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University of New South Wales Journalism and Media Research Centreand Media Monitors joint research for the Australian Sports Commission

Towards a Level Playing Field:sport and gender in Australian media

January 2008–July 2009

Last updated January 2014

Principal researchers:

• Professor Catharine Lumby, Director, Journalism and Media Research Centre, University of New South Wales

• Dr Helen Caple, Research Associate, Journalism and Media Research Centre, University of New South Wales

• Dr Kate Greenwood, Senior Portfolio Analyst, Media Monitors

Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media CONTENTS iiiii

Contents

Executive summary .............................................................................................................................................................................................vii

Introduction .............................................................................................................................................................................................................. ix

Section One: Quantitative fi gures and qualitative media analysis of press coverage, 25 November–8 December 2008 .......................................................................................................................................................................1

Volume of stories by publication date ........................................................................................................................................................2

Media format, publication date and publication type ........................................................................................................................2

Volume of stories by publication type .........................................................................................................................................................2

Publication type ......................................................................................................................................................................................................3

Analysis according to sport ..............................................................................................................................................................................5

Qualitative fi ndings: media coverage, sport and gender ..................................................................................................................6

The state of media game: stakeholder interviews ...........................................................................................................................16

Section Two: Qualitative and quantitative media analysis, October 2008–July 2009 ......................................19

Key metrics ............................................................................................................................................................................................................20

Gender overview ..................................................................................................................................................................................................20

Share of voice .......................................................................................................................................................................................................21

Story order ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................22

Primary story focus ............................................................................................................................................................................................24

Nationality of athletes ......................................................................................................................................................................................24

Text type ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................25

Narrative frame ....................................................................................................................................................................................................25

Visual analysis — studio backdrop ..........................................................................................................................................................27

Linguistic analysis — studio introduction .............................................................................................................................................29

Visual analysis — overall ...............................................................................................................................................................................33

Linguistic analysis — overall ........................................................................................................................................................................36

Leading issues .....................................................................................................................................................................................................40

Leading messages .............................................................................................................................................................................................43

Leading spokespeople .....................................................................................................................................................................................44

Leading media ......................................................................................................................................................................................................46

Leading by-lines and comperes...................................................................................................................................................................46

Placement ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................48

Trend analysis .......................................................................................................................................................................................................48

Acknowledgments

Many people assisted in the production of this research. Thank you to Dr Petra Nolan for providing excellent assistance in the project management and editing of the Journalism and Media Research Centre section of the report, and Ciara Ward for her care in editing the Media Monitors sections of the fi nal document. A signifi cant debt of gratitude is owed to Hope Clutterham and Carly Logan at Media Monitors for their invaluable input into the conception and execution, respectively, of Sections Two to Six. Particular acknowledgment goes to Sareh Aminian for her contribution to Section Two, David Vallence for outstanding work on Section Five, and Iain Wright and Peter Prior for Section Six. Special thanks to Peter Hannagan, Bill Hawker, Dayne Smith and Ilse Steyn for their painstaking research assistance, and Lilla Smee for her excellent data analysis.

The Australian Sports Commission is the Australian Government agency that develops, supports and invests in sport at all levels. It was established in 1985 and operates under the Australian Sports Commission Act 1989. The Commission’s national leadership role is achieved through three operational areas: the Australian Institute of Sport, Participation & Sustainable Sports, and Corporate Operations. The Australian Sports Commission forms part of the Health portfolio.

© Australian Sports Commission 2014

ISSN 0186-3448

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Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian mediaiv CONTENTS v

Section Three: Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the Beijing Olympic Games, August 2008 .....51

Key metrics ............................................................................................................................................................................................................52

Gender overview ..................................................................................................................................................................................................52

Share of voice .......................................................................................................................................................................................................53


Nationality of athletes ......................................................................................................................................................................................54

Text type ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................54

Narrative frame ....................................................................................................................................................................................................54

Visual analysis — studio backdrop ..........................................................................................................................................................55




Leading issues .....................................................................................................................................................................................................66



Leading media ......................................................................................................................................................................................................70

Leading by-lines and comperes...................................................................................................................................................................72

Placement ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................72

Trend analysis .......................................................................................................................................................................................................73

Section Four: Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the Beijing Paralympic Games, September 2008 ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................75

Key metrics ............................................................................................................................................................................................................76

Gender overview ..................................................................................................................................................................................................76

Share of voice .......................................................................................................................................................................................................77


Nationality of Athletes ......................................................................................................................................................................................78

Visual Analysis — studio backdrop ..........................................................................................................................................................79




Leading issues .....................................................................................................................................................................................................89

Event results and preparation .....................................................................................................................................................................90

Corporate ................................................................................................................................................................................................................90



Leading media ......................................................................................................................................................................................................93

Trend analysis .......................................................................................................................................................................................................94

Section Five: Quantitative media analysis, January–December 2008 ............................................................................97

Key fi ndings ............................................................................................................................................................................................................98

Share of voice .......................................................................................................................................................................................................98

Media type ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................99

State breakdown ..............................................................................................................................................................................................100

Leading media ...................................................................................................................................................................................................103

Leading by-lines ................................................................................................................................................................................................106

Leading radio comperes ..............................................................................................................................................................................107

Leading television comperes.....................................................................................................................................................................108

Section Six: Quantitative analysis of non-news television coverage, January–December 2008 ............109

Key fi ndings .........................................................................................................................................................................................................110

Competitor comparison ................................................................................................................................................................................111

Share of voice ....................................................................................................................................................................................................112

Audience demographics ...............................................................................................................................................................................114

Leading stations ...............................................................................................................................................................................................114

Leading sports by competitor ...................................................................................................................................................................115

Leading sports by station ...........................................................................................................................................................................119

Appendix A: CARMA®methodology ..........................................................................................................................................................131

References......................................................................................................................................................................................................................133

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY vii

Australian television news (see Section Two, Table 38).

• The relatively low volume of reporting and comparatively low duration of air time given to female sport when compared to women’s success and participation rates implicitly give male sports more signifi cance than female sports in Australian television.

• The ABC’s above-average representation of women in sport should be noted: female sport was the focus of 11% of television news coverage on ABC1 Sydney and Melbourne (see Table 1), while in non-news programming in the Sydney market, ABC1 and ABC2 were the only stations with more female sport than male sport coverage by duration (see Section Six, charts 145 and 146). In television news coverage, Channel Nine Sydney and Channel Ten Melbourne were at the lower end of the spectrum, with 6% of all sports coverage on these stations devoted to female sport (see Section Two, Chart 40).

Tone and theme of coverage

• Despite the extreme disparity in the amount of focus on male and female sport across all media surveyed, it is important to note that the tone and content of reports on female athletes and female sport have markedly improved when compared to previous studies. In the print and television commentary and reporting, analysed in depth in this research, there was a remarkable absence of stereotyping of female athletes. They were very rarely portrayed in a sexual way and most frequently portrayed as competitive and successful. Glamourised shots of female athletes (for example, the swimmer Stephanie Rice) were concentrated in entertainment media and were balanced by equally glamourised shots of male athletes (for example, cricketer Michael Clarke).

• Coverage of female sport was more favourable than coverage of male sport, both in year-round coverage and reporting on the Olympics. This can largely be attributed to unfavourable coverage focusing on the behaviour of some male athletes in year-round coverage, and the media’s presentation of female Olympians as more successful (or at least, less

Executive summary

The promotion of women in sport has been identifi ed by the Australian Government as a key focus area for the future development of sport in Australia. The Australian Sports Commission (ASC) is working towards achieving greater recognition of women’s sport and female athletes in the media, and improving leadership opportunities.

The ASC engaged the Journalism and Media Research Centre at the University of NSW and Media Monitors Pty Ltd to undertake research that would provide a broad and rich picture of how much coverage there is of women’s sport and female athletes in radio, television and print media relative to the coverage of male sport, male athletes and mixed sport. The research also focused on how women’s sport and female athletes are portrayed: whether female athletes are routinely stereotyped, sexualised or trivialised in the media, and how they are depicted relative to male athletes.

Key fi ndings

Volume of media

Towards a Level Playing Field: Sport and gender in Australian media confi rms that female sport and male sport receive starkly disproportionate amounts of coverage on Australian television, despite the ongoing successes and strong participation levels of women in sport:

• Coverage of women in sport made up 9% of all sports coverage in Australian television news media, while 7% of non-news programming content on television was devoted to female sport. Male sport, on the other hand, occupied 81% of television news reporting, and 86% of non-news programming on television (see Section Six, Chart 138).

• Television news reports on female sport had the lowest average duration of all the types of sport analysed, with reports on male sport having an average duration of 30 seconds longer than reports on female sport. To put this into context, horseracing received more air time than women’s sport in

Table 1: Television news coverage of Australian sport by sport type (per cent)

Gender Overall ABC1 SBS Channel 7 Channel Nine Channel Ten

Male sport 81.1 80.7 84.8 81.4 78.9 80.9

Female sport 8.7 11.2 8.9 7.8 7.4 8.6

Other 7.4 5.1 3.5 8.6 9.4 7.9

Mixed sport 2.8 3.0 2.7 2.2 4.2 2.6

Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian mediaviii INTRODUCTION ix

unsuccessful) than their male counterparts. However, the comparatively favourable tone of media coverage of women’s sport is a double-edged sword, as it also refl ects the fact that female athletes need to win in order to secure media coverage, whereas male athletes tend to be discussed in media coverage regardless of their success. Although the media presented some male sport unfavourably, it should be noted that the media’s interest in the questionable behaviour of some male athletes, both on and off the fi eld, stems from an acknowledgment of them as sporting professionals (and therefore role models) in a way that was not as apparent in coverage of female athletes.

• Reinforcing the male dominance of sporting culture in Australia, in both coverage of the Olympics and year-round television news reporting on sport, the media is more likely to present men as having something interesting to say about sport than women (male sport, female sport or the administrative side of sport). Furthermore, the proportion of men speaking about female sport was in both cases greater than the proportion of female spokespeople quoted discussing male sport.

• Gender stereotyping in press and television coverage of women’s sport was minimal; in fact, coverage of sport in Australia would appear to challenge key aspects of both male and female gender stereotypes. Female athletes were more often presented as actively pursuing their goals, as driven and ambitious (thereby challenging the stereotype of women as passive); meanwhile, analysis of television news reporting showed that male athletes were more frequently described or depicted as displaying negative emotions, such as sadness and disappointment (thereby challenging the stereotype that females are more prone to emotional displays, while males are more stoic).

• While gender-based stereotypes in news reporting on sport were rare, sport in Australia was represented as a traditionally male culture that draws on a rich spectrum of narratives, with female sport as its less-complex, more-novel other. Television news coverage of male athletes was multi-faceted, in that it was subject to more consistent levels of reporting year round, with journalists and networks exhibiting a more sustained interest in the activities of male athletes between games, and even between seasons. Coverage of female athletes was comparatively one-dimensional, in that it was largely event-driven and confi ned to the reporting of results. Male athletes were more often framed domestically (for example, pictured with their families) or as subjects of discipline, and male sport was much more likely to be discussed as a professional industry.

Coverage during the Olympics

• The analysis of television news coverage of the Olympics shows coverage of the Games to be an example of how equal year-round sporting coverage could be, quantitatively and qualitatively. Unlike year-round coverage of sport, the two genders received an equal proportion of time in television coverage, and women were more likely to be discussed in contexts beyond simply results (such as training and preparation, and in a sporting industry context).

Coverage during the Paralympics

• The analysis of television news coverage of the Paralympics shows coverage of female athletes competing at the Games (23%) to be greater than year round coverage (9%). When comparing television news coverage of the 2008 Paralympics and Olympic Games a disparity in the proportion of female sport was reported.

Range of coverage

• The range of female sports mentioned in television news coverage was comparatively narrow, and primarily extended to the individual sports of tennis (where women were discussed almost as frequently as men), surfi ng, cycling and golf, as well as the team-based sport of netball. The research confi rms that, in non-news programming, tennis had the most equal gender split in terms of both participants and audiences. This is unsurprising given the expense of team sports and the infrastructure they require, both of which are more readily available for male sports, given the core male audience for sport. Individual sports can subsist on the talent of few individuals which, when proven, can lead to sponsorship and other forms of funding.

Journalists reporting on female sport

• 250 television journalists reported on male sport, while only 82 journalists reported on female sport. This is, in part, a refl ection of the fact that male sport tends to more readily spill over into the main news section of an evening news report, as opposed to being confi ned to the sports section. It also refl ects that more journalists are better equipped and commissioned to report on male sport. While individual stations have clear specialists on male sport (for example, Channel Nine’s Danny Weidler can be expected to report on rugby league, and ABC1’s Duncan Huntsdale can be relied on to report on cricket), there are fewer journalists who are ‘specialists’ on female sports, with the attendant historical and statistical knowledge such specialisation brings.

Background

The ASC, is working towards achieving greater recognition of women’s sport and female athletes in the media, and improving leadership opportunities for women. The promotion of women in sport has been identifi ed by the Australian Government as a key focus area for the future development of sport in Australia.

The 2006 Senate Estimates Committee inquiry into women in sport and recreation in Australia reported that ‘the committee is disappointed at the continuing poor coverage of women’s sport by all media … and the committee suggests that the ASC undertake an annual survey of coverage of women’s sports’. The inquiry recommended ‘that the government fund the Australian Sports Commission to replicate in 2008–09 surveys and analysis performed in the 1996 report An Illusory Image’.

Following this recommendation, the ASC commissioned the Journalism and Media Research Centre (JMRC) at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Media Monitors to undertake qualitative research and identify new initiatives to address the promotion of women’s sport, particularly in the media. The research project presented here is the fi rst study commissioned by the ASC since the 1996 study. It extends and refi nes the methodology used in the 1996 study in line with contemporary scholarly approaches and industry best practice in the fi elds of media studies and media content analysis.

The 1996 report focused on the percentage of media coverage of female sport versus male sport and was largely quantitative in its analysis. No raw fi gures were offered, only percentages, and there is no available archive of stories gathered for the report. The absence of an archive or raw fi gures meant that it was not possible to fully benchmark this current study against the 1996 study in any detail. A decision was taken to focus on the qualitative aspects of coverage of female athletes and female sport, with a view to understanding the texture, tone and overall quality of the coverage. Anecdotally, it is well known that women receive, quantitatively, far less coverage than men in sport. While having the quantitative data to support this is extremely valuable, it is equally valuable to understand the quality of that coverage, its tenor and mood. Sections One to Four of this report, therefore, investigate not only the amount of media coverage of female athletes in a given period, but also looks in depth at the content, tone and focus of this coverage. These sections include visual as well as textual analyses and a full explanation of the methods of

coding and analysis, to ensure that future studies in the area can be benchmarked against this report.

The research was done by two organisations — the JMRC at UNSW and Media Monitors — and divided on the basis of relevant expertise and infrastructure. Cognate methodologies were used and the key researchers from each organisation collaborated on this fi nal report. Section One was conducted by the JMRC at UNSW, and lays out the qualitative methodology that Sections Two and Four follow. Section One covers a two-week period from 25 November to 8 December 2008. Quantitative fi gures are provided for all media types and in-depth qualitative analysis was conducted on press coverage. Sections Two, Three and Four, which were conducted by Media Monitors, complement and extend on Section One by focusing on television coverage of female sport. Section Five provides top-line quantitative analysis across press, radio and television for the 2008 calendar year, while Section Six provides quantitative details of volume and proportion of non-news sports broadcasting on television in Australia, and the audiences watching this content.

Sections One to Four fi nd that there has been a notable improvement in the tone, scope and balance of media coverage of female athletes and women in sport since the 1996 study commissioned by the ASC. Improvements noted include a stronger focus on women’s athleticism and performance on the fi eld, a general absence of gender stereotyping in reporting, and coverage of a wider range of sports associated with female athletes.

This study fi nds that the coverage of women’s sport on television in Australia, while scant, is more favourable than that of men’s sport, and that the tenor of both press and television coverage of women’s sport is a positive basis for growth. The research also fi nds, however, that while there is signifi cant evidence that the tone, scope and balance of media coverage of female athletes and women’s sport have improved over the past decade, there remains much work to be done to achieve a level playing fi eld for media coverage of women’s sport versus male sport. Male sport and athletes still receive a disproportionately large amount of media coverage when national and international success, spectatorship and participation rates are taken into account.

Introduction

Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian mediax INTRODUCTION xi

This section adopts the same methodology as outlined for Section Two, with the special study on the Beijing Paralympics designed to explore the variances in gender representation at an international event where commercial interests (in terms of sponsorship) are less dominant.

Section Five

This section provides quantitative media analysis of coverage appearing in press, radio and television in Australia for the period 1 January–31 December 2008, providing a top-line analysis of female sport and women in sport using general sport as a reference point.

This analysis identifi es and quantifi es reports about female athletes and teams as a proportion of all sports-related coverage in the Australian media over the period.

Reports about female athletes and teams have been identifi ed using sets of female-related terms in proximity to sports-related terms. Sports-related terms by themselves were then used to measure total sports coverage. Results are therefore indicative of actual results; this approach is not intended to account for every individual report, but is a transparent and replicable method of characterising coverage as a whole.

Note that although the broadcast charts provide data for general sports coverage as well as female-related sports coverage, press charts (and associated tables) in Section Five present female-related data only. This is due to different retrospective searching methodologies used for each media type as well as the prohibitive scale of total press data available. Note also that syndicated broadcast data have not been included in this analysis.

Section Six

This section provides a quantitative media analysis of all non-news programming of sports on Channels 7, Nine and Ten; ABC1 and ABC2; SBS; and Fox Sports 1, 2 and 3 over the period 1 January–31 December 2008 in the Sydney and Melbourne markets (although it should be noted that the duration fi gures for ABC2 and Fox Sports 1, 2 and 3 can be considered national). This component analyses all sports coverage on these channels that is not considered sports news or current affairs. This does not include television news, magazine-style programming and the like (which may have featured activities around sport, such as interviews, but did not primarily display sports competitions or matches).

The sport gender type indicates which gender was the focus of the television coverage. As with Sections Two and Three, the ‘mixed’ category has been used for sports in which men and women were competing

As a more medium-specifi c framework, Section Two also included analysis of the narrative frames deployed in television coverage of sport, following the work of Vande Berg and Projansky (2003), who analysed television coverage of women’s and men’s US professional basketball games in 1996–97.

Beyond these categories of discourse analysis, Section Two also:

• timed the duration of each news report

• tracked the sports and specifi c leagues mentioned in coverage

• analysed a range of issues related to event training and preparation (including training, fi tness, results and drug testing) and the corporate side of sport (including management and sponsorship) in order to identify any gender-specifi c trends in the fi ner details of sports reports on television

• included a story order analysis for the same set of television news programs for the period 1–10 March 2009, in order to identify the privileging, or otherwise, of particular sports news reports in the evening news line-up

• in line with the CARMA®methodology used by Media Monitors, tracked favourable and unfavourable messages about sports and athletes, noted all spokespeople quoted in coverage, and provided a measure of favourability. For a more detailed description of the CARMA®methodology, see Appendix A.

Section Three

Section Three is a qualitative and quantitative media analysis of the television news coverage of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in the Melbourne market. The scope of this analysis was limited to the evening news on ABC1, SBS and Channels 7, Nine and Ten over the period 1–26 August 2008.

This section adopts the same methodology as outlined for Section Two, with the special study on the Beijing Olympics designed to explore the variances in gender representation at an international event where commercial interests (in terms of sponsorship) are less dominant.

Section Four

Section Four is a qualitative and quantitative media analysis of the television news coverage of the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games in the Melbourne market. The scope of this analysis was limited to the evening news on ABC1, SBS and Channels 7, Nine and Ten over the period 6–17 September 2008.

Section Two

This section is a qualitative analysis of television news coverage of sport on the fi ve free-to-air television stations in the Sydney and Melbourne markets (in order to achieve a balance between AFL and NRL dominated markets), and national markets where appropriate. The following stations and programs were analysed:

• ABC1: ABC News from the Sydney and Melbourne markets

• Channel 7: Seven News from the Sydney and Melbourne markets

• Channel Nine: National Nine News from the Sydney and Melbourne markets

• SBS: World News Australia, which is broadcast nationally

• Channel Ten: Ten News from the Sydney and Melbourne markets, as well as Sports Tonight early edition and Late News with Sports Tonight, which are broadcast nationally.

Given budgetary constraints, sampling was required and, therefore, the relevant news reports from the above programs were selected from the fi rst six days of each month, from October 2008 to July 2009. A total of 3424 reports were analysed.

In order to provide consistency with Section One, this qualitative analysis adopts much of the linguistic and visual analysis framework used in that section. Where Section One analyses an article’s headline and accompanying still images, Section Two examines the fi rst sentence of television news reporting and any imagery in the studio backdrop. More than simply allowing continuity with Section One, however, analysis of these components of television news reporting is important as they can, to a certain extent, predispose the viewer to a particular opinion.

Section Two extends on Section One by applying the same linguistic and visual analysis framework to television reports in their entirety, in order to identify any further trends. It should be noted that, as many of these approaches were designed to analyse written as opposed to spoken language (for example, Martin and White [2005] — on whose work the framework for emotion lexis used in Section One was partly based — concentrate on print journalism and other instances of the written word), minor modifi cations in approach have been made. For example, pronouns (gendered and gender-neutral) were analysed in Section One but have not been tracked in the analysis of television sports reports in their entirety, conducted in Section Two, as pronouns are a basic unit of spoken language and, while it is useful to examine their use in headlines, they are a necessary part of English grammar.

Methodology

Section One

Section One was conducted using a mixed methodology approach, combining the following four methods:

• a literature review

• a quantitative analysis of media coverage of women’s sport in newspapers, magazines and on television (including pay television)

• a qualitative analysis of media coverage that contextualises and analyses the focus of the coverage and enables a comparison with relevant coverage of male sport

• interviews with key stakeholders in the sport and media sectors.

Four mass media outlets were examined during a two-week period, from 25 November to 8 December 2008. They were selected according to media tracking lists provided by the media monitoring service Slice Media. The media outlets were surveyed on a national, metropolitan and regional level and included:

• newspapers (national, capital city daily and regional daily)

• magazines (lifestyle)

• radio (national and state/territory-based metropolitan stations)

• television (national, including pay television, and state/territory-based metropolitan stations).

The sample period did not overlap with any major international sporting tournaments. However, the announcement, on 8 December 2008, of the death of marathon runner Kerryn McCann did infl ate the numbers for sports reporting covering athletics and the fi gures for radio reporting, as that was where the story fi rst broke in the media. There were no newspaper reports on this news event as the sample period ended on 8 December (the day of the announcement).

The data was collected using keyword search strings (which allow for this study to be replicated in future), that were distributed among several tracking folders. Information about the stories collected for analysis in this research project was stored in an electronic relational database management system.

Given budgetary constraints, only the print media items in the archive could be analysed in a qualitative manner. Information collected on radio and television broadcasts formed part of the general quantitative content analysis. The archive was, however, checked manually to ensure that irrelevant stories were not counted in the fi nal analysis.

SECTION ONE

SECTION ONEQuantitative fi gures and qualitative media analysis of press coverage

25 November–8 December 2008

with or against each other (for example, team tennis) or in which they were likely to have appeared to be competing in the same event at the same time (for example, marathon). All other sports, where possible, have been classifi ed according to program details (a small proportion were indeterminate and have been labelled as such). In some cases where the gender of participants was not clear, historical data for male and female coverage of the given sport have been applied.

In addition to providing a breakdown of the air time devoted to men’s versus women’s sport on these stations, Section Six also provides information about the audience watching these sports in the Sydney and Melbourne markets.

All data used in Section Six were obtained from

OzTAM Australia.

Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media2 SECTION ONE 3

Table 6: Story count by reporter*

Name of reporter # of stories

Unattributed 120

AAP (Australian Associated Press) 12

Merryn Sherwood 12

Paul Malone 7

Chris Roots 5

Andrew Aloila 4

Dan Silkstone 4

Ellen Whinnett 4

Josh Leeson 4

Nicole Jeffrey 4

AAP and John Salvado 3

Jackie Epstein 3

Jesse Hogan 3

Kristen Burrows 3

Linda Pearce 3

* Table 6 shows the top 15 reporters. Of these stories, 48.4% were in general news and 44.6% were located in the sports pages.

