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Jenna LaPlante

Professor Babe

MIT 3000

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Quantitative Content Analysis: Gender Bias in Local Sports Media Coverage

Introduction

Gender inequality is an age old issue dating back to ancient Greece where physical

education was offered exclusively to males. Although women have been integrated into the once

male dominated realm of athleticism, there still exists the question of bias. The media plays a

role in maintaining an underlying hegemonic message that the relationship between athleticism

and femininity are naturally disregarded. Print media in particular naturalizes the hierarchical

gender relations in sports, promoting unequal opportunities for practicing and appreciating high

level sports. The intent of this research is to provide a quantitative analysis of media portrayals

and the amount of coverage focused on female athletes at the University of Western Ontario, as

reflected in the London Free Press and the Western Gazette.

Theory

The media play a large role in how consent is obtained. Sports media in particular assists

in upholding antiquated definitions of gender and negative stereotypes of women who do not

conform to the traditional notions of femininity. This type of masculine hegemony provides little

support for the promotion and appreciation of women’s sports, thus presenting the question of

gender power relations in the media. Elite female athletes should be defined and recognized for

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their athleticism just like any male athlete, therefore balanced coverage in terms of the amount of

articles, their size and their prominence should be easily identified in the print media.

Research Intent

The intent of this research, carried out through an investigation of local print media

coverage, is to conceptualize media and sports as reaffirming hegemonic masculinity. Through

the examination of the only two newspapers that are largely liberal and cover Western varsity

athletics on a daily basis, the research seeks to extract evidence of gender bias in its content.

Furthermore, by examining the types of articles printed, the target audience can be deduced.

Ultimately, conclusions can be drawn regarding potential inequality in the representation of

female athleticism in the Western Sports sections. In addition, exploring the nature of gender

power relations in the media may provide support for or against the promotion of women’s

sports in society. In this case, analyzing two primary newspapers that display Western’s varsity

athletics on a regular basis will provide an understanding of gender bias in sports coverage.

Hypothesis

Due to the liberal mindset of the London Free Press and the student governed Gazette, it

is believed there should be equal coverage surrounding both men and women athletics. However,

it is hypothesized that there may be a disparity in the length of coverage and types of stories

discussed. Upon further research, it is evident that the amount of games and events that each

gender participates in varies by month. In each month, while female athletes participate in more

events than male athletes, it is still hypothesized that male sports teams will receive more

coverage.

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By studying how often gender is reported, inferences can be made about the bias of media

coverage in sports. In accordance with the hypothesis the following questions will be answered:

Do male or female sports teams receive more coverage?

What are differences in the number of words written about either gender?

Do gender specific articles favour certain themes (ie. Player profile)?

What is the theme of each article?

What does the majority of reporting tell about the audience?

Is there a correlation between the number of articles written and the number of gender

specific sporting events per month?

Sampling Frame Universe

The analysis of news content plays an important role in disclosing subtle biases in the

way the news is reported. The presence and portrayal of gender in news media involves complex

judgements of stereotypes and relative incidences of favouritism when it comes to male versus

female coverage of sports.

There were several steps involved in developing a sampling strategy. Foremost, a

universe was established. The universe refers to the totality of recorded information regarding

the characteristics that will be inferred. This population was chosen based on the nature of the

information included and its relevance to the research questions. The Sports section in the

London Free Press (LFP) and the Western Gazette (Gazette) newspapers were analyzed because

both contain daily articles about the Western Mustang athletes.

The major question in this study concerns the quantity of actual coverage in print of

men’s versus women’s athletic events. Through selecting a small sample of news coverage

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relevant to the coding process, quantitative patterns were extracted and analyzed. The sample

data is illustrative of patterns surrounding strong gender bias in the media. In this particular case,

all articles published in the sports section of the Gazette and the LFP in the months of February

and November 2010 were used as a sample of the universe.

Selecting the unit of analysis was extremely important because it was comprised of the

elements that will end up being classified. Every article, summary and score posted in the sports

section about a Western Varsity team was analyzed in terms of its overall content. This did not

include headings or captions under pictures. The press coverage of sporting events was

measured by counting the number of gender specific articles, the length of the articles and the

theme of the articles.

Methodology

Coding and Categories

The process of coding is mainly one of selective reduction. This is the central idea in

content analysis that works by breaking down the qualitative contents of the text into meaningful

and pertinent quantitative information. In this particular case, the text was examined and coded

for the existence of articles relating to female athleticism at Western.

