Framing Differences 1 Framing Differences in Gender-Related Sport ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Framing Differences 16men’s or women’s singles draw; so the discrepancy between genders in the number ofarticles was surprising. Overall, newspaper articles on the U.S. Open reinforcedtraditional notions that males are more dominant, physical athletes than females; and thatmen’s sport is more important than women’s sport even when both compete atsimultaneous events at the highest level of competition and for the same prize money.Coding results and pairwise comparisons from Internet articles on men’s andwomen’s tennis, as well as from stories on both genders, offered more inconsistentresults, several of which were unexpected. As presumed, online articles weresignificantly more likely to include descriptors on athletic prowess on men’s tennisplayers, but they also included more descriptors on athletic weakness for the men as well.Other expected results included descriptors on family roles or personal relationship weresignificantly more likely to appear in stories on women’s tennis than those on men’stennis or both genders. Unexpectedly, though, articles on both genders featured morereferences to physical appearances than those on women’s tennis. Overall, just five of the11 significant differences were expected based on the assumptions.Still, comparisons between gender-related content within Internet articles did notserve as a major challenge to traditional findings, since several of the unexpecteddifferences were from comparisons to articles on both genders, an area that had not beenanalyzed by previous sport media researchers who did content analyses. The only majorsurprise among these 11 differences was Internet men’s tennis articles were significantlymore likely to include descriptors on athletic weakness than those on women’s tennis.However, the totem pole for coverage was evident in online articles, since an even higherpercentage of the overall Internet articles focused on only the men’s tournament (48.2%)
Framing Differences 17than those in newspapers (41.9%). Of course, the surprisingly few total number of bylinearticles on the U.S Open published on the three Internet (n=56) sites may have skewedthose differences, since all six newspapers and online outlets examined provided morecoverage on each of the final four days of tournament play than each of the previous 10 –a time when Federer’s dominance became a more significant news storyOverall, neither the content within newspapers nor within the online sport sitesgreatly differed from previous research; and both obviously placed a premium on men’stennis based on total number of articles published. However, the binomial tests for twoproportions revealed startling differences between how newspapers and online sitesframed female athletes. In comparing articles solely on women’s tennis, newspapers weresignificantly more likely to use descriptors on perceived athletic weaknesses, family rolesor relationships, and physical appearances. Online articles were more likely to includedescriptors on positive skill level and psychological strengths.These results show that online sport news sites for at least the three major outletsexamined in this study were more likely to alter and challenge the traditional genderstereotypes that have historically been framed through sport media coverage (Kane, 1996;Higgs, Weiller, & Martin, 2003). In contrast, newspapers were significantly more likelyto frame female athletes more negatively, while also delving into their personal lives andelaborating on their appearances more than the online sites. Therefore – at least in regardto the new media outlets – hegemonic masculinity was both support and challenged, andthus remains contested (Connell, 2005). Furthermore, based on these results, online sportmedia appears far more likely to challenge the status quo for framing female and male
Page 1 and 2: Framing Differences 1Framing Differ
Page 3 and 4: Framing Differences 3Introduction a
Page 5 and 6: Framing Differences 5content of fem
Page 7 and 8: Framing Differences 7The three news
Page 9 and 10: Framing Differences 9have descripto
Page 11 and 12: Framing Differences 11Table 1 Total
Page 13 and 14: Framing Differences 13positive skil
Page 15: Framing Differences 15media studies
Page 19 and 20: Framing Differences 19REFERENCESBil
Page 21 and 22: Framing Differences 21Kane, M. J.,
Page 23: Framing Differences 23Sagas, M., Cu

Framing Differences 1 Framing Differences in Gender-Related Sport ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?