Magazines

Only eight stories in the whole corpus were sourced from magazines. The following table summarises the data collected on magazine stories. Seven of the eight magazine articles made use of photographs in their stories. The one story that did not use an image was the news report on the death of an Indigenous netballer in the Koori Mail.

Table 7: Story count by magazine

Publication # of stories % of corpus

The Australian Jewish News 1 12.5

Koori Mail 2 25.0

LOTL 1 12.5

TV Week 1 12.5

Who Weekly 1 12.5

Woman’s Day 1 12.5

ZOO Weekly 1 12.5

Total 8 100

Radio

A total of 116 stories were collected from radio broadcasters. Tables 8 and 9 present the general analysis of data collected on radio programs. In contrast to the newspaper reporting on sportswomen (which tended to include quite long stories), nearly 60% of radio stories were short, that is, less than one minute in duration. Furthermore, only seven female presenters were identifi ed as participating in any radio discussion.

The categories ‘capital city daily’ and ‘regional daily’ were applied to newspapers, so, for example, The Sydney Morning Herald was classifi ed as a ‘capital city daily’, while The Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton) was classifi ed as a ‘regional daily’. There was one national newspaper recorded in this study, which was The Australian. Magazines were classifi ed as ‘national’. Radio and television stations were classifi ed as either ‘metro’ or ‘national’. All television stations were assigned the category ‘metro’, as they were all identifi ed by location (state capital) in the media tracking fi les. For example, Fox Sports News was classifi ed a ‘metro’ television station as it identifi ed Sydney as its broadcast location. Only two radio broadcasters were defi ned as ‘national’. These were Triple J and Radio National, both of which are ABC radio stations.

Publication type

Newspapers

In the following section, general analyses of newspapers are offered in terms of the major publications in which stories were published (Table 5).

Table 5: Story count by newspaper

Publication # of stories % of corpus

Syndicated copy 35 10.2

The Canberra Times 25 7.3

The Age 22 6.4

The Courier-Mail 17 5.0

Herald Sun 16 4.7

The Sunday Mail 12 3.5

The Sunshine Coast Daily 11 3.2

The Australian 11 3.2

The Newcastle Herald 10 2.9

Illawarra Mercury 10 2.9

Of all of the reporters in the archive, female journalist Merryn Sherwood, who writes for The Canberra Times, produced the largest number of stories (12). She was followed by Paul Malone (seven stories), who is a renowned sports reporter currently writing for The Courier-Mail (Brisbane). Of the top 13 named reporters, seven of them were female. A total of 76 stories in the print newspaper and magazine corpus were written by named female journalists.

Media format, publication date and publication typeTable 3: Number of stories by media format and publication date

Publication date Newspapers Magazines Radio Television

November 19 1

21 1

24 1

25 5 3

26 37 8

27 21 8 3

28 22 6 2

29 42

30 26 10 4

December 1 31 3 1

2 25 1

3 7 1 17

4 30 3

5 24 1

6 25

7 31 2

8 23 54 19

13 1

15 1

Total 344 8 116 32

Table 3 shows the total number of stories, by publication date, produced by the major news media of print newspapers and magazines, and broadcast radio and television. Newspaper stories dominated the sample period with a total of 343 stories collected. The Slice Media monitoring service also provided information on the types of publications (across all media) categorised by region, and this is summarised in Table 4.

Volume of stories by publication typeTable 4: Volume of stories by publication type

Publication type # of stories % of total corpus

Capital city daily 179 35.8

Regional daily 154 30.8

Metro 146 29.2

National 21 4.2

Total 500 100

Volume of stories by publication dateTable 2: Number of stories by publication date*

Publication date # of stories

November 19 1

21 1

24 1

25 8

26 45

27 32

28 30

29 42

30 40

December 1 35

2 26

3 25

4 33

5 25

6 25

7 33

8** 96

13 1

15 1

Total 500

* Media monitoring took place between Tuesday 25 November and Monday 8 December 2008. A few stories fell outside these media monitoring dates as the publication times for magazine stories were either weekly or monthly.

** The announcement of the death of marathon runner Kerryn McCann distorts the fi gures for this date.


Sport # of stories % of corpus

Basketball 1 0.2

Gay Games 1 0.2

Gymnastics 1 0.2

Polo 1 0.2

Youth Olympic Games 1 0.2

Sailing 1 0.2

Water polo 1 0.2

Windsurfi ng 1 0.2

Total 498 100

* 62 of these stories concern the death of marathon runner Kerryn McCann.

The reason for two separate football (soccer) categories is due to some stories being about football in general, for example, the Homeless World Cup held in Melbourne, while others were reporting on the Australian women’s national soccer competition (the W-League). The same reason applies to the use of ‘Women’s National Basketball League’ and ‘basketball’. The category ‘all’ was used when news reports were discussing sports in general, with or without specifi c reference to particular sports, or when sportswomen across several sporting disciplines were discussed in the same news item.

The following tables show the distribution of the sports across each of the publication types.

Table 13: Story count in newspapers by sport


Athletics 38 11.1

Surfi ng 38 11.1

Cricket 35 10.2

Swimming 29 8.5

All 26 7.6

Tennis 26 7.6

W-League football (soccer) 25 7.3

Golf 15 4.4

Netball 15 4.4

Cycling 13 3.8

Football (soccer) 11 3.2

Women’s National Basketball League

11 3.2

Hockey 7 2.0

Softball 6 1.7

Squash 6 1.7

Australian rules football 5 1.5

Ironwoman 5 1.5

Rugby union 5 1.5

Triathlon 4 1.2

Rowing 3 0.9

continued over

Other general information

• Total number of stories about sportswomen with disability: 5

• Total number of stories about Indigenous sports and/or sportswomen: 2

• Total number of stories about regional or amateur sports: 5

• Total number of stories with a specifi c focus on gender issues: 10

Analysis according to sportA total of 500 stories were analysed according to the sports on which they reported. Table 12 lists all the sports and the number of stories on each. The number of stories on athletics was infl ated by the death of marathon runner Kerryn McCann, which attracted 62 news reports in one day.

Table 12: Story count by sport


Athletics 105* 21.0

Surfi ng 51 10.2

Swimming 45 9.0

All 39 7.8

Cricket 37 7.4

Tennis 35 7.0

Netball 28 5.6

Cycling 27 5.4



Golf 15 3.0

Women’s National Basketball League/basketball

11 2.2

Hockey 7 1.4

Softball 6 1.2

Squash 6 1.2

Ironwoman 5 1.0

Rugby union 5 1.0

Australian rules football 5 1.0

Triathlon 4 0.8

Diving 3 0.6

Rowing 3 0.6

Boxing 3 0.6

Sports industry 3 0.6

Motor sports 2 0.4

Rugby league 2 0.4

Canoeing 1 0.2

Roller derby 1 0.2

Table 9: Story count by radio program

Program # of stories % of corpus

News 80 69.0

Morning 6 5.2

Morning Glory 5 4.3

Breakfast 4 3.4

Sports Today 4 3.4

Afternoons 2 1.7

Burning Down the House 2 1.7

The Big Sports Breakfast 1 0.9

Drive 1 0.9

Grandstand 1 0.9

Nightline 1 0.9

Nights 1 0.9

Sport Central 1 0.9

The Sports Factor 1 0.9

Sports Show 1 0.9

Steve Gordon 1 0.9

The Good Life 1 0.9

The Run Home 1 0.9

Today 1 0.9

Weekend Wireless 1 0.9

Total 116 100

Television

A total of 32 news items relating to female sport were retrieved from television stations during the sample period.

Table 10: Story count by television station

Station # of stories % of corpus

Channel Ten 8 25.0

Channel 7 7 21.9

ABC1 6 18.8

Fox Sports 5 15.6

Sky News Australia 4 12.5

Channel Nine 2 6.3

Total 32 100

Table 11: Story count by television program

Program # of stories % of corpus

News 26 81.3

Sunrise 3 9.4

Early News 1 3.1

Sports Tonight 1 3.1

Today 1 3.1

Total 32 100

Table 8: Story count by radio station

Station # of stories % of corpus

3AW 10 8.6

2GB 8 6.9

2UE 6 5.2

4BC 6 5.2

ABC 702 Sydney 6 5.2

SEN 6 5.2

2SM 5 4.3

Mix FM 5 4.3

Nova 5 4.3

6PR 4 3.4

6RTR 4 3.4

ABC 666 Canberra 4 3.4

ABC 774 Melbourne 4 3.4

ABC 936 Hobart 4 3.4

5AA 3 2.6

98.5 Sonshine FM 3 2.6

ABC 612 Brisbane 3 2.6

ABC 891 Adelaide 3 2.6

SEA FM 3 2.6

4KQ 2 1.7

ABC 720 Perth 2 1.7

Cruise 2 1.7

Curtin FM 2 1.7

GOLD FM 104.3 2 1.7

Heart FM 2 1.7

HOFM 2 1.7

Triple M 2 1.7

2KY 1 0.9

Channel 9 1 0.9

FM104.7 1 0.9

JOY 94.9FM 1 0.9

Radio National 1 0.9

Sport 927 1 0.9

Triple J 1 0.9

WS FM 1 0.9

Total 116 100


Table 17: Classifi cation of sports according to gender

SportFemale

appropriateMale

appropriateGender neutral

% of corpus

Archery

Athletics 21.0

Australian rules football

1.0

Baseball

Basketball 2.4

Beach volleyball

Boxing 0.6

Canoeing 0.2

Cricket 7.4

Cycling 5.4

Diving 0.6

Equestrian

Football (soccer) 8.2

Golf 3.0

Gymnastics

Hockey 1.4

Ice skating

Ironman

Ironwoman 1.0

Judo

Motor sports 0.4

Mountain biking

Netball 5.6

Polo 0.2

Roller derby 0.2

Rowing 0.6

Rugby league 0.4

Rugby union 1.0

Sailing 0.2

Shooting

Softball 1.2

Squash 1.2

Surfi ng 10.2

Swimming 9.0

Synchronised Swimming

Taekwondo

Tennis 7.0

Trampolining

Triathlon 0.8

Volleyball

Water polo 0.2

Windsurfi ng 0.2

Compiled from studies by Jones 2003; Jones, Murrell and Jackson 1999; Daddario 1998.

The shaded areas indicate the sports that were covered in the current research project.

Jones (2003:108) also suggests that gender stereotypes have been reinforced in the media by ‘restricting media coverage to appropriate female sport, and by portraying women athletes according to the sex-appropriateness of their sports’. This is supported by a study of the The Newcastle Herald that found that the ‘female sports’ of tennis, golf and swimming accounted for almost half of the sports coverage for women (Brown 1995:28). Coverage of both the 1992 and 1996 Olympic Games featured women participating in physically attractive sports, such as diving, swimming and gymnastics, rather than hard contact sports (such as judo) and sports involving explosive strength and physical power (Higgs and Weiller 1994:235; Tuggle and Owen 1999:5; see also Kinnick 1998 and Daddario 1998).

Another issue that has been noted in research on the Olympic Games is that there is considerable disparity between the number of medals that women win and the amount of coverage they receive in the media. As Jones (2003) notes:

In rowing, US women won two medals to the one for US men, yet received less than one third as much coverage. NBC broadcast nearly 24 minutes of men’s weightlifting, although no US men gained a medal. By comparison, two US women weightlifters won a gold and a bronze medal, but their success warranted no prime time coverage (Tuggle, Huffman and Rosengard 2002:372, cited in Jones 2003:109).

In line with this research, this study has summarised the classifi cation of sport by gender in Table 17. The contents of this table were then compared to the sports that were identifi ed in our research project on the coverage of women’s sports in the media. Sports in our study that were identifi ed and reported on in the media with specifi c reference to female participation are shaded in the table. The percentage of coverage in the current study is given in the fi nal column. As the table indicates, the Australian media coverage of women participating in sport covers a wide range of sports of which, research would suggest, most are deemed not appropriate for females. Only fi ve of the sports covered in the current research would be termed ‘female appropriate’, and two are ‘gender-neutral’ sports.

Table 16: Story count in television by sport


Athletics 18 56.3

Swimming 8 25.0

Netball 4 12.5

Cycling 1 3.1

Surfi ng 1 3.1

Total 32 100

Qualitative fi ndings: media coverage, sport and genderThere are ample studies available that have investigated the extent to which sports can be considered gender-specifi c or gender-neutral (see Jones 2003:108–11 for an overview of the research on the ‘gender appropriateness’ of sports). Decisions about the gender appropriateness of sports are based on traditional concepts of what is deemed ‘appropriate’ female behaviour (Kane and Greendorfer 1994; Jones, Murrell and Jackson 1999). This means that sports that emphasise power, physical strength and contact are considered male-appropriate sports, since they require active, aggressive and autonomous behaviour, while female-appropriate sports are said to emphasise aesthetics and beauty and discourage physicality (Jones, Murrell and Jackson 1999:1–2). Daddario (1998) offers the following guidelines for determining the gender appropriateness of sports:

Inappropriate sports [for women] are those requiring bodily contact, confl ict, or face-to-face opposition, or those requiring heavy equipment, padded uniforms, or protective armor. Feminine sports … include those that depict females in aesthetically pleasing motions and poses, often emphasizing the erotic physicality of the female body [and include] gymnastics, swimming, tennis, golf and diving. Unlike sex-inappropriate sports, these also give the appearance of posing little physical risk and being unlikely to cause bodily injury to the athlete. Sex-differentiated sports [have been identifi ed] not only according to their required levels of strength, risk, and aggression, but according to their competitive orientation. Masculine sports tend to be team-oriented, with athletes competing directly against others in a challenge for power and control. By contrast, feminine sports tend to be individual-oriented, where an athlete competes against herself or a pre-set standard of excellence, such as a personal best, world record, or an opponent’s score (Daddario 1998:11–12).


Boxing 2 0.6

Diving 2 0.6

Motor sports 2 0.6

Rugby league 2 0.6


Basketball 1 0.3

Canoeing 1 0.3

Gymnastics 1 0.3

Olympics (general) 1 0.3

Polo 1 0.3

Roller derby 1 0.3

Sailing 1 0.3

Water polo 1 0.3

Youth Olympic Games 1 0.3

Total 342 100

Table 14: Story count in magazines by sport


All 2 25.0

Swimming 2 25.0

Gay Games 1 12.5

Netball 1 12.5

Soccer 1 12.5

Tennis 1 12.5

Total 8 100

Table 15: Story count in radio by sport


Athletics 49 42.2

Cycling 13 11.2

Surfi ng 12 10.3

All 11 9.5

Netball 8 6.9

Tennis 8 6.9

Swimming 6 5.2


Cricket 2 1.7

Diving 1 0.9


Windsurfi ng 1 0.9


Total 116 100


Table 20: Image count by action versus posed shot type

Publication Action shots Posed shots Posed action shots

# % # % # %

Newspapers 66 40 90 54 11 7

Magazines 3 43 4 57

As far as poses with sexual connotations are concerned, very few of the images that appeared in the newspapers in this study could be said to be glamorised or sexualised (although there will always be debate about which images belong in either category). Magazines were the main source of glamorised or sexualised images. The results are shown in Tables 21 and 22. One thing that should be noted, however, is that Stephanie Rice was consistently photographed in ‘glamorous’ poses. There was one special case in the use of overtly sexualised images in the magazine ZOO Weekly.

Table 21: Image count by use of glamour/fashion shots

Publication # of images % of corpus

Newspapers 13 8

Magazines 3 43

Table 22: Image count by sexualised and glamour shots

Publication # of images % of corpus

Newspapers 2 1

Magazines 2 29

The 1996 ASC report on the media coverage and portrayal of women’s sport in Australia suggested that female athletes tend to be photographed with their families (Phillips 1996). In the current 2008 study, only six images showed sportswomen in relationship photographs and, in each of these instances, the focus of the story was actually on that aspect of their lives, for example, having a baby (#70), or wanting to say thank you for the support of family members (#290).

competing in or about to compete in their sport’ (Jones 2006:116). From a total of 80 images of female athletes, she found that 48 (60%) displayed women ‘actively’ participating in their sports and 32 (40%) in ‘passive’ roles.

In line with Jones’s research, the photographs of sportswomen in this research project were also analysed with respect to activity or passivity. The results are displayed in Table 20. A further category of ‘posed action shots’ was added in this study since a small number of photographs included sportswomen performing certain actions for the camera. For example, Story #64 showed a Canberra United soccer player demonstrating the football skill of heading the ball. If we include the posed action shots in the action category, then we can see an almost even split between images showing sportswomen in active and passive poses.

Research suggests that the photographic representation of sportswomen in the media is relatively rare (Kachgal 2001) and, when it does occur, ‘a substantial proportion of it is actually derogatory or focused exclusively on the sportswoman’s physical appearance’ (Donohoe 2003:4). Alternatively, it focuses on women competing in so-called ‘feminine sports’, such as gymnastics or diving, which emphasise the aesthetics or beauty of performance, rather than the physicality of the sport (Kane 1996; Lumpkin and Williams 1991). Heavy gender bias in sports photography has also been noted by Duncan (1990) who suggests that this can be seen in excessive focus on the physical appearance of women, showing them in poses with sexual connotations, the excessive use of images with emotional display, such as tears, and by portraying women as passive participants in sports while men are depicted as active competitors (see also Lumpkin and Williams 1991; Hardin et al. 2002). In order to test this notion of female passivity in photographs, Jones (2006) examined the use of images of female athletes competing in the 2004 Olympic Games on the website of Australia’s national public broadcaster, ABC News Online. She defi ned subjects as ‘passive’ if they were photographed motionless, photographed from the neck up, posing for the camera or celebrating (Jones 2006:116). Active subjects, she suggested, ‘were clearly doing something; that is, they were shown

Text type analysis

We analysed our media archive according to genre, to see whether media coverage of women’s sports was located primarily in sports news, general news, or feature or opinion pieces. For the purposes of analysis, we broke these four categories down further, into news reports and briefs; comment and opinion; human interest, features and profi les; advertising, quizzes and gossip; and match reports and previews. In the analysis of this sports story corpus, a total of 15 text types were identifi ed. Table 18 summarises these text types according to the categories outlined above.

Image analysis

The media monitoring service used for this research project allowed for the capture of images from print publications only. No moving or still images were available from the television stories. The total number of print stories that made use of photographs was 174. This meant that 49% of newspaper stories included a photograph of a sportswoman and 88% of magazine stories included photographic images, as shown in Table 19. One magazine story did not include any photographs (#476). This was a story that appeared in the Koori Mail, and concerned the death of an Indigenous netballer. The vast majority (87%) of all images were in colour.

Table 18: Text type categorisation

Text typeGeneral to all news reporting

Specifi c to sports reporting

Timebound Less timebound ‘Objective’ ‘Subjective’

News report (event and issues)

News brief

Comment/opinion

Interview

Gossip

Book review

Human interest

Feature

Profi le

Advertising

Quiz

How to …

Match report

Match preview

Table 19: Image count by publication

Publication # of images % of image corpus % of print corpus

Newspapers 167 96 49

Magazines 7 4 88

Action shot [#229]

Figure 1: Example of action/posed shot


Figure 2: Example shots of athletes in family/relationship context shots

Mo’onia Gerrard with her brother [#367](Nick Cubbin/Fairfax photos)

Heather Langman with her father [#290] (Newspix/Justin Sanson)

Tamsyn Lewis with her dog [#286] (Newspix/Aaron Francis)

Figure 3: Examples of social distance

Close-up shot enacting an intimate relationship [#20](Newspix/Aaron Francis)

Mid-length shot enacting a social relationship [#141](Orlando Chiodo/Fairfax photos)

Long shot enacting a public relationship [#111]

We also looked at the relationship that images potentially set up with the viewer on the basis of research (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006; Hall 1964, 1966), which suggests we each carry with us a set of invisible boundaries that determine the distance we keep from others (for a fuller explanation of these sensory confi gurations see Kress and van Leeuwen 2006:124–5). In terms of press photography, a close-up shot allows a more intimate relationship with the person photographed. A mid shot, usually cut off around waist level, enacts a social relationship, while a long shot is seen as enacting a public relationship between the viewer and represented participant.

Of course, there are many other visual conventions that affect the way we understand an image. For example, some sexualised images show the body from a distance and may include the woman or man averting their eyes to encourage the viewer to feel comfortable with gazing at their body. In our survey then, the measure of social distance from the viewer is only presented as a general measure of the intimacy with which viewers are encouraged to engage with female athletes, not as a defi nitive test. Our qualitative analysis of images of female athletes also relied on a wider range of visual conventions that gave us a more contextual sense of whether a woman was being sexualised or set apart for her physical attributes.

In our archive, nearly 90% of all images were shot from either a public or social distance, which means that female athletes were usually photographed from either the waist up or showing their full body. Few images (13%) were close-up shots. Table 23 summarises the results for social distance analysis.

Table 23: Image count by social distance

Social distance # of images % of corpus

Public 65 37

Social 87 50

Intimate 22 13

The majority of mid to full-length shots of female sports players did not focus in any particular way on their bodies. The only images that might be understood as glamorising and/or sexualising were published in magazines and the majority of these were published in contexts where male athletes also appeared in similar poses. The trend towards glamorising and sexualising star athletes appears to work across gender boundaries.


This is reinforced by the fact that in the gender-neutral naming analysis only fi ve age references are made, to either ‘teen/ager’ or ‘young’. The female athletes referred to in our study are rarely identifi ed in relation to their age. There are only three instances of abbreviating a sportswoman’s name in the corpus. Other diminutives are not used at all. Furthermore, there is no evidence of the use of other constructions of gender identity such as the use of objects (‘old bag’), animals (‘bitch’), or food (‘peach’ and ‘tart’). There is one story (#117) that frames a male athlete (Chris Rawlinson) in terms of his relationship with his partner (Jana Rawlinson), also an athlete, referring to him as Jana’s ‘hubby’/‘husband’.

As far as the analysis of headlines for gender-neutral naming devices is concerned, female athletes were most commonly named by their family name only. The next most common method of naming women was to use other gender-neutral noun phrases such as ‘sporting star’, ‘champion’, ‘hero’ or ‘guns’, which all have positive evaluative meanings. Table 29 summarises the fi ndings regarding the use of gender-neutral naming devices.

Table 29: Use of gender-neutral naming devices

Gender-neutral naming device Example #

Family name Dokic, Gerrard, Gilmore, Beachley

184

Other noun phrases sporting stars, heroes, champs, guns, ace, sensation

64

Team name Bendigo Spirit, Canberra United, Pride, Jets

30

Position judge, player, runner, Olympian, rookie, goalie

16

Sport/competition name netball, Twenty20, World Cup 16

Nationality Kenyan, Aussie 6

Pronoun they, we, I 6

Age reference teen, youngster 5

State/country name Qld, NSW, Australia 5

Headline analysis

In analysing the reporting on sportswomen, we were interested to see to what extent stories drew attention to gender and away from performance as athletes. One of the simplest and most obvious ways of drawing attention to gender is through the use of gendered naming devices, such as fi rst names (for example ‘Stephanie’ and ‘Libby’), pronouns (‘she’ and ‘her’) or other gendered noun phrases (‘woman’, ‘girl’ and ‘sister’). Placing these references in a headline draws attention to the fact that the story is about female sports players. It should be noted, of course, that use of a fi rst name can also be a sign that the player is seen as popular with readers and instantly recognisable.

Our analysis found that gendered naming devices were used in 105 headlines. This means that only 25% of all headlines made any explicit reference to the female gender. Examples of gendered naming devices are given in Table 28, along with the number of instances of each.

Table 28: Use of gendered naming devices

Gendered naming device Example #

First name only Amy, Leisel, Susie Q, Jessica

54

Abbreviated fi rst name Steph, Em, Jess 3

Pronoun her 4

Other noun phrases women, sister, fairer sex, mother, girl

37

It is interesting to note that there were only six instances of ‘girl’ or ‘girls’ in the headlines, which goes against previous suggestions that sportswomen are ‘always “girls” in sporting parlance’ (Tebbel 2000:135). Furthermore, three of these instances combine ‘girls’ with ‘golden’ or ‘glory’ (as in the Perth W-League football team), which suggests that the use of ‘girls’ may have more to do with alliterative effects, rather than an attempt (deliberate or otherwise) to frame sportswomen as young or ‘softer’ than their male counterparts (Sigley and Holmes 2002:143).

