scholarly journals Gender Differences in Sports News Coverage on Twitter

Author(s):  
Clara Sainz-de-Baranda ◽  
Alba Adá-Lameiras ◽  
Marian Blanco-Ruiz

Gender stereotypes influence boys’ and girls’ self-perception, with the differential treatment received by sports figures in the media being one of the main factors in the perpetuation of stereotypes about sports. The objective of this research is to analyze if the new communication channels, such as Twitter, maintain gender stereotypes when reporting sports news. For this purpose, the four most followed media in Spain were analyzed: (@ElPais_Deportes, @ABC_Deportes, @Marca and @MundoDeportivo) over a period of five months, from March to June 2016. Our sample was composed of 6544 tweets, with 96.19% about sportsmen compared to 3.81% that portrayed women. The sport with the most media coverage was football (72.11%), for men as well as for women, followed by basketball (6.63%). It is clear that despite the growing international triumphs of Spanish women athletes in recent years, the latter continue to be underrepresented in the media. Female athletes receive more media coverage according to the sport which they engage in (“gender-appropriate” sports), with the exception of football, and not in accordance with their accomplishments. Twitter remains at the service of traditional media replicating the same gender biases and even augmenting them.

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucimara Fabiana Fornari ◽  
Rafaela Gessner Lourenço ◽  
Rosa Maria Godoy Serpa da Fonseca ◽  
Danyelle Leonette Araújo dos Santos ◽  
Emiko Yoshikawa Egry

ABSTRACT Objective: to identify reiteration trends or overcoming of gender inequalities in reports on female athletes published in Brazilian newspapers. Method: a documentary research based on reports published in the special report on Rio 2016 Olympic Games in two Brazilian newspapers of national circulation. 51 articles and 87 images were selected and submitted to thematic content analysis and processed in webQDA software. Results: four categories emerged from the empirical data: women’s representativeness in the Olympic Games; women on the champions platform; recognition of women from overcoming male performance; and violence against women gaining ground in sports’ agenda. Media coverage replicated socially constructed sexist patterns by portraying athletes from stereotyped female characteristics and revealed gender inequalities in describing situations of violence against athletes perpetrated by members of technical teams and supporters. Conclusion: despite the visibility given to the protagonism of athletes, there was the production and reproduction of gender stereotypes. Therefore, it is necessary to deconstruct and confront inequalities between men and women.


2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle L. Redmond ◽  
Lynn L. Ridinger ◽  
Frederick L. Battenfield

Opportunities for girls and women to participate in sports have been increasing since the enactment of Title IX; however, the media attention given to female athletes and women’s sports has lagged behind. Media coverage of female athletes has been investigated extensively in newspapers and magazines; however, few studies have examined the attention given to women’s sports on the Internet.This study focused on one sports news website to examine and compared the coverage of female and male athletes and coaches in one specific sport, college basketball. A content analysis was conducted on ESPN.com during the 2007 NCAA Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments. Results showed that women and men do not receive the same attention on the main page; however, equity was evident when the webpage for women’s college basketball was compared to the webpage for men’s college basketball.


2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Flynn ◽  
Irina Harris

Purpose The media is an important actor in public procurement, but research on its role is limited. This paper aims to investigate how the media has engaged with public procurement, using UK newspapers as a case example. Design/methodology/approach The method consisted of searching Nexis database for news articles on public procurement; automatic extraction of article attributes such as length, section, authorship; and manually coding each article for its theme and industry context. This produced quantitative indicators about the extent and focus of press coverage on public procurement. Findings Press coverage of public procurement increased between 1985 and 2018. The focus of coverage has been on governance failure and socio-economic policy. Governance failure, which includes corruption, cronyism and supplier malpractice, is associated with construction, outsourcing and professional services sectors. Socio-economic policy, which includes supporting small suppliers and favouring domestic industry, is associated with manufacturing, defence and agriculture. Research limitations/implications The analysis included UK media only. While the trends observed on the extent and focus of public procurement news coverage likely reflect the situation in other countries, international comparative research is still required. Practical implications Government officials should be more proactive in countering the “negativity bias” in news coverage of public procurement by showcasing projects where value-for-money has been achieved, services have been successfully delivered and social value has been realised. Social implications The media accentuates the negatives of public procurement and omits positive developments. The end-result is a selective and, at times, self-serving media narrative that is likely to engender cynicism towards public procurement. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study on media coverage of public procurement. It highlights that while there are similarities between media and academic treatment of public procurement, particularly in relation to its socio-economic side, the media emphasises governance failings and negative developments to a greater extent.


