of work has been dedicated to gender bias in sports media coverage. However, there have been far fewer studies on gatekeeping processes in sports media. Using 11 in-depth interviews, this study analyses the information selection process to see if and how section processes influence sports media coverage on women’s sport in the Polish media. The study showed that for the participants the superiority of men’s sport was a given and editors did not feel obliged to promote women’s sport, despite being involved in the promotion of other disciplines or coverage in the media. Furthermore, the way of producing information in the Polish sports media depends on the personal beliefs of editors-in-chief. The ideology of the superiority of male sports adopted by the participants makes coverage on women’s sports biased, despite the journalists’ conviction about the objectivity of media coverage.

The range of sport-related topics that become news has considerably expanded over the past few decades, including a notable increase in the coverage of off-field subjects. Yet media coverage tends to focus on a small number of topics, few when compared to the variety of sport-related matters worth attention. The paper explores whether the press coverage of sports reflects the full extent of the sporting phenomenon. More specifically, it assesses the place for social analysis in the media coverage of sport. Sport impacts society in multiple ways. How frequently and in what ways are these impacts covered by the media? A new taxonomy of 21 topics and 131 subtopics of social relevance to media sport was developed for the purposes of this investigation. The new taxonomy, intended for use to examine any type of media, was tested on a sample of Italian print newspapers. Data on the coverage of the social dimension of sport were collected, using the new taxonomy, through the content analysis of 6,501 newspaper pages from five different artificial timeframes and a combined period of 28 days, spanning from September 2018 to April 2020. The sample included both general-interest and sports newspapers, allowing for the additional analysis of coverage differences based on the type of press. Although the importance of the research endeavour was on defining the tool (taxonomy) rather than the results of the test, the analysis of the selected corpus yielded preliminary findings worth sharing on how news media cover the social aspects of sport. The newly developed taxonomy, or matrix, lays the foundations for further research in various directions, including examining the social analysis of sport in digital and audiovisual media, non-daily news reporting, long-form journalism, the local press, citizen journalism, and other journalistic ecosystems.

PurposeThe paper aims to contribute to the research field on the reputation effects of hosting sport entities. It asks if sport by boosting the visibility of places increases the attention of other domains of activity at the place, such as culture, politics and business.Design/methodology/approachBy using a full text database, the study compares media coverage across cities of similar size that host/do not host a premier professional football club. Qualitative screening is used to compare coverage of diverse domains related to the place.FindingsHosting a top football club largely magnifies the media coverage of a city. There is no indication that sport media coverage enhances media exposure of other attributes connected to the place.Research limitations/implicationsThe study does not measure the effects media coverage has on individuals. Further research should address this issue.Practical implicationsPlace branding through sport media coverage does not automatically exhibit other qualities of a place. If places intend to expose its diversity through sport, a deliberate “branding through sport campaign” must be considered.Originality/valueThe study is unique in relating media coverage of sport teams to visibility of other activities of a city. It is the first to measure how sport media coverage impacts on place exposure.

Journalism was for a long time considered a man's business. But while this has changed significantly in the last few decades, the sports department, whether in a newspaper, on the radio, or on TV, remains one of the last male bastions, still characterized by a system of hegemonic masculinity. The few quantitative surveys that are available on sports departments show that only about one in ten sports journalists is a woman. If other criteria such as race and ethnicity and sexual orientation are taken into account in addition to gender, then one quickly reaches the perceptual limit: sports departments are still male, White, and heterosexual. This is expressed in the macho culture of sports departments, in male‐coded journalistic routines, and in the treatment of non‐White, homosexual, or intersex athletes. The few qualitative studies that have been published on intersectionality on sports departments to date paint a complex, contradictory, and ambivalent picture. Male, White, heterosexual journalists lack self‐reflection and an awareness of the unequal treatment of women or people of other races. Citing workplace professionalism, they reject measures to promote equal treatment in the sports department. They also believe that female or Black sports reporters enjoy extra advantages. With regard to reporting about homosexual athletes, sports reporters have a don't ask don't tell culture . In this way, male and female sports journalists uphold gender dualism and heteronormativity through a latent homophobia in sports reporting. A change in the entire sports‐media complex is therefore not supported by sports journalism.

The book is about the media’s role and responsibility in selecting what becomes news when covering sport. The sport-media relationship is a long-standing and symbiotic one. Sport delivers key audiences while media coverage fosters sport’s popularity and development. The range of sport-related topics that become news has expanded significantly in recent decades. However, it does not reflect the full extent of the sporting phenomenon. The leading clubs, leagues and athletes receive regular attention, and there is nothing surprising or reprehensible in this, but sport is more than that. Sport has considerable power in society through its ties to economy, politics and culture. It creates role models that influence identity development. It is also used to convey negative values such as racism or violence, which further demonstrates its pervasiveness in society. Drawing on her hands-on experience in the field of sports journalism, both as an academic and as a practitioner, the author offers a first-of-its-kind research tool (matrix) to explore and promote social analysis in the media coverage of sport.

Objetivamos analisar a autoapresentação corporal de lutadoras de MMA no Instagram. Foram analisadas imagens postadas por lutadoras campeãs do Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), considerando a representação midiática da imagem da mulher atleta, a objetificação e a hipersexualização de seus corpos. Para tal, utilizamos um esquema de codificação com categorias para análise de imagens baseado nos estudos de Goffman. Evidenciamos que, em geral, as imagens analisadas não apresentam a tendência, persistente na cobertura da mídia esportiva, de sexualização do corpo das mulheres atletas. As imagens que remetem a essa representação foram observadas nos contextos específicos que envolvem a organização UFC – a marca do UFC aparece com frequência nas imagens postadas por todas as lutadoras. Não evidenciamos representação baseada em normas e expectativas convencionais de comportamento de gênero; as imagens analisadas mostram uma feminilidade plural.

