An analysis of gender coverage in U.S. print and electronic media during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games

According to research on sports media, reporters have both gender and racial biases. Women are marginalized in the media (Billings, Halone, & Denham, 2002), and athletes are stereotyped based on race (Banet-Weiser, 1999). These depictions affect the public's image of athletics and particular athletes. White males are offered both more media attention and more salient coverage (Banet-Weiser, 1999; Billings, Halone, & Denham, 2002). Women are characterized for non-task behaviors (Billings, Halone, & Denham, 2002), and minority groups' behaviors are generalized (Banet-Weiser, 1999). Media coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics was evaluated to examine ways that athletes are portrayed by gender. The purpose of this study was to assess the coverage of the various types of media on Olympic athletes. An additional purpose was to gain insight into how this coverage affects athlete behavior and the public's view of athletics. Coverage will be compared to past Olympic commentary. Currently, coverage is not equal quantitatively or qualitatively. More articles are written about male athletes than female athletes, as well as males receiving more photographs and larger photographs v than females. Females receive less coverage about their athleticism and more coverage about non-task issues, where men are covered for their athletic accomplishments. Overall, the findings showed that male athletes received more coverage in terms of number of articles and number of photos. Male athletes accounted for 62.45 % of total articles and females received 37.55 %. Furthermore, males received more task related coverage than non-task coverage, compared to females who received more non-task related coverage than task related coverage. Males received 1.53 times as many photographs as females. Males also had a higher percentage of action photos of total male photographs compared to the percentage of action photos for females out of total female photographs.