BMJ Open ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. e023485
Author(s):  
Caroline Louise Miller ◽  
Aimee Lee Brownbill ◽  
Joanne Dono ◽  
Kerry Ettridge

ObjectivesIn 2012, Australia was the first country in the world to introduce plain or standardised tobacco packaging, coupled with larger graphic health warnings. This policy was fiercely opposed by industry. Media coverage can be an influential contributor to public debate, and both public health advocates and industry sought media coverage for their positions. The aim of this study was to measure the print media coverage of Australian’s plain packaging laws, from inception to roll-out, in major Australian newspapers.MethodsThis study monitored mainstream Australian print media (17 newspapers) coverage of the plain packaging policy debate and implementation, over a 7-year period from January 2008 to December 2014. Articles (n=701) were coded for article type, opinion slant and topic(s).DesignContent analysis.ResultsCoverage of plain packaging was low during preimplementation phase (2008–2009), increasing sharply in the lead into legislative processes and diminished substantially after implementation. Articles covered policy rationale, policy progress and industry arguments. Of the news articles, 96% were neutrally framed. Of the editorials, 55% were supportive, 28% were opposing, 12% were neutral and 5% were mixed.ConclusionsProtracted political debate, reflected in the media, led to an implementation delay of plain packaging. While Australian media provided comprehensive coverage of industry arguments, news coverage was largely neutral, whereas editorials were mostly supportive or neutral of the policy. Countries seeking to implement plain packaging of tobacco should not be deterred by the volume of news coverage, but should actively promote the evidence for plain packaging in the media to counteract the arguments of the tobacco industry.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Hoffman

Battle terminology such as “fight,” “conquer,” and “hero” and imagery that compares doctors and patients to superheroes, soldiers and athletes have become increasingly prevalent in hospital foundation communications. The use of these metaphors has been highly controversial. While some audiences have praised foundation campaigns that use this type of messaging for emphasizing the strength of patients and hospital staff, encouraging patient families, and motivating patients to be resilient, others argue that these campaigns marginalize those who are unable to overcome their health conditions, positioning them as failures or losers. While the use of battle metaphors in hospital communications has been a heated topic in online discussion, little is known about the impact of this language on the media coverage and financial support that they generate for hospitals. This paper presents a multimodal discourse analysis of the communications of six hospital foundations in Toronto, Canada followed by a quantitative and sentiment analysis of the media coverage each foundation has received within the last fiscal year. The aim of this paper is to determine if there is a relationship between the use of battle metaphors in hospital foundation communications and the amount and sentiment of media coverage. According to agenda setting theory, media coverage has a palpable impact on public action. Therefore, the findings of this research may assist hospital foundations in developing useful communications practices they can employ to increase media exposure and, consequently, attract more donations to support their institutions.