Table 26: Analysis of posed shots

Genre # of stories %

Human interest 25 24

Profi le 21 20

Feature 17 17

News report 15 15

Match preview 6 6

News brief 5 5

Match report 5 5

Issues based 5 5

Interview 1 1

How to … 1 1

Gossip column 1 1

Comment/opinion 1 1

Figure 4: Displays of facial affect

We also looked at images to understand how female athletes are depicted when it comes to expressions of emotion (see Martin and Rose 2003; Martin and White 2005). The 1996 report found that the majority of females were portrayed as smiling or happy. Our fi ndings, perhaps not surprisingly, were that the emotion depicted depended very much on the setting in which the image was taken. Women photographed in action tended to be focused and women who were posed tended to be smiling or looking happy.

Table 24: Analysis of emotional display in relation to action versus posed images

Emotion In action Posed Posed action

# % # % # %

Happy 9 5 87 48 6 55

Focused 55 30 2 18

Serious 1 1 6 3 2 18

Aggressive 1 1

Enthusiastic 1 1 1 9

Relieved 1 1

Shock 1 1

The use of action versus posed shots in relation to text type is shown in Tables 25 and 26. Other combinations of image analysis with sports and emotional display are offered in Table 27.

Table 25: Analysis of action shots

Genre # of stories %

Match report 23 29

News report 16 20

Feature 10 13

Profi le 8 10

Match preview 7 9

Human interest 7 9

News brief 2 3

Advertising feature 2 3

Issues based 1 1

Interview 1 1

How to … 1 1

Comment/opinion 1 1

Book review 1 1 Relieved [#96]

Shock [#72](Newspix/AFP Valery Hache)

Enthusiastic [#21](Newspix/Kevin Bull)

Aggressive [#95](Newspix/Peter Ward)

Serious [#20](Newspix/Aaron Francis)

Focused [#118]Happy [#4]

Table 27: Analysis of emotional display according to sport

Sport Happy Focused Aggressive Enthusiastic Relieved Serious Shock

All 11 2 1

Athletics 12 4 1 3 1

Australian rules football 2 2

Basketball 1

Boxing 1

Canoeing 1

Cricket 9 7

Cycling 4 1

Diving 1


Table 34: Use of volition

Use of volition Example #

Volition aiming for, wants 59

Non-volition forced to 1

It is worth looking at volition in more detail since it has important implications regarding the evaluative stance of the newspaper towards the news event (Bednarek forthcoming). One story (#5) concerned tennis player Jelena Dokic. This was a syndicated story that appeared in 17 different publications on the same day. The body text remained consistent across all stories and only the headlines changed slightly. As can be seen in the following examples, Dokic is framed as actively pursuing a berth at the Australian Open for 2009; that is, she is acting of her own volition to secure a spot in the tournament. She has control of her situation and she is acting on her own intentions. However, one headline in this group of texts reads ‘Dokic forced to graft Open entry’. The use of ‘forced to’ suggests non-volition on the part of Dokic, and consequently puts her in a less powerful position — indeed the situation appears to be beyond her control. These are two very different ways of framing Dokic and result in quite different meanings being made at the beginning of these texts.

One fi nal category of analysis of the headline corpus involved the notion of agency. In this study, we took the concept of agency to mean the one who is actively involved in the doing of something in the headline text; that is, an agent is the doer of the activity. There are 217 instances of female athletes or teams involved as agents in the doing of something in the headline text, as the examples below demonstrate.

Table 35: Use of agency

Story Headline

#13 ‘Mwangi beats Gillard to the top’

#14 ‘Carswell defeats Bailey in open singles title at Glenorchy’

#15 ‘Dokic determined’

#17 ‘Sykes unlucky not to fi nd back of net’

#20 ‘Henry rules out a comeback in Rome’

#114 ‘Women fi ght for World Cup spots’

#153 ‘Girls hone cricket skills at Vic Spirit camp’

#131 ‘Rookie rips in’

#181 ‘Olympic legends line up for our Great Run’

#217 ‘Sports stars ready to tackle the next level’

#243 ‘Rebels encounter Eagles’

#244 ‘Darwin Suns out-shine the Foxes’

#299 ‘NSW cruises’

#360 ‘Spirit closes in on top fi ve position’

Table 32: Source of evaluation

Source of evaluation #

Journalist 157

Named source (tour judge, NSW Sports Institute, Beachley)

11

Source not identifi able from headline alone 9

From Table 32 we can see, at least as far as female sports reporting is concerned, journalists appear to stand as ‘experts’, in that they have the licence to evaluate news actors themselves. This is an interesting result that warrants further investigation as to whether these are male or female journalists evaluating female athletes.

Table 33: Target of evaluation

Target of evaluation Example #

Named person Dokic, Beachley, Gilmore 113

Unidentifi ed sportspersonsporting stars, goalie, champ, teen

31

Team Glory, Spirit, Lynx, Mariners 20

Event games, match, netball 6

Other fathers, mother 6

News actor outside sport Obama 1

Again, it is interesting to note that the target of evaluation in this corpus is predominantly the individual rather than the team as a whole. When this evaluation is overwhelmingly positive, it can serve to boost the targeted individual. However, when very negative, it can prove quite damaging to the individual.

The third parameter of evaluative meaning examined in our research was the extent to which the sportswomen identifi ed in the headlines were seen to be acting in accordance with their own wishes or intentions, or if they were being compelled to do something against their will. This subcategory of evaluative meaning has been termed ‘volition’ (Bednarek forthcoming). In the corpus there were 59 instances of sportswomen acting according to their own wishes/intentions and only one instance in which a sportswoman was ‘forced to’ do something. Table 34 summarises the results for volition.

• ‘Beachley praised for not making waves over gaffe’

• ‘Layne hailed’

• ‘Praise for Beachley’

• ‘Beachley praised for sportsmanship’

• ‘Beachley good sport’

• ‘Beachley not making waves’

In each of these headlines, Layne Beachley is being positively evaluated for her conduct over the incident with Coco Ho. They document her demonstrating poise, calmness and good sportsmanship, all of which are positive attributes in any sports player. Negative evaluations also appeared in this corpus, however, there were very few in comparison to positive evaluations of emotivity. Again, they related mostly to performance and conduct in the sporting arena. Table 31 shows the distribution of positive and negative emotivity in the headlines in this news story corpus. As the table indicates, in this corpus the instances of evaluation of positive emotivity far outweigh the instances of evaluation of negative emotivity.

Table 31: Use of emotivity

Emotivity Example #

Positive gets set, poised, an ambassador, shines, breaks injury cycle

163

Negative unlucky, falls short, blows chance, forced to graft

14

From Table 31, there appears to be very little negative evaluation of sportswomen. Whether this comes as a result of general good conduct/performance is open to question and would require more detailed analysis of the body text of these stories. However, from looking at the headlines alone, there appears to be an overall positive stance taken on female athletes, on their professional conduct, on their fi tness, and on their skills and abilities.

Tied in with the notion of emotivity are the analyses of the source and the target of the evaluation. For example, the source (the ‘doer’) of an evaluation can be the journalist (as in the headline ‘Beachley not making waves’), another named source (as in ‘Tour judge applauds Beachley’, in which it is the tour judge evaluating Beachley positively) or another external source that is not identifi able from the headline alone (as in ‘Beachley praised for not making waves over gaffe’, in which the passive structure does not explicitly tell us the source of the evaluation). In this corpus, the target of the evaluation — that is, what/who is evaluated — can be a news actor (as in the example above with surfer Layne Beachley), a team, an event or a sport.

We also note that the frequent use of family names, and occasionally fi rst names, to identify sportswomen in the headlines, without further identifying reference to their sports, carries with it the assumption that the reader is already familiar with the person or the sport in question. Headlines can also hint at very specifi c knowledge of sporting terminology, for example, in the headline ‘Sally gets sponsor, joins the big league’, reference is made to the US$1 million IAAF Golden League series, which is commonly termed ‘big league athletics’. Sally McLellan is an Australian Olympic athlete.

We also looked at headlines to see how they portrayed the athlete or team in emotional terms. Stereotypes have it that women express more emotions than men (Galasinski 2004:12), but in the sporting arena — a highly emotional and stressful context — emotions clearly run high. The 1996 ASC report suggested that emotion was stressed in the coverage of sportswomen, while sportsmen displayed little emotion; rather, they were applauded for their toughness.

For the purpose of this study, the expression of emotions was classifi ed as either positive, as in ‘happy’, ‘enjoy’ or ‘enthusiastic’; or negative, as in ‘sad’, ‘disappointed’ or ‘scared’ (for a comprehensive categorisation of emotion lexis see Martin and White 2005; Bednarek 2008). As can be seen in Table 30, there were relatively few instances across the entire corpus of the use of emotion lexis in the headlines, with slightly more positive emotion words appearing than negative emotion words.

Table 30: Use of emotion lexis

Emotion lexis Example #

Positive enjoy, having a ball, happy, joy 17

Negative fear, scare, sad, blues, irks, sorry 12

We also looked at emotivity, which is concerned with ‘the journalist’s, news actor’s or source’s evaluation of events, things, people, activities or other evaluated entities as good or bad, positive or negative, that is, with the expression of approval or disapproval’ (Bednarek forthcoming). In terms of sports reporting, such evaluations would encompass the preparations and performance of sportswomen in the sporting arena, their skills and abilities, and their behaviour/conduct both on and off the fi eld. For example, the following headlines (Story #6) appeared in newspapers following an incident at the Reef Hawaiian Pro that cost Australian surfer Layne Beachley the opportunity to win the surfi ng title:

• ‘Tour judge applauds Beachley’

• ‘Beachley praised for keeping cool after drop in’

• ‘Layne cool with Coco’s fi nal heave-ho’

• ‘Beachley’s reaction wins praise’


In terms of changing the extent of media coverage of women’s sport, the sponsorship of it, and the breadth of interest in watching or reading about it, all participants in our interviews were in agreement that although substantial strides have been made there is much more to be done. There was general agreement that, outside media training initiatives for female athletes and women’s sporting organisations, the real focus has to be on changing social attitudes to women’s athletic capacities and the capacity of women’s sport to be as exciting to watch as male sport.

Advocates of female athletes argued that, if anything, the media appeal of healthy and fi t young women playing sport, if appropriately positioned, could be an opportunity to promote media coverage, rather than a regressive step. As Graf noted:

All sports market sport with some sort of sex appeal. Male sports do it too. Of course they do. Athletes, male and female, have wonderful bodies and they are great to look at from an artistic point of view or sex appeal or whatever. So I think there is an element you can use to market [your sport] in the media.

Chris Giannopolou, the director of client management at IMG Australia, who has represented Cathy Freeman and Karrie Webb, observed: ‘The aesthetic part of female sport can attract viewers, sponsors and spectators alike and the interest from sponsors and media partners has increased.’

In relation to media coverage, there was general consensus that celebrity and/or appealing looks would no longer elevate a female athlete to ‘star’ media status and that, for both genders, performance was primary. As Giannopolou said: ‘First and foremost it comes back to their performance in their fi eld of endeavour.’

Reinforcing this view, Bonita Mersiades, head of corporate and public affairs at the Football Federation Australia, noted:

More than anything else I think success gets coverage. We noticed when our national women’s team, the Matildas, made the women’s World Cup and did better than people expected in the 2007 World Cup it did get coverage.

A key theme that emerged in interviews with those involved in sports management was the importance of promoting women’s sport through more general media. As Mersiades observed:

We do actively try to get women’s football in non-football media such as Women’s Weekly, Women’s Health and New Idea, not least because we think it’s also good for mums and girls to see female athletes doing something healthy and hopefully to encourage more young people to play sport, any sport … [It’s] much better value having a story on breakfast television than having a third back page in the sports section in terms of where your core audience comes from.

On the other hand, she acknowledged that news values are framed around well-known individuals who are able to ‘brand’ themselves for an interested public: ‘[There needs to be a] realisation that sport is a business and people are more interested in sportspeople and their lives rather than just the sport itself.’

A strong dissenting voice was that of Carrie Graf, coach of the Canberra Capitals and Australian Opals. Of current media coverage, she said: ‘I think [the media coverage of women’s sport] is still substandard and it’s poor, where literally dogs and horses get outrageously more coverage on the sports pages than women in sport.’

An important issue that arose spontaneously in our interviews was the pressure that female sports reporters feel to ‘represent’ female athletes, or advocate for the inclusion of female sports in coverage. Magnay was particularly aware of this issue:

There is this assumption that because you’re a female journalist in sport that it’s our role that we should be promoting women’s sport and that’s not our job at all. I have an interest in women’s sport and I’m keen to see women’s sport in the paper but I am not going to cover women’s sport because I’m female. The cricket writer should be writing about women’s cricket.

In a similar vein, Dr Sue Brown, a lecturer in sport management at the University of Ballarat, observed:

The other area of improvement is we defi nitely have more women as sports commentators but I’m not really convinced that they are in a position to talk up or promote women. They’re doing their job. Most of them are commentating on their sport of expertise, but they keep it very gender neutral. They’re not being employed to speak about women’s sport and talk it up.

A key concern about the coverage of women’s sport that has been frequently raised in academic and popular literature is the perception that female athletes are routinely trivialised, patronised and, in particular, sexualised in media coverage. It was interesting to note that none of the stakeholders we interviewed believed this was a substantial issue when it came to the coverage of women’s sport. On the contrary, many of those we interviewed, including female journalists and sports management executives, observed that the appetite for glamorous and visually appealing depictions of individuals now applied across sporting contexts and genders.

The state of media game: stakeholder interviewsWe conducted interviews with nine key fi gures in sports management, promotion and journalism, and asked them about their view of the current state of media coverage, what worked and what did not work in promoting female athletes and women in sport. We asked them to nominate initiatives that would support better media coverage in the future.

There was general (although not universal) agreement that female athletes and women’s sport now got broader and less stereotyped coverage than might have been the case a decade or more ago. At the same time, many of those interviewed qualifi ed their positive remarks by noting that there was still an overwhelming bias towards covering male sport, and this coverage was not necessarily a refl ection of the quality of the athleticism on display or the popularity of the sport with spectators.

Exemplifying this perspective, Shelley Maher, president of Women’s Lacrosse Australia, said:

There is a better breadth of sports being exposed and a stronger focus on quality of athletes. So it’s not simply the exploitation of female bodies versus them being recognised as athletes in their own right. But it’s still not satisfactory and not enough. The ABC has probably given the greatest ongoing support for women’s sport.

Maher went on to note:

From a minor sport perspective [such as lacrosse], Australia is number one in the world in women’s lacrosse and yet a very small percentage of the population would even know about our sport, let alone that we were champions.

Jacquelin Magnay, a senior sports journalist at The Sydney Morning Herald, believes she has been consistent in her approach to covering women’s sport in the past ten years but notes that, on an anecdotal basis, she thinks there is slightly less coverage of women’s sport today.

As a very experienced sports reporter, Magnay offered some important insights into this process, which can infl uence news judgment on a day-to-day basis. On one hand, she noted:

I think it’s very much a cultural thing that is driven from the top. It’s driven by the editor and in particular the sports editor and he can determine whether a journalist covers certain events and how they cover them. I say ‘he’ because there are no female sports editors.

SECTION ONE

SECTION TWOQualitative and quantitative media analysis

October 2008–July 2009

Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media20 SECTION TWO 21

Chart 2: Share of voice by volume and sport type

Chart 3: Share of voice by duration and sport type

Table 37: Share of voice by total duration and sport type

Sport type Duration (hh:mm:ss)

Male sport 66:36:14

Other sport 6:23:00

Female sport 4:29:06

Mixed sport 1:57:10

Total 79:25:30

Table 38: Share of voice by average duration and sport type

Sport type Average duration

Other sport 0:01:26

Male sport 0:01:22

Mixed sport 0:01:08


Share of voiceCharts 2 and 3 show the share of voice of each sport type by volume and duration. While there were clearly more individual reports mentioning female sports than other sports, more air time was given to coverage of other sports. Table 38 shows that reports on female sport had the lowest average duration of all the types of sport analysed, with reports on male sport having an average duration of 30 seconds longer than reports on female sport.

Augmenting the disparity in average duration, in some instances reporting on female competitions was added on to the end of more prominent reports about the corresponding male competition. For example:

• Channel 7 Melbourne’s Seven News, on 4 July 2009, discussed the men’s Wimbledon tennis tournament semifi nal results for 64 seconds before wrapping up with an 11-second mention of results in the women’s draw.

• Channel Nine Sydney’s National Nine News, on 4 April 2009, reported on male cricketer Philip Hughes’s win of the Steve Waugh Medal, with a duration of 26 seconds. The fi nal three seconds of this report noted that female cricketer Leah Poulton had won the Belinda Clark Medal.

• Channel Ten Sydney and Melbourne’s Ten News, as well as Late News with Sports Tonight (national), reported on the athletics meet in Melbourne in March 2009, giving 78 seconds to previews of events including male athletes Asafa Powell, Craig Mottram and Steve Hooker, and only 13 seconds to female athlete Sally McClelland.

While they were relatively isolated, these instances served to contribute to the disparity in duration of coverage between male and female sport, and to implicitly give male sport more signifi cance than female sport in Australian media.

The majority of coverage of all gender combinations was neutral in tone as a result of reports presenting a balanced view of successful and unsuccessful athletes, or coverage simply reporting on the facts in a neutral fashion. However, coverage of male sport was the least favourable on average. This can be mostly attributed to coverage of male athlete behaviour, which will be discussed further in this report. The two unfavourable reports on mixed sport focused on Pat Rafter and John Newcombe’s critique of Lleyton Hewitt’s performance at the Hopman Cup, a mixed tennis event. There was negligible unfavourable coverage of female or ‘other’ sport, and this coverage was more favourable overall than male sport or mixed sport.

Gender overviewChart 1: Volume of coverage by sport type

In line with Section One and the 1996 ASC study, throughout this analysis ‘male sport’ denotes activities only men participate in (for example, men’s tennis), ‘female sport’ refers to activities only women participate in (for example, women’s tennis), ‘mixed sport’ includes activities in which both females and males participate in (for example, mixed doubles tennis) and ‘other’ includes sports where the primary participants are not people (for example, horseracing — indeed, horseracing made up the vast majority of this coverage and, throughout this report, ‘other’ can be read to refer almost exclusively to the horseracing industry).

Key metricsTable 36: Key metrics, quantative media analysis, October 2008–July 2009

Key metrics Female sport Male sport Mixed sport Other sport

Total volume of media reports 316 2931 103 266

Average favourability 53.4 51.4 52.0 53.8

Leading story focus (reports) Athlete performance (248) Athlete performance (1619)

Athlete performance (49) Athlete performance (102)

Leading message (mentions) Athletes are successful (65)

Athletes are successful (319)

Athletes are successful; athletes are driven and/or ambitious (5 each)

Athletes are successful (56)

Leading spokesperson (mentions)

Serena Williams, tennis player (26)

Ricky Ponting, Australian cricket team captain (140)

John Coates, Australian Olympic Committee (6)

Bart Cummings, horse trainer (47)

Leading media (number of reports)

Channel Ten national (54) Channel Ten national (424)

Channel Ten national (16) Channel Ten Melbourne (53)

662

122

1 957

192 188

312

2 931

316 266103

51.453.4 53.8

52.0

0

1 000

2 000

3 000

4 000

Male sport Female sport Other sport Mixed sport

Volu

me

Favourability

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability

Mixed sport3%Other sport

7%

Female sport9%

Male sport81%

Mixed sport2%Female sport

6%Other sport

8%

Male sport84%


Chart 6: Male sport — news coverage

Chart 5: Male sport — sports coverageStory orderCharts 4 and 5 show the volume and breakdown of sports by the order in which they appeared in the sporting news section (on Channels 7, Nine and Ten, and SBS and ABC1 evening news bulletins) between 1 and 10 March 2009, for female and male sport, respectively. Chart 6 shows the running order of male sports-related news reports when they appeared in the main news section of the evening news bulletin. It is signifi cant that no reports on female sport were included in the main news section.

Cricket and NRL were the dominant male sports that were reported on in the fi rst four reports of an evening. All 22 breaking news reports on cricket aired between 3 and 6 March 2009, in the wake of the terrorist attack on cricketers and offi cials in Lahore. Channel Ten most frequently included this report fi rst in the main news bulletin (eight reports), followed by Channel 7 (fi ve reports). ABC1 only reported this news as the fi rst item once.

All nine breaking news reports on NRL were broadcast between 7 and 10 March 2009 and focused on the allegations of sexual assault against Manly Sea Eagles player Brett Stewart. Channel Nine included this as the fi rst news report most often, while ABC1 did not report this topic as the leading news story at all.

These two topics — international terrorism and sexual assault — unarguably locate these stories outside the realm of traditional sports reporting and within the realm of newsworthiness. However, despite the complexity of the decisions made by producers to include these topics as leading stories, it is not unreasonable to assume that had they not involved sporting identities they would not have been accorded the same degree of prominence. That none of these items involved female athletes, teams or offi cials compounds the fi nding made in relation to duration (page 21) that female sport appears to occupy a blind spot in the news on Australian television.

■ Surfing ■ Cricket ■ Golf ■ Netball

3 4

2 2

2 3

1

1

3 3

0

0

3 3

1

1

1 2

1 2

0 1 2 3 4 5

Sport 2

Sport 3

Sport 1

Sport 4

Sport 5

Sport 6

Sport 8

Sport 9

Sport 7

Volume

■ Cricket ■ NRL ■ Football (soccer) ■ AFL ■ Motor sports ■ Basketball

22 31

18 24

11 12

4 7

1 5

3 5

1 3

4 6

1 4

2 4

9

6

1

3

2

1

2

2

3

1

1 1

1

1

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

News 1

News 2

News 3

News 4

News 5

News 6

News 7

News 8

News 9

News 10

Volume

■ Cricket ■ Football (soccer) ■ NRL ■ AFL ■ Basketball ■ Golf ■ Rugby union ■ Motor sports■ Athletics ■ Surfing ■ Tennis ■ Rowing ■ Diving ■ American football ■ Cycling

70 89

35

13

11

4

3

1

1

3

9

14

13

9

7

2

2

1

2

7

20

12 73

5

2

1

2

1

5

11 88

11

9 65

7 53

1

4

1

3

6

4

6

6

5

1

2

1

1

2

3

5

7

5

4

3

1

3

11

6

3

4 36

1 7

1

2

4

3

2

4 23

4 18

4 11

1

1

1

4

3

1

2

2

1

3

1

5

1

3

1

4

2

3

1

1

1

1

2

1

1

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Sport 1

Sport 2

Sport 3

Sport 4

Sport 5

Sport 6

Sport 7

Sport 8

Sport 9

Sport 10

Volume

Chart 4: Female sport — sports coverage


which is a different kind of text with different norms and conventions. Moreover, their analysis was of US basketball, rather than a range of sporting disciplines across television news media in Australia. The cultural and sport-specifi c differences in the coverage selected for this analysis should be taken into account; all departures from Vande Berg and Projansky’s fi ndings made here are not intended to undermine their approach but rather are the inevitable product of applying a framework designed for a particular text in a particular culture to a different text in a different culture. The ‘other’ narrative frame has been introduced for this analysis to avoid characterising reports inaccurately. These reports covered a variety of issues, including the terrorist attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Pakistan, the commercial aspects of the sporting industry, the involvement of fans in sport and the involvement of sporting identities in charities.

Athletic prowess was the most prominent narrative frame, and was used in 70% of coverage of male sport and 90% of coverage of female sport. While this could

Text typeThe categorisations of text type have been adapted from Section One, and Table 39 shows the volume of each included in this analysis. For the purposes of analysing television, ‘news briefs’ denoted the 30-second reports that provide a rapid round-up of results across a range of sports in quick succession, and ‘feature’ referred to reports with a long duration.

