Windows of equity? Media review of Czech gender hegemony during the 2018 Winter Olympic Games

Abstract

Background: Sport media coverage of women's participation has long been viewed as perpetuating hegemonic masculinity. Yet several authors have found recent coverage of mega, multi-sport events, such as the Summer Olympic Games, to be more equitable towards women, particularly when examined proportionally to participation. The Czech Republic for various reasons has traditionally been resistant to feminist ideology, marking its unique positioning in providing an equitable presentation of women's participation. Objective: To examine the influence of hegemonic masculinity in an Eastern European culture, portrayed through Czech online media coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. Methods: Online media coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games was examined for gendered differences of Czech athletes. Analysis of number of articles, length of articles, type of sport, and whether the article was about domestic or foreign athletes, was evaluated over 17 days of media coverage on two dominant Czech sport media websites. Results were compared in relation to gender, participation rates and medal success. Results: A total of 860 articles were reviewed, with 49.7% favoring male athletes, and 38.6% female. Articles about female athletes were largely composed of reporting on female medal winners (medal winning: media coverage correlation .845, p < .001), while those on male athletes were predominantly from the cultural dominant sport of men's ice hockey (25.1%). Conclusions: The findings suggest that success is more important than perpetuations of hegemonic masculinity when men and women are competing in mega, multi-sport events. Implications of these findings are also provided in terms of type of media coverage and influences of equity in media coverage for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.