2011 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Héctor Perla

AbstractThis article examines the determinants of public support for the use of military force. It puts forward a Framing Theory of Policy Objectives (FTPO), which contends that public support for military engagements depends on the public's perception of the policy's objective. However, it is difficult for the public to judge a policy's objective because they cannot directly observe a policy's true intention and influential political actors offer competing frames to define it. This framing contestation, carried out through the media, sets the public's decision-making reference point and determines whether the policy is perceived as seeking to avoid losses or to achieve gains. The FTPO predicts that support will increase when the public perceives policies as seeking to prevent losses and decrease when the public judges policies to be seeking gains. I operationalize and test the theory using content analysis of national news coverage and opinion polls of U.S. intervention in Central America during the 1980s. These framing effects are found to hold regardless of positive or negative valence of media coverage.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 446-465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Brooke

This article explores the discursive representations of Paralympians in South East Asia, particlarly in Singapore. One goal is to look at the extent and nature of media coverage of the Paralympics. Another goal of the research is to examine whether female Paralympians are exposed to the dual burden of sexist and ablest ideology in the media. Over 2 years, data from 100 articles were collected from three local Singaporean and Asian media sources; additionally, interviews and a survey were conducted with both Paralympians and citizens from the disabled community as well as a cohort of nondisabled Singaporean citizens. Findings suggest that coverage of Paralympic sport is significantly low, and that patriotism is more starkly linked to the Paralympics than the Olympics. Findings also suggest that othering (presenting the disabled as passive as well as challenged), or the supercrip narrative is apparent. Disabled women athletes tend to be overrepresented in passive poses out of the sport field. Finally, and more positively, the study finds that there are many images of Paralympian women as sophisticated and attractive without being sexually provocative. Therefore, evidence of sexual objectification or presentation of asexual disabled women tends not to be as present, as other similar studies have found.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 647-668 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merryn Sherwood ◽  
Angela Osborne ◽  
Matthew Nicholson ◽  
Emma Sherry

Substantial research indicates that women’s sports and female athletes gain only a small fraction of sports media coverage worldwide. Research that has examined why this is the case suggested this can be attributed to three particular factors that govern sports newswork: the male-dominated sports newsroom, ingrained assumptions about readership, and the systematic, repetitive nature of sports news. This study sought to explore women’s sports coverage using a different perspective, exploring cases where women’s sports gained coverage. It identified Australian newspapers that published more articles on women’s sports, relative to their competitors, and conducted interviews with both journalists and editors at these newspapers. It found that small, subtle changes to the three newswork elements that had previously relegated the coverage of women’s sports now facilitated it. This research provides evidence that, at least in some newspapers in Australia, sports newswork has developed to include the coverage of women’s sports.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Van Aelst ◽  
Rosa van Santen ◽  
Lotte Melenhorst ◽  
Luzia Helfer

AbstractThis study on the role of media attention for the Dutch question hour answers three questions: to what extent is media attention a source of inspiration for oral parliamentary questions? What explains the newsworthiness of these questions? And what explains the extent of media coverage for the questions posed during the question hour? To address this, we present a content analysis of oral parliamentary questions and related press coverage in five recent years. The results show first that oral questions are usually based on media attention for a topic. Concerns about media influence should however be nuanced: it is not necessarily the coverage itself, but also regularly a political statement that is the actual source of a parliamentary question. The media are thus an important “channel” for the interaction between politicians. Second, our analysis shows that oral questions do not receive media attention naturally. Several news values help to explain the amount of news coverage that questions receive. “Surfing the wave” of news attention for a topic in the days previous to the question hour seems to be the best way to generate media attention.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-302
Author(s):  
Emel Ozdora-Aksak ◽  
Colleen Connolly-Ahern ◽  
Daniela Dimitrova

News shapes audiences’ views of people and events beyond their immediate physical environment. Since the mass migration of refugees from Syria represents one of the worst humanitarian crises in modern history, its news coverage necessarily shaped the way global audiences understood the crisis. This qualitative study employs critical discourse analysis (CDA), specifically Van Leeuwen’s Discourse and Practice: New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis (2008) as a social practice approach, to reveal and compare the discursive strategies used in the print media coverage of the Syrian refugees in three European countries: Turkey, Bulgaria and the UK. The findings show significant differences in the discourse used to describe the refugees and different approaches in terms of contextualization, spaces and actions depicted in the media coverage in each country. The study reveals the ongoing dialogue between journalistic practice and political decision making in three countries impacted to varying extents by the ongoing crisis.


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