Narrative frameChart 9 shows the narrative frames deployed in television news reporting on sport, following the six frames identifi ed by Vande Berg and Projansky (2003). Each report was allocated at least one narrative frame, although, if appropriate, more than one narrative frame could be chosen.

From the outset it should be noted that Vande Berg and Projansky (2003) devised these frames for an analysis of sporting commentary rather than news reporting,

The greatest proportion of athlete behaviour-focused reports discussed male sport (8%, compared to 2% for female sport), with this coverage being least favourable overall.

Nationality of athletes The reports analysed were designated as fi tting in one of two categories: ‘Australian’ or ‘other’ (see Chart 8). All reports that had a reference to an Australian athlete (no matter how brief) were included as ‘Australian’, while all reports referring exclusively to athletes of another nationality were included as ‘other’.

While 16% of coverage of male sport focused exclusively on the exploits of international athletes and teams, 24% of coverage of female sport focused on the performance of athletes of a nationality other than Australian. This would suggest that not only are female sports under-represented in Australian television news, but Australian female sports are particularly under-represented.

Primary story focusChart 7 shows the main focus of the television reports analysed, giving the overall context in which sport was discussed. Each report has only one story focus, but may discuss a number of different individual topics.

As can be expected, athlete performance was the main focus of television coverage of both male and female sport. Highlighting that coverage of female sport tends to be more results-driven whereas coverage of male sport is more constant across the sporting event cycle, male sport was comparatively over-represented in coverage focusing on training and preparation (this made up 21% of coverage of male sport, but only 13% of coverage of female sport).

Similarly, female sport was comparatively under-represented in coverage focusing on the sporting industry, suggesting that female sport is not discussed in its commercial context in television coverage as much as horseracing (which made up almost all ‘other’ sport) and mixed sport (3% of coverage of female sport focused on the sporting industry, compared to 12% for male sport, 35% for other sport and 33% for mixed sport).

■ Volume — male sport ■ Volume — female sport ■ Volume — other sport ■ Volume — mixed sport

1 619

617

351

233

111

248

41 11 6 10102

58 926 849 17 34 2 1

0

500

1 000

1 500

2 000

Athleteperformance

Training andpreparation

Sporting industry Athlete behaviour Athlete profile

Volu

me

Favourability

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Average favourability — male sport Average favourability — female sportAverage favourability — other sport Average favourability — mixed sport

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport

2 066 2 414

635 688

519 602

266 272

258 285

54 57

43 50

286

64

62

0 500 1 000 1 500 2 000 2 500

Athletic prowess

Other

Agency

Discipline

Adversity

Diaspora

Domestic role

Volume


2 470

461 550

240

76

90 2 800

0 500 1 000 1 500

Volume

2 000 2 500 3 000

Australian

Other

Chart 7: Primary focus of television report by sport type

Chart 8: Coverage of nationality of athletes by sport type

Table 39: Text type by sport type

Text type Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Other sport Total

Match report 1 207 221 66 96 1 550

News report 1 022 49 20 91 1 182

Match preview 581 39 8 62 690

Profi le 56 2 1 8 67

Human interest 27 1 4 2 34

News brief 23 2 2 27

Comment/opinion 3 1 1 5 10

Interview 7 1 2 10

Feature 5 1 6

Chart 9: Narrative frames used in television reports by sport type


Visual analysis — studio backdropCharts 10–12 show the qualitative content and social distance of imagery accompanying the studio introduction to television news reports on sport, adapting the categories used to analyse print media imagery in Section One.

As in Section One, both the studio backdrop in the introduction to television reports and the images in the reports themselves were analysed based on whether they were action, posed, glamour or domestic shots.

Reinforcing the fi nding that television news coverage of female sport is more closely focused on events and results (as opposed to preparation or the lives of the athletes beyond sport), a higher proportion of studio backdrop imagery presented female athletes in an action shot compared to their male counterparts (31% and 25%, respectively).

The series of facial affects presented in Chart 12 can be understood as existing along a spectrum, with the more neutral ‘serious’ and ‘focused’ at one end, and the more intense ‘aggressive’, ‘sad’ or ‘despondent’, and ‘happy’ at the other end. Female athletes were more likely to be presented as ‘happy’ (14%) or ‘focused’ (17%) than male athletes (11% and 10%, respectively). Male athletes were more often presented as ‘sad’ or ‘despondent’ (no reports showed female athletes looking ‘sad’ or ‘despondent’ in the studio introduction), and twice as likely to be shown displaying ‘serious’ facial affect (7% of male sport coverage compared to 3% of coverage of female sport). These fi ndings undermine the stereotype that women are more prone to emotional displays than men (as discussed in Section One, page 14), at least in the use of visual content in framing television news reports on sport.

Similarly, Vande Berg and Projansky (2003) argued that diaspora (the necessity for athletes to move overseas in order to further their professional careers) and domestic narratives are exclusively used in commentary of female basketball in the United States. As with ‘discipline’, it would seem that Australian television news reporting of sport challenges this trend: Chart 9 shows that a low volume of coverage described male athletes as needing to go overseas to further their careers, and that male athletes are presented in their domestic context (with friends and families) more frequently than their female counterparts. Examples of diaspora included references to various NRL players considering playing in Japan or Europe in order to earn more money, while many male athletes were pictured with their families (see Figure 5).

Figure 5: Examples of male athletes presented in a domestic context

Lewis Hamilton as a child with his father (World News Australia, SBS national, 3 November 2008)

Sea Eagles centre Steve Bell spends his grand fi nal preparation time with his family (Seven News, Channel 7 Sydney, 3 October 2008)

Injuries were a common topic of sports reporting, and many of the reports deploying a narrative frame of ‘adversity’, for both genders, did so through the context of injury and individuals pushing through pain and injury to succeed. However, other examples of adversity included unexpected wins and the trials of young athletes emerging into fi elds of elite athletes, for example:

[Compere:] After sending the Swans a DVD of his playing talents just last year, former Canadian rugby player Mike Pyke will complete a remarkable achievement at the SCG on Sunday.

[Paul Roos, Sydney Swans coach:] Injury forced Mike Pyke to quit rugby union, he was looking for a new sport and a new challenge; it is a fantastic effort from Mike to be playing his fi rst senior game so early in his development as an AFL footballer (Ten News, Channel Ten Sydney, 1 May 2009).

Vande Berg and Projansky argued that discipline as a narrative frame is used by US basketball commentators to depict female athletes ‘as subservient order-takers’, which was not seen in coverage of male basketball (2003:28, 34). However, Chart 9 shows that in Australian television news coverage, male athletes were much more likely to be described by reporters ‘as children who need to be scolded, disciplined, and given orders by expert adults’ (Vande Berg and Projansky 2003:34) than their female counterparts (9% of coverage of male sport used this frame, where only 0.3% of coverage of female sport — or one report — described the athletes in these terms). This was the result of widespread reporting on the behaviour of Australian male athletes both on and off the fi eld. Examples included, but were not limited to:

• the problematic drinking culture of AFL clubs and the AFL Players’ Association’s efforts to develop policy to address this

• the uncertain future of cricketer Andrew Symonds following a series of alcohol-related incidents

• allegations of sexual assault against a group of players from the Balmain Ryde Eastwood Tigers, with club offi cials and police taking action

• claims of violence against women levelled against NRL player Greg Bird

• disciplinary action taken against the Brisbane Lions’s Jared Brennan for head-butting another player

• NRL player Nate Myles’s suspension for six matches following behaviour described by Channel Ten newsreader Sandra Sully as ‘bizarre and sickening’ (Late News with Sports Tonight, Channel Ten national, 6 July 2009).

suggest that female athletes and teams are more likely than their male counterparts to be presented as ‘heroes whose outstanding ability, expertise, courage, perseverance, dedication to goals, creativity, versatility and spectacular ability to perform under pressure enables them to succeed in winning competitions’ (Vande Berg and Projansky 2003:29) than their male counterparts, more likely it shows that the repertoire of television news reporting on female sport in Australia is quite limited to results. The data also suggest that women need to participate in events successfully in order to be deemed newsworthy, while their male counterparts receive much more sustained coverage of a range of training and preparation-related topics, as well as topics only loosely connected to their sporting lives.

Examples of agency were invariably reports on a team or individual’s ability to determine their own success, and this narrative frame was used almost equally in reporting on both male and female sport (20% and 21%, respectively). The narrative frame of ‘agency’ covers the same ground as ‘volition’, as used in Section One as a measure of the agency, or lack thereof, accorded to the athlete or team (see page 15). Examples of reporting that portrayed athletes or teams in a position of agency included:

• ‘Having spent most of his career fi ghting for attention, now Victor Darchinyan wants to cash in on his world title success. The Armenian–Australian returned home today as the fi rst man to collect all three belts in the super fl yweight division, but he is hungry for more … “I can fi ght any weight division. I feel my power, my power coming from every fi ght. I’m ready for any champion … I’m not going to sit and defend my title. I wanna fi ght more berths. I want my name to become higher,” [says Darchinyan]’ (Late News with Sports Tonight, Channel Ten national, 5 November 2008).

• ‘While Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal ready themselves for tonight’s men’s fi nals, our women’s champion Serena Williams has already fl own out, vowing to return and go back to back. Her fourth Australian Open title and tennis slam in total came almost too easily last night, disposing of Dinara Safi na in under an hour … Williams had her way in a 20-minute wipe out … the demolition got done in just 59 minutes’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 1 February 2009).


Figure 6: Examples of gendered noun phrases in studio backdrop

‘King Roger’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 6 July 2009)

‘Woman winner’ (National Nine News, Channel Nine Sydney, 1 November 2009)

Linguistic analysis — studio introductionCharts 13–19 show the results of discourse analysis of the fi rst sentence spoken by a journalist in television news reporting on sports. The various tools used have been adapted directly from Section One.

In Section One, naming devices were analysed to identify to what extent stories drew attention to the gender of athletes and away from their performance (pages 13–14).

Only 8% of the total coverage analysed for this report contained gendered pronouns in the fi rst sentence, although it is interesting to note that this was slightly skewed towards discussions of female sport (11%, compared to 8% for male athletes). This tendency to more frequently identify the gender of female athletes or competitions than that of male athletes or competitions in the opening sentence reinforces the notion that male sport is seen as normal and female sport as a novel exception. However, the majority of introductory sentences referred to gender-neutral sport or competition (see Chart 14), or mentioned individual athletes using their full names.

Diminutive noun phrases (‘girls’, ‘boys’ and ‘lads’, for example) were hardly ever used in the fi rst sentence of television coverage, although they were more likely to appear in coverage of female sport than coverage of male sport (0.3% of male sport, 2% of female sport).

Chart 10: Image analysis — studio backdrop, by sport type

Chart 11: Social distance of image — studio backdrop, by sport type

Chart 12: Emotional display — studio backdrop, by sport type


719

334 361

98

19

35 852

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900

Action shot

Posed shot

Relationship/domestic shot

Posed action shot

Glamour/fashion shot

Volume

13

12

5


573

438

314

64

35

33

18 655

11 484

22 369

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700

Social

Intimate

Public

Volume

Volu

me

Favourability


333

439

293

536

217

10 629

3 122128

2886

44

172180

124

33

49

53.455.7

54.452.1

54.152.5

50.0

54.0 54.2

51.6

55.0

40.0

49.5

0

200

400

600

800

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Malesport

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Happy Focused Serious Aggressive Sad/despon-

dent

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0


240 277

37 73

18 33

10 16

34

34

14

5 7

5

0 50 100 150 200 250 300

Gendered pronoun

Other noun phrase

First name only

Diminutive noun phrase

Abbreviated first name

Volume

Chart 13: Gendered naming devices — studio introduction, by sport type


Chart 16: Emotivity — studio introduction, by sport type

Chart 17: Source of evaluation — studio introduction, by sport type

• ‘Melbourne footballer Nathan Jones says he’s angry and disappointed by a weekend bashing at the MCG that’s left his father with a broken nose and ribs’ (National Nine News, Channel Nine Melbourne, 6 April 2009).

• ‘It’s been a sad 24 hours for the New Zealand Warriors — the NRL club is in shock after rising league star Sonny Fai was swept out to sea yesterday evening’ (World News Australia, SBS, 5 January 2009).

The majority of emotion lexis used to describe athletes’ behaviour in studio introductions was positive. As with the analysis of visual emotional display, this skewed towards coverage of female rather than male sport (25% and 16%, respectively). By contrast, examples of negative emotion lexis, while lower in volume, skewed towards coverage of male sport (7%, compared to 3% of coverage of female sport). While negative emotion was not particularly common, coverage of men’s sport was more often framed in terms of the ‘anguish’ of male athletes. Examples (with emotive language bolded) included:

• ‘Disappointment for the Western Force today, beaten convincingly by the Chiefs in New Zealand’ (Sports Tonight late edition, Channel Ten national, 6 March 2009).

It was more common for gender-neutral naming devices to be used in studio introductions than gendered naming devices, with the sport or competition name, team name or player’s position the most frequently used. Examples of other gender-neutral noun phrases used included ‘champions’, ‘movers and shakers’ and ‘marquee names’.

As introduced in Section One, emotion lexis is a measure of the emotions (positive or negative) displayed by, or attributed to, athletes and other sporting agents in media coverage. Accordingly, emotion lexis can serve as a linguistic (rather than visual) measure of the stereotype that women are more prone to emotional displays than men (page 14).

Chart 14: Gender-neutral naming devices — studio introduction, by sport type

Chart 15: Emotion lexis — studio introduction, by sport type


1 903 2 148

1 415 1 459

535 556

497 536

422 501

176 191

72 83

57

45

62

60

188

69

0 500 1 000 1 500 2 000 2 500

Sport/competition name

Team name

Position

State/country name

Nationality

Other noun phrase

Age reference

Gender-neutral pronoun

Family name only

Volume

Volu

me

Favourability

336

48 46

571

68

246

163

925

117

30

45.5

477

14 9

53.9 54.2

52.250.7 50.6

0

300

600

900

1 200

Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Male sport Female sport Mixed sport

Positive Negative

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0


Volu

me

Favourability


365

51

159

1 288

128

39 671

764

76

52.054.0

51.8

48.9 45.0

0

400

800

1 200

1 600

Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Male sport Female sportJournalist Named source

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0


465

219

80

84 231

18 563

0 100 200 300 400 500 600

Positive

Negative

Volume


• ‘Well the initial response was subdued, but Michael Phelps is now paying a hefty price for that infamous photo showing him smoking marijuana’ (Ten News, Channel Ten Sydney, 6 February 2009).

• ‘The AFL match review panel has sent Sydney player Brett Kirk straight to the tribunal, charged with making reckless contact with an umpire’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 6 April 2009).

Visual analysis — overallCharts 20–22 show the qualitative content and social distance of imagery accompanying television news reports on sport, adapting the categories used to analyse print media imagery in Section One.

Almost all reports showed at least two different social distances of images. This is to be expected in television, where the head shot (intimate) is the standard shot for media conferences and interviews, while public and social distances lend themselves to action footage.

Reinforcing the observation made in the discussion of narrative frames earlier in this section, it was not uncommon for male athletes to be pictured in a domestic context, while the majority of coverage of both male and female athletes included some form of action sequence.

First-sentence coverage of male and female athletes in a position of agency (bolded) included:

• ‘Australian Samantha Stosur will be aiming for a spot in the French Open semifi nals when she takes on Romanian teenager Sorana Cirstea tonight’ (ABC News, ABC1 Sydney, 3 June 2009).

• ‘In just over an hour’s time, the Socceroos will be fi ghting for World Cup qualifi cation against Uzbekistan at the same stadium where their last World Cup dream came true’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 1 April 2009).

• ‘The Australian test cricket team suddenly seems like a formidable force again’ (National Nine News, Channel Nine Sydney, 3 March 2009).

Meanwhile, examples of coverage depicting male athletes in a position of non-volition (bolded) in the fi rst sentence included:

• ‘Manly will be praying test fullback Brett Stewart is cleared to return this week from a four-game ban for drunken behaviour after slumping to their fourth straight loss’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Sydney, 5 April 2009).

• ‘The future of Parramatta’s rugby league team is under a cloud tonight with their boss Dennis Fitzgerald saying he can’t guarantee their survival’ (National Nine News, Channel Nine Sydney, 4 April 2009).

sensationalist, audience interest in this information stems from an investment in the careers of people, such as Symonds, and concern about how their behaviour can impact on them (and their teams) in a professional context. This investment in the professions of male athletes does not appear to extend to female athletes.

Following Section One, the third measure of evaluation traced in this analysis was ‘volition’, understood as a measure of agency or lack thereof (page 14). As noted in the discussion of narrative frames (pages 25–27), ‘volition’ has a direct affi nity with the narrative frame of agency, while ‘non-volition’ tends to accompany reports framing athletes as the subject of discipline. The majority of examples of volition in television news coverage of sport were positive for both female and male sport, although despite both genders receiving similar proportions of coverage, female athletes were more often reported as acting of their own wishes and aiming for strong results (28%, compared to 21% for male athletes), and were less likely to be presented in a position of non-volition than male athletes in the studio introductions (1%, compared to 7%). It is likely that this refl ects the greater use of the narrative frame of discipline for discussions of male sport, which by extension, presents male athletes as subject to the discipline and regulation of a higher power (such as the police or a league’s tribunal).

As introduced in Section One, emotivity is a measure of whether an article evaluates, or presents a view evaluating, an object (including events, people and teams) as good or bad (page 14). Vital components of the notion of emotivity are the source (who said it?) and the target (who/what did they say it about?) of the evaluation.

Discussion of female sport in the fi rst sentence had a higher proportion of positive emotivity; moreover, male sport had a higher proportion of negative emotivity (16% compared to 4% of female sport). In all sport, the majority of fi rst-sentence evaluations were made by the journalists and were towards a named person or team.

Cricketer Andrew Symonds was among the more frequent targets of negative emotivity. Examples included:

• ‘Cricketer Andrew Symonds is considering his future in the sport after returning home from England in disgrace’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Sydney, 6 June 2009).

• ‘Troubled cricketer Andrew Symonds has returned home staying tight-lipped about his latest indiscretion after being sent packing from England’ (National Nine News, Channel Nine Melbourne, 6 June 2009).

Although there are debates about the value of this kind of reporting for male sport, the use of negative evaluation to discuss male sport is further evidence that Australian television news employs a wider range of ways to discuss male sport. While it is undeniably

Chart 18: Target of evaluation — studio introduction, by sport type Chart 19: Volition — studio introduction, by sport type

Volu

me

Favourability


234

32

14383

371

49

359

137

29 29

97

57

702

82

726

8

237

4518

508 1

406

559

52.653.7

55.7

51.8

55.6

51.353.3 53.4

50.849.2

50.6 50.0

59.2

48.0

0

200

400

600

800

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Named person Team Event

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Other

Malesport

Femalesport

Unidentifiedsport

Volu

me

Favourability


212

36 36 3 2

387

5488

23

95

622

90

24

219

53.5 53.8 54.4

47.9

43.3

55.0

0

200

400

600

800

Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Male sport Mixed sport Female sport

Volition Non-volition

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0


Action shot of surfer Stephanie Gilmore (Sports Tonight late edition, Channel Ten national, 6 March 2009)

A serious Greg Bird walks to court (National Nine News, Channel Nine Sydney, 6 July 2009)

Australian rugby league players celebrate their win at the World Cup (Seven News, Channel 7 Sydney, 3 November 2008)

Intimate shot of golfer Anna Rawson (Ten News, Channel Ten Melbourne, 5 February 2009)

While the continuous nature of television imagery makes it less sound to place much emphasis on the emotional displays of athletes presented in overall reporting (as opposed to the studio backdrop, where images are more carefully and deliberately selected), a higher proportion of coverage pictured female athletes as ‘happy’ or ‘focused’ (53% and 49%, respectively, compared to 48% and 40% for male athletes), while male athletes were more often shown as ‘serious’ (32%, compared to 24% for female athletes).

In the analysis of footage overall, displays of ‘aggression’ were not as specifi c to male sport as might have been expected (with about 7% of coverage of each gender including such a display).

Figure 7: Examples of imagery accompanying television news reports

Serena Williams looking aggressive (ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne, 5 July 2009)

Boxer Victor Darchinyan in a domestic context (Ten News, Channel Ten Melbourne, 5 November 2008)

An upset Adelaide United player (ABC News, ABC1 Sydney, 6 November 2008)

Chart 20: Image analysis — overall, by sport type

Chart 21: Social distance of image — overall, by sport type

Chart 22: Emotional display — overall, by sport type


2 433 2 794

709 795

82 85

49

19

6

90271

65

0 500 1 000 1 500 2 000 2 500 3 000

Action sequence

Posed sequence

Relationship/domestic sequence

Posed action sequence

Glamour/fashion sequence

Sexualised sequence

Volume

Volu

me

Favourability


427

84353

77 199 101

883

83

743

79

583

167100

88

87

149

1 398

16852

1 183

15630

931

77 29

281

17 9

196

19 4

52.754.7

52.6 52.654.4

52.850.7

54.0

50.9

54.0

58.5

50.7

56.157.8

65.0

0

700

1 400

2 100

2 800

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Happy

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Focused

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Serious

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Enthusiastic

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Aggresive


2 348 2 664

2 272 2 605

1 771 1 996

240

247

164

76

86

61

0 500 1 000 1 500 2 000 2 500 3 000

Social

Public

Intimate

Volume


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.

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.

Other gendered noun phrases were common. In coverage of female sport this included frequent references to Serena and Venus Williams as sisters, while in reporting on male sport, this included a variety of phrases such as ‘king of surfi ng’, ‘good guy’, ‘favourite son’, ‘bloke’, ‘the big fella’ and ‘elder statesman’.

Coverage of male sport was more likely to mention the name of a particular team, while in coverage of female sport, the most frequent naming device was the sport or competition name. This is likely to refl ect the relative dominance of individual pursuits in coverage of female sport compared to male sport, where team-based contests dominate (see Chart 30, where tennis is over-represented in coverage of female sport, and cricket, NRL and AFL dominate for male sport).

Linguistic analysis — overallCharts 23–29 show the results of discourse analysis of television news reporting on sport. The various tools used have been adapted directly from Section One.

In overall coverage of female sport, a higher proportion of coverage mentioned female athletes by their fi rst name only, compared to overall coverage of male sport. This can be accounted for, at least in part, by the frequent references to Serena Williams as ‘Serena’ to avoid confusion with her sister Venus. Meanwhile, the use of diminutive noun phrases in overall coverage was proportionally equal (mentioned in 2% of coverage of each gender).

Chart 23: Gendered naming devices — overall, by sport type

Chart 24: Gender-neutral naming devices — overall, by sport type

Chart 25: Emotion lexis — overall, by sport type

Chart 26: Emotivity — overall, by sport type■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport

184 235

157

63 72

10 17

44

47

7

7

7

12 216

0 50 100 150 200 250

First name only

Other noun phrase



Volume


1 656 1 731

1 504 1 730

1 224 1 359

1 057 1 118

846 1 005

587 646

431 496

373 435

48

162

116

49

137

39

51

52

64

0 200 400 600 800 1 000 1 200 1 400 1 600 1 800 2 000

Team name


Family name only

Position

Nationality

State/country name

Age reference

Other noun phrase

Volume


Positive

Negative

700 842

346 367

110 32

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900

Volume

Volu

me

Favourability


493

96 86

912

92

437

204

1 449

18947

727

21 16

53.554.8

52.4

48.8

54.0

50.6

0

700

1 400

2 100

2 800

Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Male sport Female sport Mixed sportPositive Negative

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0


journalists have ways of framing male athletes and sport that do not apparently exist for female athletes and sport. Moreover, as noted previously, the focus on athlete behaviour, which much negative emotivity about male athletes is related to, is derived from an engagement with the professional path of athletes that such behaviour jeopardises.

