Gender Inequity In Sports Media Analysis

Many believe that gender disproportionality is not prevalent in today’s society and therefore considered a thing of the past. However, in the sports media industry it can be argued that gender disproportionally still exists and is a universal problem. The issue of unbalanced of genders in media coverage, athlete profiles and sports advertising will be discussed within the framework of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and other research. This discussion has significances within the sport and recreation sector as continuing efforts are made to further the cause of gender equality. This essay will argue that gender inequity in the media is still prevalent today.

Just How disproportionate is female athlete’s coverage in the mass media compared with

Not only was it the largest in Olympic history with seven out of ten people tuning into watch it, it also had the largest group of accredited media members, 25,400 to be exact from 159 countries. Of the 25,400 accredited members 21% were female, which is another games record (Carter, Casanva, Maume, 2015). Given the increased involvement of women within the media and Olympics it would be easy to assume that progress has been made in parity of reporting between the genders. However, this does not seem to be that case. Throughout the 2008 Beijing Olympics male athletes received 54.2% of the overall coverage of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) official prime time telecast, meanwhile their female counterparts received just 45.8% of the clock time. The 8.4% difference between the two is nearly twice the difference from the last Olympics in Athens (4.6%) (Billings, Angelini, Duke, 2010) showing that there has been no progress for equality. This is equivalent to men receiving approximately four more hours of coverage in the overall 74.5 hours of coverage of the NBC’s prime time Olympic broadcast that was just devoted to men (Billings, Angelini, Duke, 2010). It may be thought that the fewer female athletes, the less the coverage of them, as 42.2% of the overall

However, media outlets get a major part of their information from athlete profiles and media guides. These profiles and guides are regularly constructed products written by sports organizations and governing bodies to provide various information about their athletes and teams (Kane, Buysse, 2005). This poses the dilemma of whether it is really the media providing the fans with what they what, or whether is it the sport organizations feeding the media what they want the fans to hear. The profiles constructed for female athletes tend to be 10% longer than males but contain 55% more personal information, which could range from information of their family life and background to what their favourite hobbies and past times are (Carter, Casanva, Maume, 2015). Therefore, media broadcasts could broadcast males more due to the mass of information they are given on them in terms of their sport, it could also influence the media into thinking it is okay to ask questions on a female athlete’s lifestyles and hobbies rather give the same level of coverage and commentary on their sport like their male