Too few categories can lead to unreliable or invalid conclusions; therefore it is import to

create enough categories to avoid overlapping in the coding procedures. The category system

must be mutually exclusive so that the units of analysis fall into only one category. For example,

articles were obtained from two newspapers, both of which cover the Western Mustangs on a

daily basis (Monday-Friday). These were chosen because they are both local newspapers

targeting university students as their main audience. The articles found were divided into three

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categories for comparison: men-only, women-only and both. Stories in the men and women only

categories were strictly focused on the respective gender, where as stories in the category marked

both contained information about both men’s and women’s sports in one article.

After an article was coded for gender, it was then coded according to the research questions.

The number of words per article were used as the appropriate methodology to test for

quantitative bias. The products of a quantitative content analysis tend to be deductive in that

categorical schemes and coding rules are developed prior to analyzing the data. An a priori,

nominal quantification system was used in order to categorize the data and ensure exhaustivity.

The frequency of occurrence of each unit in each category was calculated. Thus, the data was

logically categorized in terms of the types of stories that received coverage. This included:

Feature story: this includes articles with more than 300 words regarding a player, a team

or an event that does not include a game summary rather it highlights their future, speaks

about an issue or profiles a team

Game/ Event Summary with quotes: this includes articles that summarize the game or

event and include quotes

Game/Event Summary without quotes: this includes articles that summarize the game or

event without including quotes

Scores and Stats: this is a short article that lists the score, player or team stats of a game

or event

Score only: this is limited to displaying only final results from the game or event without

acknowledging individual stats

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Further quantitative research was performed for a second analysis. The constructed categories

included the specific content or theme of the article including:

Player Profile: an article that focuses on a specific player; this includes their

accomplishments or future goals but does not include a summary of their previous game

Team Profile: an article that focuses on the accomplishments or problems of a specific

team; this excludes articles that include game summaries

Game Summary: this includes articles summarizing a previous game or event; it also

includes stats and scores

These categories are reliable in that there is little discrepancy as to their subjective meaning,

thus coders do not have to be specifically trained in order to fully understand the procedure. This

quantification system allows for replicability given that any coder can attempt the procedure

several times and receive the same results. These units of analysis allow the procedure to

measure exactly what it is supposed to measure. Gendered athletics is not a subjective theme,

thus categories do not overlap and the procedure is valid.

Preliminary Research

This chart displays the gender equality of participation in athletics at Western. There are 19

teams for both male and female athletes to participate, thus there should not be an inequality in

coverage because there are an equivalent number of teams for both genders to report on.

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Western Sports Teams

Sport Male Teams Female Team

Badminton YES YES

Basketball YES YES

Baseball YES --

Cross-Country YES YES

Curling YES YES

Fencing YES YES

Field Hockey -- YES

Figure Skating -- YES

Football YES --

Golf YES YES

Ice Hockey YES YES

Lacrosse -- YES

Rowing YES YES

Rugby YES YES

Soccer YES YES

Squash YES YES

Swimming YES YES

Tennis YES YES

Track and Field YES YES

Volleyball YES YES

Water Polo YES --

Wrestling YES YES

TOTAL 19 19

Quantitative Results and Analysis

(For the following results, the generated tables are listed in the appendix)

Number of Stories

Women’s sports coverage was foremost ascertained by comparing the number of articles

and their word count on male and female athletes. The data from Table 1 was compiled and a

graph was created. Figure 1demonstrates the vast difference in the number of articles covering

athletics in men versus women. Comparatively, male sports coverage in the London Free Press in

February is 16% higher than female sports coverage. In November, latter receives 42% less

coverage. The margins in the Gazette are much higher. In February, male sports teams receive

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44% more coverage than female sports teams, and in November the Sports section is dominated

by male sports teams again, covering their teams 62% more often.

Figure 1: The LFP and the Gazette: Number of Sport Related Articles Per Gender in November

and February

Length of Stories

When the amount of words per article was considered, higher values were found in the

male categories compared to the female categories. The significant differences found among

genders are accounted for in Table 2. Figure 2 accounts for the total number of words printed

regarding on the subject of male sports teams versus female sports teams. It is evident that the

newspapers write an extensive amount of words regarding male sports teams compared to

female. The Western Gazette writes 85% more content about male sports teams in November

2010 alone. Combined, in two months, the LFP and the Gazette write a total of 23,204 more

words on male athletes which is a total of 87% more or a ratio of approximately 27:4. This

information can tell the position and attitude the specific medium has on the subject. This proves

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Male Athletes Female Athletes Both Teams

WG November WG February LFP November LFP February

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the insignificance of the female sports, because if there are fewer words, the article topic is not

seen as salient, rather they are regarded as trivial.