As noted in the discussion of volition in fi rst sentences (pages 32–33), volition has a direct relationship with the narrative frame of agency, while non-volition lends itself to reports framing athletes as the subject of discipline. As in the analysis of fi rst sentences, female athletes were more often presented in a position of volition (38%, compared to 28% for male athletes), and they were less likely to be presented in a position of non-volition than male athletes in overall reports (3%, compared to 10%). This again mirrors the greater use of the narrative frame of discipline for discussions of male sport that present male athletes as subject to the discipline and regulation of a higher power.

Examples of volition (in bold) included:

• ‘The New South Wales Swifts are looking to re-write the history books again this year with an unprecedented fourth consecutive netball premiership’ (Sports Tonight late edition, Channel Ten national, 6 March 2009).

• ‘Serena smashes Safi na to claim her tenth Grand Slam title’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 1 February 2009).

Examples of negative emotivity included reporting on Roosters player Nate Myles’s six-match suspension, including the State of Origin, and the $50 000 fi ne to his club for a drunken incident at a hotel on the New South Wales coast:

• Reporter John Hill stated: ‘It’s another blow for the Roosters and the NRL, which has been plagued all season by drunken players behaving badly’.

• ARL chairman Colin Love described the situation as ‘very disappointing’.

• League expert Wayne Pearce criticised the whole code, saying ‘I don’t think it’s just the Roosters. There is a bit too much alcohol, [from] drug to binge levels across the code; [it’s] something that’s got to change’ (Ten News, Channel Ten Melbourne, 6 July 2009).

Negative emotivity was also used in discussions of male athletic performance, such as:

Two of Australia’s greatest tennis players have warned Lleyton Hewitt to change his game or give it away … as Hewitt arrived in Perth for the Hopman Cup, Pat Rafter and John Newcombe both dished out some blunt advice … ‘He can’t play the way he was playing seven or eight years ago. It won’t cut it out there,’ [said Pat Rafter]. (Sports Tonight, Channel Ten national, 2 January 2009).

Again, while examples of negative evaluation such as these do not necessarily do the sport or athletes any favours, it shows that Australian television news

• ‘Two-time world surfi ng champion Stephanie Gilmore is on track to claim her fi rst Roxy pro title since her rookie year in 2005. Gilmore revelled in the clean one-metre swirl, easily outperforming former world champion Chelsea Hedges … The 21-year-old had a nearly perfect ride’ (Ten News, Channel Ten Sydney, 6 March 2009).

Examples of positive emotivity (in bold) included:

• ‘Kangaroo greats have hailed Billy Slater’s performance as one of the best ever for Australia in last night’s humiliating defeat of England … [coach Ricky Stewart] described the performance as “Some of the best individual pieces of talent I’ve seen at this level of football”’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Sydney, 3 November 2008).

Chart 27: Source of evaluation — overall, by sport type

Chart 28: Target of evaluation — overall, by sport typeChart 29: Volition — overall, by sport type

Volu

me

Favourability


463

93 177

973

93

238

176

99

1 612

186

49

514

21 10

52.1

54.8

52.2 52.4

50.0

58.6

0

500

1 000

1 500

2 000


Journalist Named source

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Volu

me

Favourability


Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Named person Team Event

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Other

Malesport

Femalesport

Unidentifiedsport

370

80 196 120

614

547

218

83

139

13719

812

29 8

368

56 26117

6 5 33 7

1 123

52.5

55.5

52.6 51.8

54.8

50.0

53.3 52.751.3

50.2

55.0

52.0 52.0

60.7

0

600

1 200

1 800

2 400

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Volu

me

Favourability


314

57 59

480

65 111

835

122

36

287

11 5

117

54.055.0 54.9

52.7

46.0

48.4

0

400

800

1 200

1 600



30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0


(24 reports), cycling and golf, as well as the team-based sport of netball (mentioned in 36 reports overall, exclusively about women). Tennis, golf and cycling are sports with male competitions as well, therefore the volume of coverage of these sports as played by females is likely to be a product of a journalist being present to cover both male and female competitions. In contrast, the majority of cricket, Australian rules football and rugby league covered is predominantly in male competitions. This is unsurprising due to the expense of team sports and the infrastructure they require, both of which are more readily available for male sports given the core male audience for sport (see Section Five for more details). Individual sports can subsist on the talent of a few individuals which, when that talent is proven, can lead to sponsorship and other forms of funding. Female sport as a spectacle is only relatively recent, whereas male team sports are historically established.

Leagues

Chart 31 shows the leagues mentioned in coverage, largely mirroring the dominant sports shown in Chart 30.

Socioeconomic factors

Chart 32 shows a variety of socioeconomic factors affecting media coverage of sport and athletes in Australia. Female jockey Claire Lindop’s status as the fi rst woman to win the Victoria Derby resulted in a relatively high volume of reports on horseracing (‘other sport’) that had a specifi c focus on gender. Reports often began with an opening sentence noting Lindop’s ‘history-creating win’ (for example, ABC News, ABC1 Sydney, 2 November 2008).

Event results and preparation

Chart 33 shows the number of times a range of topics related to event results and preparation were mentioned in the coverage analysed, broken down by gender. Unsurprisingly, the results of events were the most frequently discussed topic of reports, reinforcing the media focus on end results over ongoing coverage of before and after events. These reports made up a higher proportion of coverage of female sport (68%) compared to that of male sport (47%), while reports that referred to training and preparation made up a greater proportion of coverage of male sport (26%) compared to female sport (12%). In fact, in all areas except ‘results’ and ‘family support’ (8% of reports on female sport noted the support of the athlete’s family, compared to 4% of reports on male sport), there was a greater proportion of discussion of male sport than female sport, demonstrating that (in addition to a greater variation in the more subtle ways of framing the two genders) there is a greater variety of topics discussed in relation to male sport than female sport.

• ‘Wakeboarding is a relatively new sport in Australia and one man has ensured the evolution maintains pace. [Josh Sanders has] secured the sport’s future down under. In 2003 Josh helped establish Australia’s own pro tour, to create opportunities that didn’t exist when he was starting out. Josh is now starting out on a new endeavour: a pro wakeboard school based right here on the Shoalhaven. He’s going to show the next generation just how it’s done’ (Sports Tonight, Channel Ten Sydney, 4 January 2009).

Meanwhile, examples of non-volition (bolded) included:

• ‘Golf’s wild child John Daly has revealed he’s been banned from playing on the US Tour for bringing negative press to the game. He was already suspended when he smashed a fan’s camera in Australia last month. The fi nal straw appears to have been his arrest for drunkenness outside a Hooters restaurant’ (National Nine News, Channel Nine Sydney, 1 January 2009).

• ‘The exile of North Melbourne champion Wayne Carey from Arden Street looks to be over … While a role with the football department is unlikely, [North Melbourne chairman James] Brayshaw has fl agged a possible mentoring position for Carey with North Melbourne’s younger players’ (ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne, 5 March 2009).

This further reinforces the fi nding that although women are framed more favourably, a broader spectrum of narratives is used to frame discussions of male sport and athletes than female sport and athletes.

Leading issues

Sport

While the reporting of male sport was far more prevalent than that of female, mixed or other sport, the majority of that coverage was of few sports; particularly the team sports cricket, Australian rules football, rugby league and football (soccer). As would be expected, coverage of Australian rules football was more prominent in Melbourne, while rugby league was more prominent in Sydney. Coverage of cricket, on the other hand, was spread more evenly across the markets, which can be attributed to most reports being about the national representative side as opposed to local or state teams in Australia (it should be noted, however, that cricket coverage sometimes extended to domestic competitions).

The range of female sports mentioned in coverage was comparatively narrow, and primarily extended to the individual sports of tennis (where women were discussed almost as frequently as men), surfi ng

Chart 30: Sports most reported by sport type

Chart 31: Leagues most reported by sport type

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport ■ Other sport

648 656

459 464

438 438

394 402

182 369

246

188 189

155 177

76 100

256 256

8

163

22

18

24

16 262

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700

Cricket


Rugby league

Football (soccer)

Tennis

Motor sports

Horseracing

Rugby union

Golf

Cycling

Volume

■ Male sport ■ Mixed sport

406 406

293 293

164 164

63 63

56 60

55 55

55

54

55

54

31 31

26 26

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450

AFL (Australian Football League)

NRL (National Rugby League)

A-League (men’s football [soccer])

Super 14 (men’s rugby union competition)

V8 Supercars (motor sports)

Formula 1 (motor sports)

Sheffield Shield (men’s first-class cricket)

PGA (Professional Golfers’ Association)

NBL (National Basketball League)

ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals)

Volume


proportionately more prominent in coverage of female sport (21%, compared to 11%; 7%, compared to 6%; and 8%, compared to 4%).

Unsurprisingly, given the range of reports on male athletes behaving badly on and off the fi eld discussed throughout this report, the three leading behaviour-related unfavourable messages — ‘athletes are badly behaved off fi eld’, ‘athletes are badly behaved on fi eld’ and ‘athletes are not positive role models’ — were almost exclusively mentioned in coverage of male sport.

Leading messagesChart 35 shows the leading messages mentioned in television news coverage of sport between October 2008 and July 2009, broken down by gender. The leading message in the coverage was ‘athletes are successful’, indicating the news value of winning in Australian media coverage.

Underscoring the notion that women are presented as proportionately more successful in coverage, with the subtext that they must be more successful to secure any media coverage, the top three messages were

Chart 32: Socioeconomic factors reported by sport type

Chart 33: Topics related to event results and preparation reported by sport type

■ Male sport ■ Mixed sport ■ Other sport ■ Female sport

42 46

29

1

3

10 42

5 8

1

13 19

4

2

5

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

Indigenous athlete

Regional/amateur sport

Specific focus on gender issues

Athlete with disability

Volume

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Other sport ■ Mixed sport

1 374 1 745

749 861

441 504

230 309

115 160

80 87

25

214

39

35

26

126

59

59

31

0 200 400 600 800 1 000 1 200 1 400 1 600 1 800

Results

Training/fitness

General performance

Community support

Family support

Partner support

Drug testing

Volume

Chart 34: Topics related to corporate aspects of sport reported by sport type

Chart 35: Leading messages of coverage by sport type

■ Male sport ■ Other sport ■ Mixed sport ■ Female sport

333 370

54 66

32 36

9 18

4

27

5

8

5

7

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

Management

Sponsorship

Marketing

Government investment

Australian Institute of Sport

Volume


319 445

171

106 134

32 37

152 159

97 102

57 64

33 33

65

23

24

56

41 240

7

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450

Athletes are successful

Athletes are driven and/or ambitious

Athleticism emphasised

Athletes are positive role models

Athletes are badly behaved off field

Athletes are badly behaved on field

Athletes are outclassed

Athletes are not positive role modles

Favo

urab

leU

nfav

oura

ble

Volume

Corporate

Chart 34 shows the volume of coverage mentioning a range of topics related to the corporate side of sport, broken down by gender. Female athletes and sport were rarely discussed in this context, contributing to the overall impression that in television news coverage female sport is not discussed on the same level as male sport; it receives less air time, is often presented as the novel exception to the male sport rule, and is not presented as the established, corporate, professional pursuit that male sport is.

It should be noted, however, that the 333 male sport reports mentioning management had an average favourability of 49.8 (slightly unfavourable), highlighting that much of this discussion was of the disciplinary role sporting organisations, leagues and management play when athletes misbehave on or off the fi eld. By extension, this demonstrates that reports on athlete behaviour are not purely motivated by the news value of sensationalism, and that they refl ect the status accorded to male athletes as professionals and role models, and the impact of their behaviour on their future professional prospects. It also refl ects, to some extent, the visibility of administrative infrastructure built up to legitimise and support male sport as a profession.


Chart 39: Family members quoted versus non-family sources (all other sources)

Chart 38: Spokesperson gender share of voice — mixed sport

Leading spokespeopleChart 36 shows the leading spokespeople quoted or cited in the coverage analysed, broken down by gender. Refl ecting the dominance of cricket, Australian cricket team captain Ricky Ponting was the most prominent spokesperson overall. The leading spokespeople for horseracing (‘other sport’) were both male, reinforcing the dominance of men in that fi eld despite the success of female jockey Claire Lindop, discussed previously (page 40).

Refl ecting the dominance of tennis in coverage of female sport and emphasising that success is a crucial ingredient for female sport to secure television news coverage, Serena Williams was the leading female sporting fi gure quoted, although her comments appeared in a low volume of reports overall.

It is notable that the leading spokespeople in coverage of mixed sport were male, indicating the pervasive dominance of men in sports administration and the focus of reporting on personalities such as Lleyton Hewitt, rather than female athletes in coverage of mixed events such as the Hopman Cup.

Table 40 and Charts 37−38 show the gender of spokespeople quoted in coverage of each kind of sport, highlighting that those who spoke (and who were implicitly or explicitly presented in positions of authority) about male sport, mixed sport and other sport were

overwhelmingly male. Furthermore, while the majority of spokespeople who discussed female sport were female, the margin is much smaller compared to the corresponding proportion of males who were quoted discussing male sport (85%, compared to 99%).

Chart 39 shows the proportion of family members quoted in coverage, broken down by gender. Although male athletes were more often shown with their families, it is interesting to note that family members (including parents, partners, siblings and grandparents) were quoted in a higher proportion of coverage of female sport.

Table 40: Gender of spokespeople quoted by sport type

Sport Gender # %

Female sport 258 100.00

Female 220 85.27

Male 38 14.73

Male sport 3 749 100.00

Female 56 1.49

Male 3 693 98.51

Mixed sport 128 100.00

Female 35 27.34

Male 93 72.66

Other sport 392 100.00

Female 52 13.27

Male 340 86.73

Chart 36: Leading spokespeople quoted by sport type

Volu

me

Favourability14 13

2917

7

115

3318

1021

10 15

11

140

46 47

27 2617 17

6 5 5

50.5

57.4

64.9

70.0

56.357.9

51.850.0 50.0

55.0

0

100

200

Male sport Other sport Female sport Mixed sport

20.0

50.0

80.0

■ Favourable comment ■ Neutral comment ■ Unfavourable comment Average favourability

Ric

ky P

ontin

g,Au

stra

lian

cric

ket

team

cap

tain

Rog

er F

eder

er,

tenn

is p

laye

r

Bar

t C

umm

ings

,ho

rse

trai

ner

Bla

ke S

hinn

,jo

ckey

Ser

ena

Will

iam

s,te

nnis

pla

yer

Venu

s W

illia

ms,

tenn

is p

laye

r

Sam

anth

a S

tosu

r,te

nnis

pla

yer

John

Coa

tes,

Aust

ralia

n O

lym

pic

Com

mitt

ee

Chi

c H

enry

,S

umm

erna

tsor

gani

ser

Lley

tin H

ewitt

,te

nnis

pla

yer

Family member Non-family source

5.04% 2.30%

94.96% 97.70% 98.64% 98.44%

0

25

50

75

100

Per

cen

t

Female sport Other sport Male sport Mixed sport

Chart 37: Spokesperson gender share of voice —female sport

Male15%

Female85%

Female27%

Male73%


While individual stations have clear specialists on male sports (for example, Channel Nine’s Danny Weidler can be expected to report on NRL, while ABC1’s Duncan Huntsdale can be relied on to report on cricket), fewer journalists could be identifi ed as specialists on female sports, with the attendant historical and statistical knowledge such specialisation brings.

One-quarter of the 250 journalists reporting on male sport were female, while one-fi fth of journalists reporting on female sport were female. This indicates that not only is the content of sport reporting skewed to male sport, but the journalists producing it are predominantly male.

Table 41 breaks down sporting discipline by the leading journalists reporting on female sport. Again, all leading journalists were male and were the anchor for their respective programs, rather than an on-the-ground reporter.

It is signifi cant that although 250 single journalists reported on male sport, only 82 single journalists reported on female sport. This is in part a refl ection of the fact that male sport tends to more readily spill over into the main news bulletin of an evening news report. It also refl ects that a wider range of journalists, sport specialists or otherwise, is better equipped and more frequently commissioned to report on male sport.

Leading by-lines and comperesChart 41 shows the leading journalists who reported on sport in the coverage analysed, broken down by the gender of the participants of the sport in question. All four leading journalists were male and the anchor for their respective networks (Peter Wilkins on ABC1, Brad McEwen and Rob Canning on Channel Ten, and Alex Cullen on Channel 7). While individual journalists were tracked for this analysis, where reports were read by the anchor, the anchor’s name was recorded.

Leading mediaChart 40 shows the breakdown of coverage, by volume, on each of the stations analysed. While coverage of female sport comprised 9% of the total, ABC1 Sydney and Melbourne both had 11% proportions of reporting on female sport, while Channel Nine Sydney and Channel Ten Melbourne were at the lower end of the spectrum, with 6% each.

Chart 40: Television station coverage by sport type

Chart 41: Leading journalists reporting on sport by sport type


424

360

349

313

277

284

242

235

217

229

54

39

28

32

25

17

29

29

13

17

32

21

16 523

12 440

8 438

10 369

10 335

10 299

8 292

10 284

14 281

33

32

22

34

53

13

40 354

19

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550

Channel Ten national

Channel Ten Sydney

Channel Ten Melbourne

SBS

Channel 7 Melbourne

Channel 7 Sydney

ABC1 Sydney

ABC1 Melbourne

Channel Nine Melbourne

Channel Nine Sydney

Volume

Volu

me

Favourability


68

14 13 12 7

42

6

113

22

163

16 16

88

15

38

189

36

6 6

187

19 19

5

103

22

3 3

93

7 3 1

8 11

13

53.3 53.2

50.852.5

50.3 51.1 51.3 51.0 50.652.5 53.3

50.0

54.0

59.3

55.0

58.3

0

60

120

180

240

Malesport

Femalesport

Othersport

Mixedsport

Malesport

Femalesport

Othersport

Mixedsport

Malesport

Femalesport

Othersport

Mixedsport

Malesport

Femalesport

Othersport

Mixedsport

Peter Wilkins Brad McEwan Rob Canning Alex Cullen

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Table 41: Leading journalists reporting on female sport by sport discipline

Journalist Sport Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Volume Average favourability

Peter Wilkins 14 22 36 53.2

Tennis 6 15 21 51.9

Golf 2 5 7 52.9

Surfi ng 2 2 4 52.5

Athletics 2 2 55.0

Basketball 1 1 65.0

Swimming 1 1 7.0

Rob Canning 7 15 22 52.5

Netball 5 6 11 53.2

Tennis 3 3 5.0

Surfi ng 1 1 2 55.

Triathlon 1 1 6.0

Golf 1 1 5.0

Basketball 1 1 5.0

Cycling 1 1 5.0

Swimming 1 1 5.0

BMX 1 1 5.0

Brad McEwan 3 16 19 51.3

Tennis 1 6 7 5.7

Golf 5 5 5.0

Sports — general 2 2 5.0

Netball 1 1 2 55.

Cricket 1 1 5.0

Gymnastics 1 1 5.0

Surfi ng 1 1 6.0

Ken Sutcliffe 8 7 15 54.7

Tennis 6 5 11 11 55.5

Cricket 1 1 1 55.0

Golf 1 1 1 5.0

Sports — general 1 1 1 5.0

Skiing 1 1 1 55.0


Trend analysisCharts 44−47 show the volume of coverage of male, female, mixed and ‘other’ sport, broken down by time. This highlights that although all sport coverage is primarily event-driven, male sport receives much more consistent levels of reporting year-round than female sport, mixed sport or other sport (horseracing). This reinforces the fi nding that all sport other than male sport tends to require results to generate media.

PlacementChart 42 shows where an athlete, team or sporting offi cial was referred to in a report (‘prominent mention’ refers to a fi rst-sentence mention, or three or more references in the body of the report). ‘Lead story’ in Chart 43 shows the volume of reports that appeared in the fi rst fi ve minutes of programming.

Chart 42: Placement of mention of athlete, team or offi cial in a report by sport type

Chart 43: Volume of additional report features

Chart 44: Volume of female sports coverage, October 2008 to July 2009

Chart 45: Volume of male sports coverage, October 2008 to July 2009■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Other sport ■ Mixed sport

2 605

255 401

71 124

215 202 69 3 091

0 500 1 000 1 500 2 000 2 500 3 000 3 500

First sentence/introduction

Prominent mention

Passing mention

Volume


2 920

1 812

208 249

313

179

264

180

103 3 600

65 2 236

0 500 1 000 1 500 2 000 2 500 3 000 3 500 4 000

Graphics

Spokesperson quoted

Lead story

Volume

Volu

me

Favourability

Volume Average favourability

21

11 12

6055

31

22

6

56

42

56.7

53.6 54.2

51.052.4

55.053.6 54.2

52.9

55.8

0

40

80

120

160

Oct 08 Nov 08 Dec 08 Jan 09 Feb 09 Mar 09 Apr 09 May 09 Jun 09 Jul 0930.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Volu

me

Favourability


283 277 266 258 263

382

265292 310

335

52.5 52.150.7 50.9 50.6 51.3 51.2 50.9

50.1

53.1

0

250

500

750

1 000


40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

SECTION ONETowards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media50

SECTION THREEQualitative and quantitative analysis

of the Beijing Olympic Games

August 2008

Chart 46: Volume of mixed sports coverage, October 2008 to July 2009

Chart 47: Volume of other sports coverage, October 2008 to July 2009

Volu

me

Favourability


2 3

14

38

13 14

86

14

50.0 50.051.4 51.6

53.8

50.7 50.651.7

60.0 60.0

0

25

50

75

100


40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Volu

me

Favourability


23

142

31

6 613 18 15

93

51.5

56.4

49.5 50.0 50.0

53.5

50.3 50.0

52.2 51.7

0

70

140

210

280


40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media52 SECTION THREE 53

Chart 50: Share of sport by duration and sport type

Table 43: Share of voice by duration and sport type



Male sport 2:59:46

Mixed sport 2:18:08

Total 8:19:14

Primary story focusChart 51 shows the main focus of each television news report on the Beijing Olympics. As in year-round coverage of sport, reporting on the Olympics was largely event-driven as athlete performance was the

Share of voiceChart 49 shows the share of voice of each gender by volume, that is, the number of reports that mentioned either male sport, female sport or mixed sport. Male sport was mentioned in a higher number of reports. However, Chart 50 and Table 43 show that, unlike year-round coverage of sport, the duration of these reports was often not as long as those reports discussing female sport; instead, the two genders received an equal proportion of time in television coverage.


As in year-round television news reporting on sport, coverage of female sport during the Olympics was slightly more favourable than coverage of male sport. Rather than the behaviour of male athletes resulting in less favourable coverage of male sport (as is the case for year-round coverage), this increase was the result of female athletes being presented as slightly more successful, or less unsuccessful.

Gender overviewWith regard to coverage of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, in addition to denoting events that men and women participate in together (including sailing and equestrian), ‘mixed sport’ coverage included the extensive reporting on the opening and closing ceremonies.

The Beijing Olympics had the highest number of female competitors, who comprised 43% of participants overall.

Key metricsTable 42: Key metrics, quantitative media analysis, Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

Key metrics Female sport Male sport Mixed sport

Total volume of media reports 147 152 72

Average favourability 58.1 55.6 53.2

Leading story focus (reports) Athlete performance (113) Athlete performance (126) Athlete performance (26)

Leading message (mentions) Athletes are successful (83) Athletes are successful (79) Athletes are successful (19)

Leading spokesperson (mentions) Stephanie Rice, swimmer (17) Michael Phelps, US swimmer (8)John Coates, Australian Olympic Committee (12)

Leading media (number of reports) Channel 7 (54) Channel 7 (57) Channel 7 (31)

Chart 48: Volume of coverage by sport type

Volu

me

FavourabilityFavourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability

8297

6244

44

154147

72

23

55.6

53.2

58.1

0

70

140

210

280

Male sport Female sport Mixed sport

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Mixed sport19%

Male sport42%

Female sport39%

Mixed sport19%

Male sport42%

Female sport39%


Volu

me

Favourability

Volume — male sport Volume — female sport Volume — mixed sportAverage favourability — male sport Average favourability — female sport Average favourability — mixed sport

126

21

3 4

113

23

73 1

2622 20

3 10

50

100

150

200

Athlete performance Training and preparation Sporting industry Athlete profile Athlete behaviour

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0


Visual analysis — studio backdropCharts 54–56 show the qualitative content and social distance of imagery accompanying the studio introductions to television news reports on the Olympics, adapting the categories used to analyse print media imagery in Section One.