This article investigates how “war-speak” is incorporated into both sports media coverage and athletic rituals. It posits that while the militarization of American sporting events may help to comfort a nation in crisis and afford the Armed Forces a valuable recruitment tool, it simultaneously encourages a coercive patriotism that is morally problematic for many athletes and fans, especially during wartime. Likewise, although the use of war metaphors in sports media coverage provides exciting and dramatic language for players and sportscasters, it also devalues the war experience by trivializing its horrors and helps to sell the concept of war as sport.

This study compares sports media coverage of American football (“football”) in the United States and association football (“soccer”) in Germany, with a specific focus on the portrayal of Christian athletes. Specifically, we contend that media coverage of Christian football players in the United States presupposes that religiosity necessarily equates with good character. Thus, American athletes are encouraged to make public declarations of faith and are accordingly viewed as better leaders on the field and better citizens off it. Meanwhile, media coverage of soccer players in Germany presupposes that religiosity is incidental to good character. Thus, German athletes are encouraged to keep their faith to themselves; for those who do make public declarations of faith, media coverage is skeptical, tending to view athletic success to be in spite of, rather than because of, Christian identification. This cross-cultural examination, then, has implications for public expressions of faith in sport, as well as media coverage of sport and religion.

Research question : The creation of sport media content is guided by the need to cover live, seasonal events, which typically results in the greater coverage of men’s sport than women’s. However, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, live sport was halted. This paper presents the findings of a study into the media coverage of women in sport during the pandemic. Specifically, the study sought to answer the research question, how has Australian mainstream media covered women in sport during a period of time with no live sport on the global stage? Research methods : The study used quantitative content analysis to track the coverage from 20 media outlets using consistent one-directional coding practices, involving a single individual coder at the same time each day to focus on counting articles covering women in sport. Results and findings : The findings show a slight reduction in the coverage of women in sport at the start of the COVID-19 crisis in Australia and that low levels of coverage persisted throughout. This indicates that in the absence of live sport, media institutions reflexively revert to traditional ritualized, routinized practices to create sport media content, and women in sport stories are excluded regardless of the presence of play. Implications : The major contribution of this study is its demonstration that the ongoing dominance of men’s sport media coverage does not emerge as a result of weekly, seasonal coverage of live sport, but is founded on deeply entrenched notions of commercial value and upheld by newsroom routines and social rituals.

This article explores the ways Latinos—as audience, market, media—reshape the boundaries of sport media coverage. Its central focus examines the ways ESPN responds to the “browning of America” and its changing demographics. To this end, the essay examines the emergence and development of ESPN Deportes, and provides a textual analysis of “One Nación” (September 2015-August 2016), a podcast hosted by Max Bretos (Cuban American) and Marly Rivera (Puerto Rican). Offering a textual and content analysis, I suggest that One Nación provides a benchmark to assess the cultural politics of diversifying sport media content, coverage, and context. Moreover, I argue that One Nación, while unable to escape the dominant features of late racial/gendered capitalism, produces a counterhegemonic discursive practice capable of challenging mediated circulations of Latino Americans.

This essay undertakes to examine the interplay between ethics and the media coverage of homosexuality in sport through the lens of college sport journalism, specifically the factors to be considered when determining when sexuality and related issues are newsworthy and whether there are ways to better prepare student sport journalists in dealing with these issues. Anticipating that there will be a need for college sport journalists to be engaged with these issues as they move forward to assume roles as thought influencers in the world of professional sport journalism, a framework for considering the news value of stories on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) athletes and issues related to homophobia in sport is developed using principles outlined in the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.

This chapter offers a review of research on the coverage of sporting media and gender equality related to the Olympic Games between1984 and 2018. Drawing upon a sample of 88 articles identified by using the search engine Oria (which contains 70 international and Norwegian scientific databases) and resources of the Olympic World Library, our review shows that while male and female athletes have achieved almost numerical parity, the media coverage of gender representation still demonstrates great differences. Although stereotyping of female athletes is declining, the media coverage of them in the Olympics is still discriminatory and, thus, leaves room for further progress if the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is to achieve their gender equality goals. Consequently, this chapter identifies both progress and shortcomings in relation to key issues around gender representation, which may aid the IOC's work and establish new incentives for further research on gender equality in sport media coverage.

Black U.S. military affiliated sport fans hold a unique place in society, as their multiple identities (i.e., racial and career) may possess conflicting elements. Militarism preaches nationalism, meritocracy, and bootstrapism, whereas Black sport activism questions if these “American” values extend to people of color. The current study interviewed Black military affiliated individuals ( N = 10) to understand their perceptions on nationalism and racism within the landscape of contemporary sport activism. The protests initiated by Colin Kaepernick of the National Football League, who took a knee during the pregame national anthem, was a focal point for discussion with the participants. Three main themes were identified in the interviews: (a) protectors of the first amendment, (b) the “right” and “wrong” way to protest, and (c) new racism and color blindness in sport. This study allows a group that is not often studied to voice their perceptions of nationalism and racism in the context of sport activism.