Figure 2: LFP and Gazette, Total Number of Words Representing Male and Female Athletes

* results do not include mixed gender coverage

Coverage Relative to Participation in Sporting Events

Taking the analysis a step further, the amount of games and events per team, per gender

were calculated and compared to the coverage for that month. Table 3 and Figure 3 show the

number of events in February and November.

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

30000

Male Athletes Female Athletes

WG November

WG February

LFP November

LFP February

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Figure 3: Total Number or UWO Sporting Events Per Month, Per Gender

*results do not include mixed gender coverage

As indicated in Figure 1, stories about men appeared far more frequently than stories

about women. However, in both February and November, more female sports were being played

at Western, thus there should have been favourable coverage surrounding female sporting events.

52%

48%

Games/Events in February

Men's Games

Women's Games

40% 60%

Games/Events in November

Men's Games

Women's Games

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Of the 99 games played in November by both sexes, 59 were played by female athletes. There

were only 20 articles in both the Gazette and the LFP (Table 1) that covered female athletics

where as 41 articles were written about male athletes, which is 36 % more. These results show

the partiality in media coverage as women sports should have received 20% more coverage if

compared to the amount of games played.

Overall coverage of females remains lower than males. Women have tended to be vastly

underrepresented relative to their participation. Figure 3 demonstrates that women’s sports

receive proportionally less coverage than men’s sports relative to participation. For example, in

November, the amount of words written about female athletes was 1191, compared to 7292 for

men. The 14% coverage on female athletes compared to their 60% participation is not balanced.

There should have been more words written on female athletes because there were more events

to cover. Women received extremely poor coverage in relation to the number of events.

Number of Articles in London Free Press in February

Type of Story Men’s Team Women’s Team

Feature Story 17 5

Game/Event

Summary with quotes

5 3

Game/Event

Summary without

quotes

2 2

Score and Stats 15 5

Score 2 5

Total 41 (46%) 20 (30%)

Types of Articles in The London Free Press in February and November

Type of Articles Men’s Team Women’s Team

Player Profile 5 2

Team Profile 13 4

Game Summary 23 14

Total 41 20

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Number of Articles in the Gazette in February and November

Type of Story Men’s Team Women’s Team

Feature Story 10 2

Game/Event

Summary with Quotes

15 2

Game/Event

Summary without

quotes

0 1

Scores and stats 1 0

Scores 0 1

Total 26 (72%) 6 (28%)

Types of Articles in The Gazette in February and November

Type of Articles Men’s Team Women’s Team

Player Profile 0 0

Team Profile 10 3

Game Summary 16 3

Total 26 6

When simply looking at the game or event summary, men’s quotes were used in 9 more

articles than women’s, and men’s game summaries were rarely written without quotes. The types

of articles written tell a lot about the audience. Focusing on giving praise or recognition to

individual male athletes and their teams was far more recognizable than those written about

female athletes. Player profiles on male athletes outnumbered female athletes by a ratio of 5:2.

Male team profiles dominated female team profiles by a ratio of 23:7. Both types of stories

privilege and recognize athletics talents more than a quick game summary proving that female

athleticism is seen as trivial and deserves less recognition and appreciation than male athleticism.

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Results and Description

References to male athletics strongly outnumbered references to female athletics which

suggest gender bias in news coverage. The number of articles and their word count written about

female athletes was as hypothesized less than those written about male athletics. Hegemonic

masculinity was reinforced significantly through the types of articles written. Women appeared

more often in shorter stories and when examining the content of the stories, men received

extensive profiles on their team and specific athletes. It was predicted and assured that although

women participate in more sporting events per month, coverage still favoured male athletes.

Limitations and Self-Critique

The question of reliability is a primary concern in a qualitative content analysis. After

discussing the chosen categories and reaffirming the results with another coder, the study was

reliable. The categories did not require extreme coder training as they were particularly straight-

forward and very objective. The study is reliable and replicable because if repeated, similar

conclusions would result. The coding instructions and category definitions were fully explained

and any confusion or overlapping was eliminated prior to data collection.

Although the facts and data analysis that were provided seem reliable, the sampling size

and method was a major limitation in the final data. For example, expanding the sample from

two months to four could have made a difference in the results, thus providing a stronger result.

Furthermore, choosing the month of November as part of the sample did not provide valid results

because the hype surrounding men’s football at Western plays a large role in the amount of

articles and types of articles written. The football season is known to be one of Western’s

beloved traditions, thus a large portion of coverage is allotted to the football team. Additionally,

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further research could have been carried out in terms of analyzing the amount of coverage for

each gendered sport and comparing the results.