In line with Section One, both the studio backdrop in the introductions to television reports and the images in the reports themselves were analysed based on whether they were ‘action shots’, ‘posed’, ‘glamour’ or ‘domestic’. Although Section One fi nds that press articles had an almost 50–50 split between action shots and posed shots (page 9), this analysis found that action shots were more commonly used than posed shorts in the background of Olympics story introductions.

stakes injury or other adversity posed. However, there was negligible discussion of athletes in the context of ‘discipline’ in Olympics coverage.

Female Olympians were more likely to be presented in a position of agency than their male counterparts and their year-round female sporting counterparts. The domestic lives of both female and male athletes were discussed (that is, reference made to family and loved ones) approximately ten times more in coverage of the Olympics than in year-round coverage (where 1.3% of coverage of female athletes and 1.5% of coverage of male athletes used a ‘domestic’ narrative frame, while in coverage of the Olympics, these proportions were 8% and 10%, respectively).

Text typeTable 44: Text type by sport type

Text typeMale sport

Female sport

Mixed sport Total

News report 152 144 70 366

Profi le 1 1 2

Match preview 1 1 2

Human interest 1 1 2

News brief 1 1

Match report 1 1

Narrative frameIn line with the more equal volumes of coverage of male and female sport at the Olympics, Chart 53 shows a more equitable distribution of the narrative frames used to describe athletes and teams when compared to year-round coverage.

As would be expected, ‘athletic prowess’ was the most frequently used frame, although ‘adversity’ was more prominent in Olympics coverage as a result of higher

main theme of most coverage analysed. However, there was a greater interest in the training and preparation of female athletes at the Olympics than in year-round coverage.

Nationality of athletes As in Section Two, any time an Australian athlete was mentioned in a report, the primary nationality of the report was automatically listed as Australian. So, while Chart 52 accurately depicts the volume of reports in which Australian athletes were mentioned, it is not as accurate a depiction of when international athletes were mentioned (when they were discussed in the same report as an Australian athlete, the default for this section was ‘Australian’). Nevertheless, free-to-air television news coverage of the Olympics in Australia overwhelmingly favoured stories that included Australian athletes and almost entirely reported on international athletes only in the context of their competition with Australians. Coverage of outstanding male international athletes Asafa Powell and Michael Phelps was the main exception to this trend.


Chart 53: Narrative frames used in coverage by sport type


147

7 12

145 69 361

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

Australian

Other

Volume

■ Female sport ■ Male sport ■ Mixed sport

119

25

19

25

14

117

25

23

17

12

43 279

7 57

14 56

11 53

4 30

3 6

3 4

0 50 100 150 200 250 300

Athletic prowess

Adversity

Other

Agency

Domestic role

Diaspora

Discipline

Volume

Chart 54: Image analysis — studio backdrop, by sport type

Chart 55: Social distance of image — studio backdrop, by sport type


23

10

1

2 2

19

10

7 49

10 30

2 2

1 2

1 1

0 10 20 30 40 50

Action shot

Posed shot

Glamour/fashion shot

Posed action shot


Sexualised shot

Volume


20

17

6

13

9

9

14 47

7 33

3 18

0 10 20 30 40 50

Social

Intimate

Public

Volume


Figure 8: Example of the use of the phrase ‘golden girls’

Use of the phrase ‘golden girls’ in television news (Ten News, Channel Ten Melbourne, 11 August 2008)

Unsurprisingly, given the international nature of the Olympics, in the coverage it was more likely for presenters to mention the nationality of athletes, such as:

• ‘the American superstar’

• ‘Australian rowers have started a big week of celebrations’

• ‘Australia’s water polo women played a nail-biter against bitter rivals Hungary’

• ‘Australia has just won 13th Olympic gold medal’

• ‘Australian Jared Tallent has delivered one of the surprise performances of the Beijing Games’.

there were minimal glamour or sexualised shots in the studio backdrop of television reports on the Olympics. Interestingly, there were more images of women (36) in the studio backdrop than of men (29).

Linguistic analysis — studio introductionCharts 57–63 show the results of discourse analysis of the fi rst sentence spoken by the journalist in television news reporting on the Olympics. The various tools used have been adapted directly from Section One.

In Olympics coverage the most common type of posed shot showed the athlete celebrating after receiving their medal. Reports often showed a montage of both action and posed shots in the studio backdrop. These images were most often at a social or intimate distance. This is not surprising given that they are in the studio backdrop, which only takes up part of the screen, along with the anchor, making the content of public images diffi cult to see. This is consistent with the fi ndings of Section One that 50% of images were at a social distance. As in Sections One and Two,

Chart 56: Emotional display — studio backdrop, by sport type

Chart 57: Gendered naming devices — studio introduction, by sport type

Chart 58: Gender-neutral naming devices — studio introduction, by sport type

Volu

me

Favourability


4

72 3

5

2 2

30

16

12 12

7

2 31 2 1 2

1

25

9 10 9

2 2 2

62.7

56.9

61.7

58.8

54.3

50.0

53.355.0

65.0

55.0

57.5

65.0

0

15

30

45

60

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Malesport

Femalesport

Malesport

Mixedsport

Malesport

Mixedsport

Malesport

Mixedsport

Malesport

Mixedsport

Happy Focused Serious Enthusiastic Relieved

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0


21

15

7 7

2 2

11

4

3 35

1 20

0 10 20 30 40

Gendered pronoun

Other noun phrase


First name only

Volume


57

30

16

9

6

2

5 14

7 11

2

43

29

19

14

7

7

8

3

23 123

25 84

6 41

6 29

11 24

7 16

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140


Nationality

State/country name

Team name

Other noun phrase

Gender-neutral pronoun

Family name only

Position

Age reference

Volume

As outlined in Sections One and Two, the objective of analysing naming devices was to identify to what extent stories drew attention to the gender of athletes and away from their performance. In line with Section One, 24% of all studio introductions in the coverage of the Olympics analysed for this report contained a gendered naming device. The split between gendered naming devices used in female sport and male sport was, however, pronounced (27%, compared to 10%, respectively).

While only coverage of female sport contained diminutive noun phrases (for example, ‘girls’), it should be noted that the use of the word ‘girl’ in these seven cases was generally used in phrases such as ‘golden girl’ or ‘glamour girl’. Consistent with Section One, these were most likely used for alliterative effect rather than an attempt (deliberate or otherwise) to portray females as younger or softer than males (which is consistent with remarks made on page 13), or to ‘infantilise’ the athletes (which Vande Berg and Projansky [2003] suggested is the function of diminutive noun phrases in sporting commentary).

As the analysis of year-round coverage found, in coverage of the Olympics it was more common for gender-neutral naming devices than gendered naming devices to be used in studio introductions. As there are a number of competitors and sports in the Olympics that are not widely discussed in general sports programming, it was more likely for the sport or team name to be mentioned.

A number of ‘family name only’ mentions that appeared in the caption displayed on the studio backdrop made puns of the athletes’ family names (see Figure 9).


Figure 10: Example of negative emotion used in studio backdrop

‘Injury blow’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 4 August 2008)

Most reports that contained emotivity in the studio introduction also contained an evaluation elsewhere in the report. As the analysis of year-round television news coverage of sport found, there was a higher proportion of positive emotivity in discussion of female sport; moreover, male sport had a higher proportion of negative emotivity. With all sport, the majority of evaluations were made by the journalists and were towards a named person or team. However, there were a higher number of evaluations of teams in coverage of mixed sport, as the majority of this coverage was devoted to the anticipation and refl ection of teams’ performances during the opening and closing ceremonies, respectively.

Consistent with Section Two, the majority of emotion lexis used to describe athletes’ behaviour in studio introductions in coverage of the Olympics was positive. In contrast to the analysis of year-round sport coverage, only 2% of fi rst sentences in reports on the Olympics included references to negative emotion lexis (compared to 7% of year-round coverage), underscoring the up-beat nature of Olympics coverage on Australian television news. As with gender-neutral naming devices, the majority of mixed sport mentions of positive emotion appeared in reports on the opening and closing ceremonies and Australian Olympians in general, without specifying gender. These included phrases such as ‘while our Olympians will be bursting with pride when they march into the Bird’s Nest stadium, they’re already basking in the thrill of last night’s offi cial welcome’ (National Nine News, Channel Nine Melbourne, 8 August 2008) and ‘Australia’s swimmers are confi dent’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 1 August 2008).

A slightly higher proportion of both positive and negative emotions appeared in studio introductions for female sport than for male sport (which could be interpreted as giving some support to the stereotype that women are presented as displaying more emotion than men). Some examples of positive emotion attributed to female sport included: ‘tears of joy as a lifelong Olympic dream is realised’ (Ten News, Channel Ten Melbourne, 12 August 2008) and ‘Stephanie Rice says she is overwhelmed after being chosen to carry the Australian fl ag’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 23 August 2008).

Although there were minimal examples of negative emotion in the studio introductions of television coverage of the Olympics, the majority of these were in discussions of female sport, with both image captions and spoken words used for full effect. For example, the introductory sentence ‘Hockeyroo Fiona Johnson is devastated about being the fi rst Aussie sent home due to injury’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 4 August 2008) was accompanied by the picture in Figure 10.

Figure 9: Examples of family names made into puns in studio backdrops

‘Rice bubbles’ (National Nine News, Channel Nine Melbourne, 13 August 2008)

‘Mills and Boomers’ (Ten News, Channel Ten Melbourne, 6 August 2008)

While mixed sport had the highest number of other gender-neutral terms, such as ‘stars’ and ‘heroes’, this was due to these phrases being used in coverage of the opening and closing ceremonies, not coverage of specifi c mixed sports. Examples included ‘Australia’s stars of the pool have just arrived in Beijing’ and ‘home-grown heroes’.

Chart 59: Emotion lexis — studio introduction, by sport type

■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport ■ Male sport

Positive

Negative

10

3

11 28

1 5

7

1

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Volume

Chart 60: Emotivity — studio introduction, by sport type

Chart 61: Source of evaluation — studio introduction, by sport type

Volu

me

Favourability


33

18

82 2

7

6

9

4 3

2

40

24

18

86

2

62.1 61.5

54.4

51.3 51.7

47.5

0

15

30

45

60

Female sport Male sport Mixed sport Male sport Female sport Mixed sportPositive Negative

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Volu

me

Favourability


Female sport Male sport Mixed sport Male sportMixed sportJournalist Named source

35

19

72

10

9

9

2

46

30

18

41

60.859.2

52.5

58.8 60.0

0

20

40

60

80

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0


Visual analysis — overallCharts 64–66 show the qualitative content and social distance of imagery accompanying television news reports on the Olympics, adapting the categories used to analyse print media imagery in Section One.

The majority of examples of volition in coverage of the Olympics were positive for both female and male sport — although despite both genders having similar proportions of coverage, female athletes were more often reported as acting of their own wishes and ‘aiming for’ strong results in the studio introductions. However, of the small number of examples of negative volition, female sport was more often described in these terms.

Chart 62: Target of evaluation — studio introduction, by sport type

Chart 63: Volition — studio introduction, by sport type

Volu

me

Favourability


1815

3

11

4 46

2

5

3

3

6

9

3

2

2 2

11

1

1

23

19

6

18

14

86

42

32 2

11

63.561.8

52.5

56.154.3

55.6

62.5

52.5

57.5

46.7

50.0 50.0

0

10

20

30

40

Femalesport

Femalesport

Femalesport

Malesport

Malesport

Malesport

Malesport

Mixedsport

Mixedsport

Mixedsport

Mixedsport

Mixedsport

Named person Team Unidentified sportsperson Event Other

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Volu

me

Favourability


Female sport Male sport Mixed sport Male sportFemale sport


26

17

3

5

3

2 2

31

20

5 42

60.5

58.3

53.0

46.3

52.5

0

15

30

45

60

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Chart 64: Image analysis — overall, by sport type

Chart 65: Social distance of image — overall, by sport type

Chart 66: Emotional display — overall, by sport type


119

37

20

4 7

2

130

24

18 40

36 285

12 73

4 8

0 50 100 150 200 250 300

Action sequence

Posed sequence


Glamour/fashion sequence

Sexualised sequence


Volume


132

119

85

125

120

84

52 309

49 288

41 210

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350

Public

Social

Intimate

Volume

Volu

me

Favourability


Femalesport

Malesport

Mixedsport

Happy

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Focused

Malesport

Mixedsport

Femalesport

Serious

Mixedsport

Malesport

Femalesport

Enthusiastic

Femalesport

Malesport

Mixedsport

Crying (joy)

8160

1929 22

6 7 9 8 13 6

25

19

25

26

15

1022

11 56

108

80

46

57

39

15

28

12 813 11 10 14

6 3

59.2 58.8

54.3 55.1 55.4

50.0

52.150.4 50.0

53.8

60.962.5

65.4

61.7

67.5

0

50

100

150

200

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0


compared to the studio introductions. A high proportion of this coverage of female sport focused on Australian female swimmers.

The use of an age reference when reporting on Olympic athletes was more common in television news reports discussing female sport (59% of total age references), with the female swimmers described as ‘young women’ and the basketball team labelled ‘young stars’. A number of these references were in reports focused on Australian diver Melissa Wu, who won a silver medal at the age of 16. Coverage of male sport had a smaller proportion of age references, with shooter Michael Diamond and rower James Tomkins described as ‘veterans’, while the ages of swimmer

Only 70% of the total coverage of the Olympics analysed mentioned the sport or competition name in either the studio introduction or the body of the report. It is likely that this was due to the assumption that when using team names such as Hockeyroos and Socceroos the sport that was being discussed was presumed to be obvious.

There were more uses of family name only in discussion of male sport compared to female sport during the Olympics, although the difference in proportion is not as large as for fi rst name only mentions. There was also a higher number of mentions of athletes as ‘stars’, ‘champions’ and ‘heroes’ for both male and female sport, when looking at the overall result

In contrast to year-round reporting on sport, and lending some support to the stereotype that women are likely to display more emotion than men (as mentioned in Section One, page 8, and discussed in relation to emotion lexis throughout this report), it is worth noting that Chart 66 demonstrates that the visual content of television coverage of the Olympics more frequently showed women emoting (‘happy’ or ‘crying’ with joy), while male athletes were more likely to be shown in less emotive footage (‘focused’, ‘serious’ or ‘enthusiastic’). Chart 56, which provides the same information for studio introductions of television news reports on the Olympics, similarly shows that women were more often shown displaying ‘happiness’.

Linguistic analysis — overallCharts 67–73 show the results of discourse analysis of television news reporting on the Olympics. The various tools used have been adapted directly from Section One.

Consistent with Section Two, a higher proportion of Olympics coverage mentioned an athlete by their fi rst name only in overall coverage of female sport than male sport. This is not necessarily due to the fact that females are more often referred to by their fi rst names only, but possibly that the female Olympic athletes are considered more well known than their male counterparts. In contrast to the analysis of year-round reporting on sport, which found equal proportions of diminutive noun phrases in overall coverage of men and women, in the coverage of the Olympics the volume of diminutives was greater in reports on female sport.

The sizeable difference in the volume of diminutive noun phrases used for women compared to men cannot be ignored: the very use of diminutives suggests that, consciously or otherwise, women in sport are not presented by the media as seriously as men in sport. However, as noted in relation to the use of gendered naming devices for studio introductions, the majority of diminutive noun phrases were used in reports on the Australian women’s swimming squad and appeared to be used for alliterative effect, with phrases such as ‘glamour girl’ and ‘golden girls’. The concentration of the word ‘girls’ to describe this squad suggests that (whether politically correct or not) this has become a generally accepted way of referring to the athletes.

The high proportion of the use of other noun phrases such as ‘women’ or ‘men’ was more likely due to comperes having to differentiate between the events that have both female and male versions, than the use of the phrases to emphasise whether men or women were competing (for example, the ‘women’s K4’, the ‘men’s hockey team’, the ‘women’s water polo team’ or the ‘men’s 100-metre freestyle’).

Unsurprisingly, as this analysis focuses exclusively on television coverage, the majority of reports contained images. Only 41 reports did not contain an image that could be analysed (that is, the whole report was the compere or anchor speaking to camera, with no accompanying vision). Images overall had a higher proportion of domestic sequences than the studio backdrop, and these were largely either family watching the events from home or athletes embracing family members after their win. There was also a higher proportion of action sequences than posed sequences, with almost all reports showing some footage of the event.

A high proportion of reports showed at least two different social distances of images, which is not surprising given that television reports are put together with a variety of framed shots in order to maintain audience interest. There was a higher number of glamour or sexualised shots than in the studio backdrop (such as in Figure 11).

Figure 11: Examples of glamour shots in television news reports

Ten News, Channel Ten Melbourne, 21 August 2008

Ten News, Channel Ten Melbourne, 11 August 2008

Chart 67: Gendered naming devices — overall, by sport type

Chart 68: Gender-neutral naming devices — overall, by sport type


23

21

21

5 5

30

11

2 24

5 58

5 37

1

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Other noun phrase

First name only



Volume


67

64

45

31

28

31

14

10 16

56

51

34

36

20

22

32

5

26 149

26 141

10 89

9 76

15 63

6 59

8 54

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160


Nationality

Family name only

Team name

Other noun phrase

State/country name

Age reference

Position

Volume


used in the coverage of female sport and more negative emotivity in the coverage of male sport. There was also a higher proportion of evaluations from named spokespeople. This 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. The difference in the proportion of evaluations targeting named sources compared to teams was more pronounced in overall coverage than in studio introductions.

As with the studio introductions, in overall coverage of the Olympics, reports that mentioned volition were more likely in discussions of female sport. The proportions of non-volition were, however, more equal in overall coverage than in studio introductions, in which female sport was more often discussed.

Michael Phelps, walker Jared Tallent and diver Matthew Mitcham were all discussed as added context in reporting on their successes.

As with emotion lexis in the studio introductions of reports, a higher proportion of both positive and negative emotion was displayed by, or attributed to, female athletes than male athletes overall. Some athletes were described as being ‘distressed’ and ‘disappointed’ with their performances, while others were described as being ‘elated’ and ‘over the moon’, most often when they won medals unexpectedly.

There was less difference in the proportion of positive emotivity in overall television coverage of female sport and male sport than in the studio introductions. However, as with year-round coverage, there was still a higher proportion of positive emotivity

Chart 69: Emotion lexis — overall, by sport type

Chart 70: Emotivity — overall, by sport type


Positive

Negative

34

14

26

11

20 80

1 26

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Volume

Volu

me

Favourability


Female sport Male sport Mixed sport Male sport Female sport Mixed sport

Positive Negative

6456

1811 10

14

14

13

137

5

78

71

32 31

20

6

7

61.559.6

55.9

52.954.0

49.2

0

30

60

90

120

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Chart 72: Target of evaluation — overall, by sport type

Chart 71: Source of evaluation — overall, by sport type

Volu

me

Favourability


Malesport

Femalesport

Femalesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Malesport

Mixedsport

Mixedsport

Mixedsport

Named person Team Event Unidentifiedsportsperson

Other

7266

22

41

23

3 3 26

2 3

50 50

11

30

15 11

2014

10

9

5 125

25

59.8

53.6

58.7

55.256.7

50.0

55.0

52.554.2 55.0

50.0

58.2

0

30

60

90

120

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Volu

me

Favourability


Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Female sport Male sport Mixed sport

Journalist Named source

53 59

16 14 9 5

21 16

15

781 78

33

1813

5

57.659.4

54.1

63.9

58.5

70.0

0

30

0

60

90

120

150

180

20.0

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

80.0


to the relative success of the women’s swimming squad, and might have been reversed had the male members of the team been more successful.

While there were more reports about community support for female athletes, this appeared to be mostly a function of the success of the athletes themselves and did not suggest any particular gender bias.

Corporate

The high proportion of reports about management in Chart 76 is due to the opening and closing ceremonies falling into this category. The media’s interest in Stephanie Rice also contributed to the large number of reports in this category as a result of her selection to carry the Australian fl ag during the closing ceremony.

The fi ndings of this analysis, therefore, challenge the traditional stereotypes referred to in Section One, as well as offer opportunities for reconceptualising such stereotypes in the light of actual media interest identifi ed in this study.

Event results and preparation

Unsurprisingly, results were the most frequently discussed topic in coverage related to events. These reports were evenly divided between male and female sport, with no discernable difference in the style or content of reports.

Reports that mentioned family support were also divided equally between genders. Although there is some evidence that family support for female athletes was more pronounced, this can be somewhat attributed

focus on the individual successes of athletes such as Stephanie Rice, Leisel Jones and Libby Trickett.

It is noteworthy that the ratio of men’s to women’s coverage was fairly even across most of the leading Olympic sports, with the exceptions of football, rowing and water polo. The disproportionately large volume of reports about women’s water polo, compared to men’s water polo, was a result of media interest in the extremely close match between Australia and Hungary.

Only two of the sports in Chart 74 were ‘female appropriate’ sports as discussed by Jones (2003); Jones, Murrell and Jackson (1999), and Daddario (1998) (cited in Section One, pages 6–7): diving and swimming.

Leading issues

Sport

Australia’s traditional strength in swimming is refl ected in Chart 74, which shows that this sport received the most media coverage during the Beijing Olympics. The strength of the women’s squad is also refl ected in the equal proportion of women’s and men’s coverage (49 and 51 reports, respectively). However, men’s swimming events were more likely to be mentioned as part of broader daily Olympics updates, whereas coverage of women’s swimming events tended to

Chart 73: Volition — overall, by sport type

Chart 74: Sports most reported by sport type

Volu

me

Favourability


Female sport Male sport Mixed sport Male sport Mixed sportFemale sportVolition Non volition

53

35

9 6 5

8

14

95 4

4

62

51

20

13 12

5

62.1

56.3

52.753.8

48.0

58.2

0

30

60

90

120

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0


51

37

27

24

11

21

18

8

18 19

49

36

37

22

12

16

4

10

13

31 131

16 89

11 75

5 51

25 48

7 44

14 36

4 22

3 17

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

Swimming

Athletics

Basketball

Hockey

Sports — general

Cycling

Rowing

Diving

Football (soccer)

Water polo

Volume

Chart 75: Topics related to event results and preparation reported by sport


95

45

30

19

18

14

4

98

43

36

20

13

12

3

14 207

10 98

19 85

6 45

11 42

10 36

4 11

0 50 100 150 200 250

Results

Family support

Training/fitness

Partner support

Community support

General performance

Drug testing

Volume

Chart 76: Topics related to corporate aspects of sport reported by sport type

■ Mixed sport ■ Female sport ■ Male sport

11

4

4 5

1 4

1 2

6

3

1

3

4 21

1 8

1

0 5 10 15 20 25

Management

Sponsorship

Government investment

Marketing

Australian Institute of Sport

Volume


Australian Olympic Committee head John Coates was the leading spokesperson for mixed sport, with the majority of his comments made about the opening and closing ceremonies. US swimmer Michael Phelps’s dominance in the pool led to him being the leading spokesperson in the coverage of male sport, followed by surprise medal winner Jared Tallent and retiring swimmer Grant Hackett.

Leading spokespeopleChart 79 shows the leading spokespeople quoted in the coverage analysed, broken down by the gender of the sport they discussed. The dominance of Australian female swimmers during the Beijing Olympics is emphasised by the fact that two of the three leading female spokespeople were female swimmers.

of the Olympics tends to focus on athletes who win medals or those who were expected to win but did not. Interestingly, there were more mentions of the unfavourable message ‘athletes were outclassed’ in coverage of male sport, which may suggest that the media had higher expectations of Australia’s male athletes which, in itself, could suggest some bias.

Considering that the split of medal wins between males and females was even, it is not surprising that the number of times athletes were presented as successful was also evenly split. Consistent with the discourse analysis of volition, female athletes were more often described as being ‘driven’ or ‘ambitious’, while male athletes had their athleticism emphasised more often. The athletic prowess of male athletes most often appeared in reporting on Michael Phelps and Asafa Powell. The behaviour of female athletes both on and off the fi eld was not discussed unfavourably in media coverage, while the behaviour of male athletes was. In comparison to year-round television news reporting on sport, however, only a small number of reports focused on behaviour.

