Not in the picture: images of participation in New Zealand's outdoor recreation media

Abstract

This article reports on a project that examined who was in the picture in photographs in 11 outdoor magazines published in New Zealand in 2001 and 2011. The aim of the study was to identify how well women, children, families and older people were represented in these magazines and how this correlated to outdoor participation and organization membership figures. Overall, the percentage of pictures of women, children, families or older people in outdoor recreation magazines did not change between 2001 and 2011. Only one magazine was found to reflect participation rates or membership numbers of women in its photographs. Photographs of children were most frequently seen in the hunting and fishing magazines and in the conservation magazine. Images of older people and families rarely appeared in any of the magazines.