The information gathered and quantified focused on news content in textual form only,

thereby excluding analysis of visual coverage. Privileging the text over image, rather than

incorporating both in the study could potentially change the results or strengthen the hypothesis.

This is particularly regrettable because images could have been dissected, thus providing further

insight as to the specific types of gender bias in sports media coverage (ie. more action shots of

male sports teams).

Moreover, whether it is print, visual, news, advertisement, entertainment, there is no

suggested research domain for content analysis. Quantification of content units makes it possible

to reduce data and characterize its variation with statistics such as percentages and averages.

With proper training, coders can calculate acceptable levels of reliability, even when measuring

concepts or variables in news content. The unlimited possibilities may be extended and

individual variables can be developed and discussed empirically and thus, used reliably.

Overlooking gender specific descriptors further limited the results. Although its exclusion made

the intercoder reliability more accurate, it would have benefitted the argument of gender

stereotyping. Specific themes or keywords extracted from the article would have allowed for the

analysis of evidence regarding the tone of the article and how women are portrayed. While

several themes appear to demonstrate a shift toward male sports teams, providing the raw

numbers may evoke an overly pessimistic picture of the equality of women’s representation in

newspaper. Therefore, in addition to investigating the amount of coverage, it may be valuable to

analyze the types of sports covered and the larger, more subjective issues such as the tone of the

articles.

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To improve the study, Figure 3 depicts the sporting events played in February by both

genders. These results could have been compared to the article specific coverage which includes

what sport the article was written about. This would have levelled the playing field in terms of

getting rid of over covered sports such as football which is thought to have skewed the data.

Sport Men’s Teams Women’s Teams

Basketball 7 7

Hockey 9 4

Volleyball 6 6

Squash 2 2

Given the results, the study confirmed the underreporting of women’s sports even though

there are many events and athletes that could be reported. The obvious question remains: why

aren’t more stories being written about female athletes and to answer this question, researchers

must move beyond the qualitative study of print media. The attitudes and opinions of readers and

editors, the budget and staff constraints and the pressure to sell newspapers are other factors that

play a role in the results.

Conclusion

Quantitative content analysis primarily determines the effects of communication in an

objective and systematic way. The research questions were most productively analysed by rigid

statistical procedures and quantitative analysis because given the nature of the questions such as

those surrounding unequal coverage, it must be proven quantitatively rather than qualitatively.

As hypothesized, there were significantly larger proportions of male sports team coverage

and the noticeable tilt in the coverage could suggest many implications. The media uses several

techniques to subordinate the female athletes. The amount of articles dedicated to female

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athletes, the number of words written in each article and the types of articles written do not

represent women’s achievements in sports equally.

The overwhelming media coverage of male sports teams reflects the hegemonic

masculinity in everyday sport reporting. The media is undermining and trivializing women’s

accomplishments in sports and reinforcing the notion that sports pertain to men. In fact, the data

shows that female sports are greatly underreported in local newspapers. Gender equality would

be achieved when the participants in both men’s and women’s sports programs received equal

coverage or at least proportional coverage to the amount of events per month. The notion of

equal representation reflects an important societal goal in that both genders are given the same

opportunity and praise to participate in athletics.

Media coverage of sports has the ability to set the agenda. Newspaper editors make

decisions about what will be covered in each issue, and it can be argued that they are giving the

public what they want. Content decisions are bounded by audience desires, thus, indicating that

the audience enjoys sport coverage about male teams rather than female.

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Appendix

Table 1: The London Free Press (LFP) and the Western Gazette Newspapers, Number of sport-

related articles by Gender, (February and November 2010)*

Newspaper/Publication

Month

Male Teams Female Teams Mixed Teams

LFP February 18 (46%) 12 (30%) 9 (24%)

LFP November 23 (66%) 8 (22%) 4 (11%)

Gazette February 5 (72%) 3 (28%) 0 (0%)

Gazette November 21 (77%) 4 (15%) 2 (8%)

*includes sports statistics

*does not include standings

Table 2: LFP and Gazette, Total Number of Words Representing Male and Female Athletes

Newspaper Number of Words

representing Male

Athletics

Number of Words

Representing

Female Athletics

Amount of words

written about male

athletes – female

athletes

London Free

Press February

7348 4916 2432

London Free

Press November

7252 1191 6061

Western Gazette

February

3102 922 2180

Western Gazette

November

9790 1759 8031

Table 3: Total Number of UWO Sporting Events Per Month Per Gender

Month # of Male Sporting

Games/Events

# of Female Sporting

Games/ Events

Total Number of

Sporting Games/

Events

February 24 26 50

November 40 59 99

* does not include mixed gender sporting events (ie. Squash tournaments and curling)