The likelihood that the International Olympic Committee would not include softball in the London Games also contributed to management being the most frequently mentioned corporate topic.

Stephanie Rice was discussed in two of the marketing reports about female sport, as well as the mixed sport marketing report. Libby Trickett and Sally McLennan were also mentioned in the marketing context, indicating that although there was only a low volume of reports of this nature, there was some degree of media interest in discussing female athletes in a sporting industry context. This contrasts with the analysis of year-round television news coverage, in which there were no reports on female athletes in this context. All reports in this category focused on the potential earning power of these athletes following their Olympics successes.

Leading messagesThe leading message in Olympics coverage was ‘athletes are successful’, followed by ‘athletes are outclassed’. This is unsurprising as media coverage

Chart 77: Leading messages of coverage by sport type


Favo

urab

leU

nfav

oura

ble

79

12

13 17

22 40

2

2

1

1

1

4

83

20

4

13

19 181

5 37

5

0 25 50 75 100 125 150 175 200




Athletes handle pressure well

Athletes are outclassed

Athletes are badly behaved on field

Government support of sport is insufficient

Athletes are badly behaved off field

Athletes do not handle pressure well

Athleticism downplayed

Volume

Chart 78: Volume of leading favourable and unfavourable messages by sport type, 3 to 26 August 2008

Chart 79: Leading spokespeople quoted by sport type


1

7 79

24

8

11

1 1

6

108

4

1 13 3 3

1 13

422

5

10 11 8

71

3

9

3 2

6

2

8

6

24

2

1

22

1

1

1

1

1

13

4

1

5

1

3 1

0

5

10

15

20

25

Athletes are successful Athletes are outclassed

Volu

me

9/0

8/2

008

10

/08

/2008

11

/08

/2008

12

/08

/2008

13

/08

/2008

3/0

8/2

008

4/0

8/2

008

7/0

8/2

008

8/0

8/2

008

14

/08

/2008

15

/08

/2008

16

/08

/2008

17

/08

/2008

18

/08

/2008

19

/08

/2008

20

/08

/2008

21

/08

/2008

22

/08

/2008

23

/08

/2008

24

/08

/2008

25

/08

/2008

26

/08

/2008

9/0

8/2

008

10

/08

/2008

11

/08

/2008

12

/08

/2008

13

/08

/2008

3/0

8/2

008

4/0

8/2

008

7/0

8/2

008

8/0

8/2

008

14

/08

/2008

15

/08

/2008

16

/08

/2008

17

/08

/2008

18

/08

/2008

19

/08

/2008

20

/08

/2008

21

/08

/2008

22

/08

/2008

23

/08

/2008

24

/08

/2008

25

/08

/2008

26

/08

/2008

Volu

me

Favourability

Favourable Neutral Average favourability

StephanieRice,

swimmer

PennyTaylor,

basketballer

LibbyTrickett,swimmer

John Coates,

AOC

JamesTomkins,

rower

Kevin Rudd,Australian

PrimeMinister

MichaelPhelps,

swimmer

Jared Tallent,walker

GrantHackett,swimmer

106

2 31 2

5 4

3

1

6

7

5

99

8 63

17

11 1112

8 87 7

9

65.9

61.8

57.3

53.3

55.6

60.6 61.3 61.4

55.0

0

10

20

30

40

Female sport Mixed sport Male sport

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0


Chart 81 shows the number of quotes attributed to family members in coverage of the Olympics, broken down by the gender of the sport they discussed. As in year-round television news sports coverage, family members (including parents, partners, siblings and grandparents) were quoted in a higher proportion of coverage of female sports.

Chart 81: Volume of family members quoted, by sport type

Leading mediaChart 82 shows the breakdown of coverage, by volume, broadcast on each of the stations analysed. Unsurprisingly, given it was the offi cial Olympics station, Channel 7 had the highest volume of coverage overall. All stations analysed had a similar proportion of coverage of male and female sport during the Olympics, which is signifi cantly different to the proportion in general sports coverage, in which there were few mentions of female sport across all stations.

Chart 80: Spokesperson gender share of voice — mixed sport

The higher proportion of male spokespeople in the coverage of mixed sport is, in part, because Jacques Rogge and John Coates were frequently quoted as representatives of their respective Olympic committees in the coverage of the opening and closing ceremonies. This points to the fact that, when participation is taken out of the equation, the administration of sport is presented by the media as a male-dominated domain.

Table 45 shows that in the coverage of female sport more than one-quarter of spokespeople were male, while in the coverage of male sport, less than 15% of commentators were female. Coupled with Chart 80, these fi gures highlight that men are more likely to be positioned as having something interesting to say about sport — male sport, female sport or the administrative side of sport — than women.

Table 45: Gender of spokespeople quoted by sport type

Sport Gender # %

Female sport 261

Female 191 73

Male 70 27

Male sport 229

Female 31 14

Male 198 86

Mixed sport 173

Female 58 34

Male 115 66

Female34%

Male66%

56

34

4

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Female sport Male sport Mixed sport

Volu

me

Chart 82: Television station coverage by sport type


57

35

31

31

54

33

29

31

31 142

13 81

15 75

13 75

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160

Channel 7 Melbourne

ABC1 Melbourne

Channel Nine Melbourne

Channel Ten Melbourne

Volume

Table 46: Favourability of television station coverage by sport type

Sport type Station Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Volume Average favourability

Male sport 82 62 10 154 55.6

Channel 7 Melbourne 29 24 4 57 56.1

ABC1 Melbourne 20 12 3 35 56.0

Channel Ten Melbourne 14 15 2 31 54.4

Channel Nine Melbourne 19 11 1 31 55.6

Female sport 97 44 6 147 58.1

Channel 7 Melbourne 32 19 3 54 56.5



Channel Nine Melbourne 19 9 1 29 57.9

Mixed sport 23 44 5 72 53.2

Channel 7 Melbourne 12 19 31 54.4

Channel Nine Melbourne 7 8 15 54.7




Trend analysisChart 86: Volume of female sports coverage, 1 to 26 August 2008

Chart 87: Volume of male sports coverage, 1 to 26 August 2008

other analysed networks being an on-the-ground reporter who was sent to Beijing to cover the Olympics.

PlacementChart 84 shows where an athlete, team or sporting offi cial was referred to in a report. ‘Lead story’, as shown in Chart 85, indicates the volume of reports that appeared in the fi rst fi ve minutes of programming.

Leading by-lines and comperesChart 83 shows the leading journalists who reported on the Olympics, broken down by the gender of the sport they reported on. Four of the fi ve leading journalists were male, with ABC1’s Lisa Millar the leading female journalist. Interestingly, two of the fi ve leading journalists were from the same network (Lisa Millar and Peter Wilkins from ABC1), with one journalist from each of the

Chart 83: Leading journalists reporting on sport by sport type

Chart 84: Placement of mention of athlete, team or offi cial in a report by sport type

Chart 85: Volume of additional report features

Volu

me

Favourability

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Peter Wilkins

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Michael Usher

Femalesport

Malesport

Mixedsport

Lisa Millar

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Jim Wilson

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Max Futcher

12 1210 10

5

13

8 97

58

85

3

53

3

2

4

5

55

4

75

4

2

2

2

21

18

4

1614

8

1514

8

16

13

5

13 13

5

55.2 55.8

48.8

56.9

60.0

57.5

61.3

56.1

49.4

57.2 56.5

51.0

55.0

59.6

48.0

0

10

20

30

40

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0


73

50

31

83

32

32

35 191

13 76

24 106

0 50 100 150 200

First sentence/introduction

Prominent mention

Passing mention

Volume


146

112

62

150

109

59

70 366

53 274

19 140

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

Graphics

Spokesperson quoted

Lead story

Volume

Volu

me

9/0

8/2

00

8

10

/08

/20

08

11

/08

/20

08

12

/08

/20

08

13

/08

/20

08

6/0

8/2

00

8

5/0

8/2

00

8

4/0

8/2

00

8

3/0

8/2

00

8

2/0

8/2

00

8

1/0

8/2

00

8

7/0

8/2

00

8

8/0

8/2

00

8

14

/08

/20

08

15

/08

/20

08

16

/08

/20

08

17

/08

/20

08

18

/08

/20

08

19

/08

/20

08

20

/08

/20

08

21

/08

/20

08

22

/08

/20

08

23

/08

/20

08

24

/08

/20

08

25

/08

/20

08

26

/08

/20

08

21

3

6

3 3

7

12 12

9 98 8

11

3

7

12

8

13

8

2

50.0 50.0 50.0 50.853.3

58.360.7

62.5

66.7 66.7

60.0

52.5 51.953.6

60.0

52.9

61.7

50.6

60.462.5

40.0

0

7

14

21

28

0.0

20.0

40.0

60.0

80.0

Favourability


Volu

me

9/0

8/2

00

8

10

/08

/20

08

11

/08

/20

08

12

/08

/20

08

13

/08

/20

08

6/0

8/2

00

8

5/0

8/2

00

8

4/0

8/2

00

8

3/0

8/2

00

8

2/0

8/2

00

8

1/0

8/2

00

8

7/0

8/2

00

8

8/0

8/2

00

8

14

/08

/20

08

15

/08

/20

08

16

/08

/20

08

17

/08

/20

08

18

/08

/20

08

19

/08

/20

08

20

/08

/20

08

21

/08

/20

08

22

/08

/20

08

23

/08

/20

08

24

/08

/20

08

25

/08

/20

08

26

/08

/20

08

Favourability


1

5 56

4

7

1011

12

8

10 10

12

2

78 8

14

9

5

50.0 50.051.0 50.8 50.0

51.4

55.0

58.2

62.5

52.5 53.552.0

61.3

50.049.3 49.4

61.9

56.4

65.0

58.0

0

7

14

21

28

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0


SECTION FOURQualitative and quantitative analysis

of the Beijing Paralympic Games

September 2008

Chart 88: Volume of mixed sports coverage, 1 to 26 August 2008

Volu

me

9/0

8/2

008

10

/08

/2008

11

/08

/2008

12

/08

/2008

13

/08

/2008

6/0

8/2

008

5/0

8/2

008

4/0

8/2

008

3/0

8/2

008

2/0

8/2

008

1/0

8/2

008

7/0

8/2

008

8/0

8/2

008

14

/08

/2008

15

/08

/2008

16

/08

/2008

17

/08

/2008

18

/08

/2008

19

/08

/2008

20

/08

/2008

21

/08

/2008

22

/08

/2008

23

/08

/2008

24

/08

/2008

25

/08

/2008

26

/08

/2008

Favourability


12

4 45

3 3

7

32

3

1

4

2 2 2

9

1

43

7

50.0 50.0 50.051.3

50.0 50.0

53.3

50.0

56.7

52.5

48.3

50.0

52.5

50.0 50.0

52.5

49.4

45.0

65.0

60.7

68.3

0

7

14

21

28

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media76 SECTION FOUR 77

When compared with coverage of the 2008 Olympics (see pages 52–53), coverage of single-gender sports at the 2008 Paralympics was far lower in terms of volume and duration. This is best evidenced by a comparison between the ratios of female coverage to male coverage during each event. For the Paralympics, the ratio was 23:46 (female:male) by volume and 13:47 by duration, while the split of coverage during the Olympics was much closer, with ratios of 39:42 by volume and 36:36 by duration.

The relative successes of Australia’s male athletes compared with their female counterparts at the 2008 Paralympics is likely to have contributed to this outcome. Female athletes won less medals overall (almost 39% of all medals) and the four gold medals won by female Australian Paralympians represented

Gender overviewMentions of female sports at the 2008 Paralympics made up 23% of the total share of voice (mentioned in 15 reports) and 13% by duration (6 minutes and 24 seconds), making female sport the least frequently reported of the three sport-by-gender types. In contrast, discussion of male sports comprised the greatest proportion, with almost double the volume of mentions (39 mentions, or 46% share of voice) and close to quadruple the duration (23 minutes and 49 seconds, or 47%). Coverage that discussed mixed sport, which predominantly comprised reports on the opening and closing ceremonies of the Paralympics, also made up a larger proportion of coverage than female sports by both volume (31%) and duration (20 minutes and 21 seconds, or 40%).

Key metricsTable 47: Key metrics, quantitative media analysis, Paralympic Games 2008

Key metrics Female sport Male sport Mixed sport

Total volume of media reports 15 29 20

Average favourability 56.7 59.0 61.0

Leading story focus (reports) Athlete performance (15) Athlete performance (29) Athlete performance (11)

Leading message (mentions) Athletes are successful (13) Athletes are successful (26) Athletes are driven or ambitious (8)

Leading spokesperson (mentions) Katrina Porter, swimmer (2) Matt Cowdrey, swimmer (6) Jayme Paris, cyclist (3)

Leading media (number of reports) ABC1 Melbourne (9) ABC1 Melbourne (13) ABC1 Melbourne (10)

just 17% of all gold won by Australia. Furthermore, at least three of Australia’s male athletes were among the overall leading individual medal winners at the Games. Swimmer Matthew Cowdrey was the leading individual medal winner of athletes from all countries at the Paralympics (fi ve gold medals and three silver) and the media frequently discussed his achievements in coverage of the Games.

Comparing television news coverage of the Paralympics and Olympic Games in 2008 shows a disparity in the proportion of coverage received by female sport. However, it is important to acknowledge that compared with the 9% fi gure of year-round television news coverage of sports devoted to female sport (see page 21), the 23% of television news coverage of the Paralympics that focused on female sport is an encouraging result.

Share of voiceChart 90 shows the share of voice of each gender by volume, that is, the number of reports that mentioned either male sport, female sport or mixed sport. Male sport was mentioned in a higher number of reports. Chart 91 shows the share of sport by duration and sport type and Table 48 shows the share of voice by duration and sport type. Male sport coverage received greater duration than female sport.

29

2 20

15

59.061.0

56.7

0

12

24

36

48

29

Volu

me

Favourability

18

2

13

2

Male sport Mixed sport Female sport

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0


Chart 89: Volume of coverage by sport type

Table 48: Share of voice by duration and sport type



Male sport 0:23:49

Mixed sport 0:20:21

Total 0:50:34

Primary story focusChart 92 shows that most discussion of Paralympians (86%) was event-driven and focused on the performance of male athletes (due to frequent coverage of the medal-winning achievements of Matthew Cowdrey, Kurt Fearnley and Heath Francis). While Australia’s female athletes also performed well, their achievements were not presented on the same scale as those of their male counterparts. Reports on training and preparation focused on the Australian team as a whole and were deemed to discuss mixed sport.


Mixed sport31%

Female sport23%

Male sport46%

Chart 91: Share of sport by duration and sport type

Mixed sport40%

Female sport13%

Male sport47%


Australian athletes were mentioned, it provides only a general guide as to the number of times international athletes were mentioned.

Unsurprisingly, Australian athletes dominated the analysed coverage. While athletes from other nations were frequently mentioned, this was usually alongside Australian athletes. Male Australian athletes had a 44% share of voice, compared with 22% for Australia’s female athletes, which can again be attributed to their relative successes at the Games.


Volume — male sport Volume — female sport Volume — mixed sport

0

15

30

45

50

Athleteperformance

Training andpreparation

Volu

me

Favourability

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

56.758.2

59.0

29

11

159

Nationality of athletesAs for the 2008 Olympics (see Section Three), the primary nationality of a report was automatically classifi ed as Australian any time an Australian athlete was mentioned – irrespective of whether an athlete of another nationality was also mentioned. So, while Chart 93 accurately depicts the volume of reports in which


0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

23 23 14

1 14

Australian

Other


Volume

Visual analysis — studio backdropChart 94–Chart 96 show the qualitative content and social distance of imagery accompanying the studio introductions to television news reports on the Paralympics, adapting the categories used to analyse print media imagery in Section One.

In line with Section One, both the studio backdrop in the introductions to television reports and the images in the reports themselves were analysed based on whether they were ‘action shots’, ‘posed’, ‘glamour’ or ‘domestic’.

Female athletes were never featured in the studio backdrop of coverage on the Paralympics, unless this was alongside their male counterparts (represented as mixed sport on the charts). This compares poorly with the corresponding coverage of the Olympic Games, where 42% of reports with relevant studio backdrops used images solely of female athletes. Because studio backdrops are typically reserved for the most successful athletes, it is feasible the lack of female images was a result of female athletes winning just four of Australia’s 23 gold medals at the Paralympics. Gold-medal winning is a necessary if unfortunate criterion for prominence in media coverage of events like the Paralympics.

Chart 94: Image analysis – studio backdrop, by sport type

7 3

2 3

2

0 2 4 6 8 10 12


Volume

Action shot

Posed shot


6 4

3 4

1 1


Volume

0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Social

Intimate

Public

Chart 95: Social distance of image – studio backdrop, by sport type


Linguistic analysis – studio introductionChart 97–Chart 101 show the results of discourse analysis of the fi rst sentence spoken by the journalist in television news reporting on the Paralympics. The various tools used are adapted from Section One.

As outlined in Sections One and Two, the objective of analysing naming devices was to identify to what extent stories drew attention to the gender of athletes and away from their performance. Only 20% of all studio introductions in the coverage of the Paralympics analysed contained a gendered naming device. This is close to the same proportion (24%) of all studio introductions in the coverage of the Olympics (see pages 56–57).

Gendered noun phrases used in studio introductions only referred to male athletes. While for the Olympics

there was a pronounced split between gendered naming devices used in studio introductions of female sport and those used in male sport (27% compared with 10%, respectively) (see page 57), in Paralympics coverage this split was almost reversed: 28% of the introductions of male sport used a gendered naming device compared with just 7% of introductions to female sport. However, the volume of reports on the Paralympics that used a gendered naming device was quite low, so it is diffi cult to draw any unequivocal conclusions based on this information. In addition, the other noun phrases used in the introductions of male sport were not particularly colourful, which is consistent with much of the coverage of the Paralympics. The gendered noun phrases used were ‘sportsmanship’ (ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne, 14 September 2008) and ‘the Australian men’s wheelchair basketball team’ (ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne; Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 17 September 2008).

Chart 96: Emotional display – studio backdrop, by sport type

7

54

1 1 1 1 1

Happy Focused Aggressive Serious Crying (joy) UpsetMale sportMale sportMixed sportMale sportMixed sportMale sportMale sportMixed sport

7

5

4

1 1 1 1 1

3

6

9

0

12

62.9

60.0 60.0 60.0

55.0 55.0 55.0

Volu

me

Favourability

50.0

40.0

30.0

60.0

70.0


Chart 97: Gendered naming devices – studio introduction, by sport type

As was the case with coverage of the Olympics (see page 57), studio introductions reporting on the Paralympics much more commonly used gender-neutral naming devices than gendered naming devices. As many of the Paralympic competitors and sports are generally not widely discussed in sports programming, coverage was more likely to mention the sport name or the team name, such as ‘swimmer Matt Cowdrey’ (ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne, 15 September 2008).

Given the international nature of the Paralympics, and the relative obscurity of many competing athletes, presenters were more likely to mention the nationality of athletes as well as their sport or competition name. For example, statements such as:

• ‘Australian athlete Kurt Fearnley’ (ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne, 14 September 2008)

• ‘Australia’s Paralympics swimming sensation Matthew Cowdrey’ (TEN News, Channel 10 Melbourne, 15 September 2008)

• ‘Aussie sprinter Heath Francis’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 16 September 2008)

• ‘The focus in Beijing tonight will be on the fi nals of the wheelchair rugby and basketball, with Australia going for gold in both’ (ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne, 16 September 2008)

• ‘Australia has won its fi rst gold medal, track cyclist Christopher Scott winning the individual pursuit fi nal’ (ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne, 7 September 2008).

Chart 98: Gender-neutral devices – studio introductions, by sport

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Gendered pronoun

Other noun phrases


Volume

5

3

1

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Volume


Nationality

State/country name

Other noun phrases

Team name

Age reference

Family name only 2

1

1

1

4

6 1 1

9 3

10 7

20 15 1


All emotion lexis used to describe athletes’ behaviour in studio introductions in coverage of the Paralympics was positive. There were nine examples of positive emotion lexis for male sport, and four examples of positive emotion lexis for female sport. The absence of any negative emotion lexis in the introductory sentences of reports on the Paralympics emphasises the generally positive nature of Paralympics coverage on Australian television news.

Most reports which included emotivity in the studio introduction also contained an evaluation elsewhere in the report. There was a higher proportion of both positive and negative emotivity in discussion of male sport. With all sports, the evaluations were made by the journalists and were towards a named person or team; however, a higher number of evaluations of teams appeared in coverage of mixed sports (which focused mainly on the opening ceremony and the commencement of the Games), which was also the case in coverage of the Olympics (see pages 59–60). This indicates the anticipatory nature of reporting on the opening ceremony and the refl ective nature of coverage at the close of the Games.


Chart 99: Emotivity – studio introduction, by sport type

18

9

9

18

13

1 1

Volu

me

Favourability

58.660.6 60.0

56.7

60.0

65.0

70.0

60.0

50.0

40.0

30.0

40

30

20

10

0Male sport Mixed sport Female sport Male sport Female sport Mixed sport

Positive Negative


Chart 100: Source of evaluation – studio introduction, by sport type

19

10

58.9 60.0 60.0

0

10

20

30

40

19

Volu

me

Favourability

10

2

2


30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0


2

Chart 101: Target of evaluation – studio introduction, by sport type

Favourability

50.0

40

30

20

10

0

Volu

me

58.860.0 60.0

58.360.0

57.5

61.0

65.0

Male sport Female sport

Named person

Mixed sport Male sport

Event

Female sport Male sport Mixed sport

Event

Mixed sport

Unidentifiedsports person

30.0

40.0

60.0

70.0


13

13

1 7

7

3

31

6

6

5

5 1

Chart 102: Volition – studio introduction, by sport type

8

63.8 63.3

0

4

8

12

10

8

Volu

me

Favourability

3

2

Mixed sport Male sport

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0


3

Volition


Paralympians were predominantly shown displaying happy, focused or serious facial expressions, much like their Olympic counterparts (see page 61). Paralympic athletes, male or female, were very rarely shown in more emotive footage (upset or crying with joy).

Linguistic analysis – overallChart 106– Chart 111 show the results of discourse analysis of television news reporting on the Paralympics. The various tools used have been adapted directly from Section One.

As with the use of gendered naming devices in the introductory sentence to Paralympics reports on television news, only minimal coverage used these devices in reports in their entirety. There were three examples of other noun phrases (such as ‘sprint king’) for male sport in the coverage analysed, three for female sport, and two for mixed sport. Indicating a clear difference in the language chosen by journalists to report on Paralympians compared with Olympians, there was no single example of a diminutive noun phrase (i.e. ‘boys’ or ‘girls’) in coverage of the Paralympics, whereas 10% of reporting on the Olympics used these phrases

Visual analysis – overallChart 103–Chart 105 show the qualitative content and social distance of imagery accompanying television news reports on the Paralympics, adapting the categories used to analyse print media imagery in Section One.

The three main ways Paralympic athletes were depicted in television news reporting were in action shots, posed sequences (such as posing for cameras at a medal presentation) and relationship or domestic sequences (such as images of athletes with their parents and loved ones). All relationship sequences were deemed to relate to mixed sport, with this coverage dominated by the presence of athletes’ families when they departed for and returned from the Games. Unlike coverage of the Olympic Games, reporting on the Paralympics did not include any glamorised or sexualised sequences of male or female Paralympians (see page 61).

Consistent with analysis of year-round television coverage of sport and reporting on the Olympics, a high proportion of reports also showed at least two different social distances of images. This is unremarkable, given the prevalence in television coverage of intimate close up shots in interviews, and public and social distances in action shots.

All examples of volition in coverage of the Paralympics were positive for mixed and male sport (Chart 102). However, female athletes were not reported as acting of – or against – their own wishes in any studio introductions. Many of the introductions that included examples of volition reported on the Australian Paralympic team as a whole as they prepared to leave for China. For example:

• ‘Australia’s largest-ever Paralympics team has fl own to Beijing, confi dent of a fi nish in the top ten’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 1 September 2008)

• ‘Another group of Australians is now Beijing-bound in search of Olympic gold’ (National Nine News, Channel 9 Melbourne, 1 September 2008)

• ‘Australia’s Paralympians have left for Beijing, with the team determined to fi nish in the top ten performing countries’ (ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne, 15 September 2008).

