Towards a Level Playing Field - Australian Sports Commission

As with emotion lexis in the studio introductions of
reports, a higher proportion of positive emotion was
displayed by, or attributed to, female sport than to male
sport overall (35% and 24%, respectively), while a higher
proportion of negative emotion was displayed by, or
attributed to, male athletes (12% for males and 3% for
females). The more signifi cant proportion of negative
emotion lexis used in describing male athletes adds to
the trend in coverage identifi ed throughout this report
that the stereotype of male stoicism is challenged in
television news coverage of sport, and that television
news has a broader inventory of narratives with which to
discuss male sport.
Chart 25: Emotion lexis — overall, by sport type
Positive
Negative
Chart 26: Emotivity — overall, by sport type
Volume
2 800
2 100
1 400
700
346 367
Volume
■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport
SECTION TWO 37
The proportions of positive and negative emotivity in
overall television coverage of female sport and male
sport accentuated those of the studio introductions
(see page 32). Female athletes were more often
evaluated positively in the main body of reports
(60%, compared to 49% for male athletes), while
male athletes were more often evaluated negatively
(25%, compared to 7% for female athletes). There
was a higher proportion of evaluations from named
spokespeople, which is not surprising as studio
introductions are generally more focused on
journalists’ evaluations or facts, while the body of the
report is more likely to include spokespeople giving
their own evaluations.
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
0
53.5
1 449
912
493
54.8
700 110 32 842
52.4
48.8
727
204
189
437
92
96
47
86
54.0
Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability
50.6
21 16
Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Male sport Female sport Mixed sport
Positive Negative
70.0
60.0
50.0
40.0
30.0
Favourability