Chart 103: Image analysis – overall, by sport type

28 14 15

9 2 4

7

1

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Action sequence

Posed sequence



Volume


Chart 104: Social distance of image – overall, by sport type

28 15 13

23 12 8

23 13 8

Public

Social

Intimate

20100 30 40 50


60

Volume

Chart 105: Emotional display – overall, by sport

21

9 10

1010

17

17

5

5

3

3

4

4

2

21

3

31 1 1

2

21 1

3

3

60.0

57.5

61.059.7

65.0

58.3 58.860.0

50.0

55.0

60.0

55.0

62.5

60.0

55.0 55.0

58.3

Malesport

Mixedsport

Femalesport

Happy

Malesport

Mixedsport

Femalesport

Focused

Malesport

Mixedsport

Femalesport

Serious

Malesport

Femalesport

Mixedsport

Upset

Mixedsport

Femalesport

Malesport

Crying (joy)

Malesport

Femalesport

Enthusiastic

0

10

20

30

40

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Favourability

Volu

me



of reports, positive emotion lexis (i.e. words describing athletes as displaying or having happiness or other similar, positive emotion attributed to them) outweighed negative emotion. In line with the larger volume of reporting on the success of male Paralympians, positive emotion was displayed by or attributed to male athletes more frequently than their female counterparts.

Stephen McDonell described wheelchair basketballers as ‘cult heroes’ (ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne, 16 September 2008) and Channel 10’s Tim Potter described Heath Francis as ‘a bolt of lightning’ (TEN News, 10 September 2008), while swimmer Matthew Cowdrey was described as a ‘swimming sensation’ (ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne, 9 September 2008).

Consistent with emotion lexis in the studio introduction

report (see analysis of gender-neutral naming devices in the introductory sentences of reports, page 19). As with coverage of the Olympics (see page 63), sport or competition name and nationality were the most frequently used gender-neutral naming devices.

Discussion of male sport during the Paralympics more frequently mentioned other noun phrases (such as ‘stars’, ‘champions’, ‘medallists’, or ‘heroes’) and used family name only compared with female sport. This more than likely refl ects and infl uences the positioning of male Paralympians as highly successful (through the use of other noun phrases such as ‘champs’) and as familiar personalities (through references to them using their surnames only). For example, ABC1 journalist

(particularly coverage of female sport, see page 63). This could indicate an effort (conscious or otherwise) on the part of journalists to be politically correct when describing Paralympians. This tendency also contributed to the more restrained and less exuberant tone which characterised coverage of the Paralympics compared with the Olympics.

As with coverage of the Olympics, not all analysed reports on the Paralympics mentioned a sport or competition name in the studio introduction or the body of the report. It is likely this was the result of this information being conveyed in the fi rst sentence of a report, and then not repeated in the main body of the

Chart 106: Gender neutral devices – overall, by sport type


0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40


Nationality

Other noun phrases

State/country name

Team name

Family name only

Age reference

Volume

14 13 51

16 10 7

8 7 1

8 3 4

8 2 3

9 1

1 25

Chart 107: Emotion lexis – overall, by sport type


288

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Positive

Negative

Volume

16 6 7

2 2 1

Male sport

23

13

13

23

6

6

5

53

59.6

63.8

59.2 59.0

55.0

Mixed sport Female sport Male sport Female sport

Positive Negative

0

10

20

30

40

Volu

me

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Favourability


Chart 108: Emotivity – overall, by sport type

Chart 109: Source of evaluation – overall, by sport type

59.661.4

58.8 58.8

52.5

77.5

23

23

11

11

8

8

8

8

2 2

0

10

20

30

40

Volu

me

Male sport Mixed sport Female sport Male sport Female sport Mixed sport

Journalist Named Source


10.0

30.0

50.0

70.0

90.0

Favourability


volition, or agency, focused on mixed sport (usually at and preceding the opening ceremony, with reports frequently noting the Paralympians’ determination to win their 1000th medal at the Games), followed by male sport. Other examples of language which positioned Paralympians in a position of volition included the description of participants in the SM5 medley as displaying ‘pure guts and determination’; and wheelchair rugby player Scott Vitale’s comments that his silver-winning team had ‘tried [its] best’ in its match against the United States, and that they would ‘try harder next time’ (ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne, 17 September 2008).

Leading issues

Sport

Chart 112 shows the two leading Paralympic sports reported on were the same that dominated Olympic coverage: swimming and athletics. This is primarily due to Australia’s historical success in swimming and athletics, but also a result of athletes’ ongoing achievements in these fi elds. These two sports also consist of a number of disciplines and therefore events, providing more opportunities for medals and thus potentially more reason for media coverage. This potential was realised by the successes of Matt Cowdrey (fi ve gold, three silver) in the pool, and Heath Francis (three gold) and Kurt Fearnley (one gold, two silver, one bronze) on the track. The regular success of Australia’s male athletes in these events compared with

Examples of positive emotivity (in bold) included:

• ‘China promised a show to rival the opening of the Olympic Games, and last night it delivered, with a dazzling welcome for the world’s Paralympians … It was a tribute to the disabled athletes who inspire the world’ (ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne, 9 September 2008)

• ‘Tim Sullivan has become Australia’s most successful Paralympian on his thirty-third birthday … What a wonderful performance from Sullivan’ [commentator]’ (ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne, 17 September 2008)

• ‘[It was] a winning start for our wheelchair basketballers, with the Gliders’ 29 point win over Great Britain’ (TEN News, Channel 10 Melbourne, 8 September 2008).

• Examples of negative emotivity were rare and included discussion of an error made on the part of offi cials which affected Kurt Fearnley’s chances in the 800-metre wheelchair race (for example, on ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne, 14 September 2008). This coverage also included a newsreader’s description of Tim Sullivan’s performance in the 400-metre cerebral palsy fi nal as ‘heart-breaking’ (TEN News, Channel 10 Melbourne, 11 September 2008).

Consistent with the relative volumes of reporting which conveyed the favourable message that athletes are driven and/or ambitious, the majority of coverage which presented Paralympians in a position of

Positive emotivity outweighed negative emotivity when referring to Paralympians (meaning that positive evaluations of athletes, teams, events or unnamed people outweighed negative evaluations). This aligns with emotivity for the Olympics (see pages 64–65). Also consistent with Olympic reporting, positive evaluations for Paralympics were most commonly made by journalists in relation to individual athletes, although events were also praised.

In contrast, negative emotion was attributed to both genders in equal volume (although in low volumes overall). Runner Tim Sullivan was described as ‘distraught’ in one report (TEN News, Channel 10 Melbourne, 11 September 2008), while cyclist Michael Milton described himself as ‘very, very happy’ despite missing out on a medal in another (ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne, 7 September 2008).

Chart 110: Target of evaluation – overall

59.357.5

73.3

58.1

64.0

55.0

60.0

65.0

60.0 60.0

21

21

6

6

3

3

8

8

5

1

7

31

25 7

3 2

Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Male sport Mixed sport Female sport Mixed sport Male sport Female sport Mixed sport

Named person Team Event Unidentifiedsports person

0

10

20

30

40

Volu

me

Favourability

Chart 111: Volition – overall, by sport type

63.862.9

60.0

57.5

13

13

7

7

12

2

10

0

20

30

40

Volu

me

Favourability

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

Mixed sport Male sport Female sport Male sport

Non volitionVolition


Chart 112: Sports most reported, by sport type

19 7 5

3716

6 4 4

7 1 3

4 1

2

2

1

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Volume

Swimming

Athletics

Swimming

Cycling

Wheelchair Rugby

Skiing

Rowing

Volleyball



Sullivan on three occasions alone, after Sullivan fell during the men’s 400 metre T38 fi nal. These reports discussed his ambition to achieve a 10th gold medal at the Paralympics, and his subsequent vow to ‘fi ght back’ in the 200-metre fi nal. The only example of this message relating to female athletes appeared in a report on the ambition of the Gliders (the Australian women’s wheelchair basketball team) to improve on their silver medal in Athens by ‘going one better in Beijing’ (ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne, 7 September 2008).

The single unfavourable message ‘athlete badly behaved on fi eld’ was conveyed in a report on Tim Sullivan’s aforementioned fall. A disappointed Sullivan threw his shoes on the track, prompting the race commentator to remark: ‘For a man with such a great reputation, that is not helping it at all’ (Ten News, Channel 10 Melbourne, 11 September 2008).

Topics such as family or community support and training or fi tness were mainly mentioned in coverage leading up to the Paralympics. Reinforcing the fi nding that a comparatively narrower range of stories were told about the Paralympics than about the Olympics, a lower volume and proportion of coverage of the Paralympics included reference to other dimensions of the Games beyond results (such as family and partner support). For example while 17% of Paralympics television news coverage referred to family support, 41% of television Olympic news coverage mentioned the family support that athletes received.

female athletes (who won 37% of Australia’s medals overall, and four of the country’s 23 gold) contributed to the disproportionate amount of coverage of male and female athletes participating at the Paralympics, in these events and others.

It should be noted the two reports that referred to skiing discussed the sport in the context of Paralympian Michael Milton’s previous Paralympic experience.

Event results and preparationChart 113 unsurprisingly shows that Paralympics coverage most frequently discussed event results. The uneven discussion of male and female results refl ects the overall trend, where reporting on male sports dominated.

Chart 113: Topics related to event results and preparation reported by sport

CorporateChart 114 shows that discussion of corporate topics was rare in Paralympics reporting and was far less prominent than in Olympics reporting (see page 67). This compounds the suggestion that television news reporting of the Paralympics was more one-dimensional (in that it focused on event results) when compared

with Olympics coverage. Some limited coverage of these corporate issues did appear, mainly before and after the Games. Reports before the event discussed how organisers were handling preparations. Post-Games, Australian Paralympic Committee president Greg Hartung advocated for a more professional approach to Paralympic sports and an increase in funding (ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne, 20 September 2008).

Leading messagesThe leading message in Paralympics coverage was that ‘athletes are successful’, which was invariably conveyed in reports on events where medals were won, or those that refl ected on the Australian team’s overall success. Of total examples of this message, 30% were conveyed in relation to female athletes, which represented a slightly higher proportion than female Paralympians’ total share of voice (23%). The message that ‘athletes are successful’ most frequently appeared in discussion of male athletes, a refl ection of their greater success in terms of medal placings (particularly gold medal placings).

Male athletes were six times more likely than female athletes to be portrayed as ‘driven and/or ambitious’. This message was conveyed in relation to runner Tim

28 7 5

1 6 1

3 2

2

2

Results

Family Support

General Performance

Community Support

Training/Fitness


0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Volume

45

Chart 115: Leading messages of coverage, by sport type

26 6 13

6 8 1

1 1

1

1

1

0 10 20 30 40 50




Sport/athlete deserves sponsorship

Athletes handle pressure well

Athlete(s) badly behaved on field

Favo

urab

leU

nfav

oura

ble

Volume


0 1 2 3 4 5

Volume

2 2

1

1

1

Management

Australian ParalympicCommittee

Government Investment

Marketing


Chart 114: Topics related to corporate aspects of sport reported, by sport type


The signifi cantly higher proportion of male spokespeople can largely be attributed to the regular appearance of Australia’s successful male athletes in media coverage. Comments from IPC president Philip Craven and APC president Greg Hartung also contributed to the dominance of male spokespeople. Quoted female spokespeople, on the other hand, were almost always athletes. As noted in analysis of the Beijing Olympics (see page 70), this highlights that coverage is more likely to position men as having something newsworthy to say about sport.

Table 49: Gender of spokespeople quoted, by sport type

Gender Volume %

Female sport

Female 7 87.5%

Male 1 12.5%

Total 8 100%

Male sport

Female 1 3.8%

Male 25 96.2%

Total 26 100%

Mixed sport

Female 8 32.0%

Male 17 68.0%

Total 25 100%

Comments from just one female athlete were broadcast more than once in Paralympics television news coverage. Swimmer Katrina Porter, who won a gold medal and broke two world records at the Paralympics, was the leading female spokesperson.

Leading spokespeopleChart 117 and Chart 118 refl ects the success of Australia’s male athletes – particularly Matt Cowdrey, Kurt Fearnley and Heath Francis – in the media’s frequent use of their comments in Paralympics coverage. Unsurprisingly, Matt Cowdrey, as the leading individual medal winner, was the most prominent source of comment, appearing in eight reports.

6

3

1

1

2

1

2

2 2 2 21 1 1 1 1 1

6

4

3 3

2 2 2 2

1 1 1 1 1 1

63.361.3

65.0 65.0

57.5

67.5

75.0

60.0 60.0

55.0

60.0

50.0 50.0

65.0

0

3

6

9

12

Mat

t C

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WIM

MER

Hea

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UN

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Favourability

Favourable Neutral Average favourability

Male68%

Female32%

Chart 117: Leading spokespeople quoted, by sport type

Chart 118: Spokesperson gender share of voice – mixed sport

Leading mediaChart 119 shows that ABC1 broadcast the highest volume of overall Paralympics coverage, contributing almost half of all reporting on the event (21 reports out of a total 46). This should come as no surprise, as the ABC was the broadcast rights holder, and with a large contingent of sports journalists attending the event, the most dominant media presence at the Games of all Australian media. In fact, the ABC was the only broadcaster analysed that sent camera crews and journalists to the Paralympics. In light of this, if anything, the expectation may have been that the Paralympics would have been discussed in even more coverage on the evening news on ABC1. ABC1’s television news reporting was somewhat balanced, mentioning male sport in 61% of coverage, mixed sport in 48%, and female sport in 43% (some reports mentioned more than one gender, therefore the totals equal more than 100%). The proportions of coverage of each sport (by gender) from Channel 10 were slightly more balanced than ABC1 and, by proportion, was the leading media outlet to mention female sport.

Comparatively, Channel 7 – the leading media outlet for Olympics coverage with the broadcast rights – mentioned male sport four times as often as female sport, and Channel 9 ran no stories on female Paralympic sport during the period analysed.

Chart 116: Volume of leading favourable and unfavourable messages by sport type, 6 to 17 September 2008

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Athletes are successful Athletes are driven and/or ambitious


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Chart 120: Volume of female sports coverage, 6 to 17 September 2008

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30.0

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Favourability

Chart 121: Volume of male sports coverage, 6 to 17 September 2008

Trend analysis

ABC1

Channel 7

Channel 10

Channel 9

8 4 2

5 3 4

3 3

13 10 9

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Volume


Chart 119: Television station coverage, by sport type

Table 50: Favourability of television station coverage, by sport type

Gender Media Favourability Neutral Unfavourable VolumeAvergage

Favourability

Male sport 29 0 0 29 59.0

ABC1 13 0 0 13 61.2

Channel 7 8 0 0 8 56.9

Channel 10 5 0 0 5 59.0

Channel 9 3 0 0 3 55.0

Mixed sport 18 2 0 20 61.0

ABC1 9 1 0 10 61.0

Channel 7 4 0 0 4 57.5

Channel 10 2 1 0 3 63.3

Channel 9 3 0 0 3 63.3

Female sport 13 2 0 15 56.7

ABC1 7 34 0 9 56.7

Channel 10 4 66 0 4 57.5

Channel 7 2 0 0 2 55.0

65.0

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SECTION ONE

SECTION FIVEQuantitative media analysis

January–December 2008

Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media98 SECTION FIVE 99

• The three journalists who wrote most frequently about female sportspeople or teams were Amanda Lulham, Warren Partland and Robert Craddock, who contributed 226, 224 and 214 articles, respectively, to the News Ltd stable of newspapers.

• Of the 45 journalists who wrote about female sportspeople most often, 26 were women (57%).

• While Channel Nine’s Today program with Lisa Wilkinson and Karl Stefanovic had the highest number of general sports reports (333), Channel 7’s Sunrise with David Koch and Melissa Doyle discussed women in sport most often (66 reports).

• Kevin Bartlett on Victoria’s SEN was the radio compere who mentioned female sportspeople most often (27 mentions); however SEN’s Andrew Maher, Tim Watson and Billy Brownless mentioned women’s sport in a higher proportion relative to their general sports-related coverage (26 mentions, or 14% of all coverage on their program).

Due to different timeframes, scope and methodologies, the data in this section should not be compared to data in other sections (see methodology section for more details).

Table 51: Media coverage of female and general sport, January to December 2008

Female sport General sport All sport

Press reports 36 087 379 313 415 400

Television reports 1 051 7 032 8 083

Radio reports 956 7 336 8 292

Total 38 094 393 681 431 775

Share of voiceChart 122: Female sports coverage as a percentage of all sports coverage, press

Key fi ndingsThe analysis in this section identifi es and quantifi es the volume of reports about female sportspeople and teams as a proportion of all sports-related coverage in the Australian media over the period 1 January–31 December 2008.

• There were 431 775 sports reports in total across all media, while the total number of reports about female sportspeople or teams was 38 094 (9% of coverage overall).

• Of the coverage of female sportspeople or teams, there were 36 087 press reports (94% of the total), 956 radio reports (3%), and 1051 television reports (3%).

• Queensland publications had the highest number of press reports on women in sport (11 161). However, circulation fi gures show that articles in New South Wales and Victoria had a higher potential readership.

• Victorian radio stations had the largest number of general sports-related radio reports, followed by New South Wales. While New South Wales also trailed Victoria in the relative proportion of female sports reports, the potential audiences were similar (5 848 800 and 5 555 000, respectively).

• New South Wales had more than twice the number of general sports-related television reports (3404) compared to Victoria (1398). However, the difference in women’s sports reports in the two states was less pronounced (385 and 210, respectively).

• Melbourne’s Herald Sun and Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph published the highest number of female-related sports reports (2206 and 1992, respectively), followed by Adelaide’s The Advertiser, The Canberra Times and Brisbane’s The Courier-Mail.

• Of the fi ve leading radio stations, Triple M and Victoria’s SEN broadcast the highest number of female-related sports reports (107 and 76, respectively).

• Channel 7 had the largest volume of female-related sports reports (201), followed by Channel Ten (172) and Channel Nine (151). However, this sequence was reversed in general sports-related coverage.

Female sport9%

General sport91%

Media typeChart 125: Female sports coverage by media type

Table 53: Volume of female sports coverage by media type

Media type Volume Audience/Circulation

Press 36 087 5 761 169 935

Radio 956 21 172 200

Television 1 051 77 265 212

Total 38 094 5 859 607 347

Chart 123: Female sports coverage as a percentage of all

sports coverage, radio

Chart 124: Female sports coverage as a percentage of all sports coverage, television

Table 52: Volume of female sports coverage and all sports coverage by media type

Share of voice Press Radio Television

Female sport 36 087 956 1 051

General sport 379 313 7 336 7 032

Total 415 400 8 292 8 083

Female sport12%

General sport88%

Radio3%

Television3%

Press94%

Female sport13%

General sport87%


State breakdownChart 126: Volume of press coverage of female sport by state

Table 54: Volume of press coverage of female sport by state

State Volume Circulation

Queensland 11 161 841 938 595

New South Wales 7 974 1 805 151 930

Victoria 7 156 1 683 860 162

South Australia 2 851 713 134 340

Western Australia 2 526 411 392 122

Australian Capital Territory 1 983 79 836 876

National 1 371 201 687 484

Northern Territory 1 065 24 168 426

Total 36 087 5 761 169 935

Volu

me

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Volume Circulation

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Qld NSW Vic. SA WA ACT National NT0

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Chart 127: Volume of radio coverage of female sport and general sport by state

Table 55: Volume of radio coverage of female sport and general sport by state

State Sport type Volume Audience

Victoria 2 485 43 811 000

General sport 2 222 38 256 000

Female sport 263 5 555 000

New South Wales 2 108 61 992 400



South Australia 1 270 27 113 000



Queensland 796 10 106 500

General sport 717 8 775 300


Tasmania 538 4 469 500


Female sport 49 431 000

Western Australia 514 10 013 000



National 378 5 860 400



Australian Capital Territory 176 2 353 600



Northern Territory 27 32 600

General sport 24 22 600


Total 8 292 165 752 000

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me

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Vic. NSW SA Qld TAS WA National ACT NT


Chart 128: Volume of television coverage of female sport and general sport by state

Table 56: Volume of television coverage of female sport and general sport by state

State Sport type Volume Audience

New South Wales 3 789 367 917 881

General sport 3 404 343 216 329


Victoria 1 608 167 878 406

General sport 1 398 142 710 372


Queensland 1 155 66 889 679



Western Australia 432 39 106 564



South Australia 321 31 440 511



National* 292 N/A

General sport 264 N/A

Female sport 28 N/A

Tasmania 216 5 740 410



Australian Capital Territory 159 4 513 212



Northern Territory 111 N/A


Female sport 16 N/A

Total 8 083 683 486 663

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* Denotes media outlets where all programming is uniform nationally. National programs broadcast on state-based networks are represented in state totals.

N/A Figures unavailable

Leading mediaChart 129: Volume of coverage of female sport by leading newspaper

Table 57: Volume of coverage of female sport by leading newspaper

Newspaper Volume Circulation

Herald Sun 2 206 1 142 708 000

The Daily Telegraph 1 992 718 241 496

The Advertiser 1 758 483 159 930

The Canberra Times 1 756 66 194 176

The Courier-Mail 1 657 355 373 476

The Gold Coast Bulletin 1 337 54 978 777

The Sunday Mail 1 225 408 109 975

Geelong Advertiser 1 170 30 942 990

The Australian 1 160 154 256 800

The Sydney Morning Herald 1 019 216 741 300

Volu

me

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Volume Circulation

0

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HeraldSun

The DailyTelegraph

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GeelongAdvertiser

TheAustralian

The SydneyMorningHerald

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Chart 130: Volume of coverage of female sport and general sport by leading radio station

Table 58: Volume of coverage of female sport and general sport by leading radio station

Station Sport type Volume Audience

Triple M 827 32 658 000



SEN 780 N/A


Female sport 76 N/A

Mix FM 448 13 932 000



Sky Sports Radio 435 N/A


Female sport 32 N/A

SPORT 927 420 N/A


Female sport 28 N/A


Volu

me

Audience

Volume Audience

Generalsport

Triple M SEN Mix FM Sky Sports Radio SPORT 927

Femalesport

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Generalsport

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Chart 131: Volume of coverage of female sport and general sport by leading television station

Table 59: Volume of coverage of female sport and general sport by leading television station

Station Sport type Volume Audience

Channel Nine 1 354 164 954 300

General sport 1 203 145 714 969


Channel Ten 1 259 134 106 627

General sport 1 087 117 766 203


Channel 7 1 166 192 559 074



Sky News Australia 705 N/A


Female sport 59 N/A

NBN Newcastle Hunter 241 18 351 056



NBN Tamworth 223 7 017 274



SBS 211 N/A


Female sport 22 N/A

NBN Central Coast 187 N/A


Female sport 17 N/A

ABC1 182 125 207 684


Fox Sports News 169 N/A


Female sport 27 N/A


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ChannelNine

Channel7

Sky NewsAustralia

NBNTamworth

SBS ABC1NBNCentralCoast

Fox SportsNews

ChannelTen

NBNNewcastle

Hunter


Leading by-linesChart 132: Volume of leading by-lines relating to female sport by newspaper

Table 60: Volume of leading by-lines relating to female sport by newspaper

By-line Newspaper Volume Circulation

Amanda Lulham 226 91 597 160

The Daily Telegraph 136 49 036 568

Herald Sun 30 15 540 000

The Sunday Telegraph 27 17 600 544

The Courier-Mail 17 3 645 956

The Sunday Mail 7 2 332 057

The Sunday Times (Perth) 6 1 927 200

Sunday Herald Sun 2 1 240 000

The Advertiser 1 274 835

Warren Partland 224 64 185 209

The Advertiser 177 48 645 795


The Courier-Mail 1 214 468

Robert Craddock 214 72 270 898

The Courier-Mail 77 16 514 036

Herald Sun 47 24 346 000

The Advertiser 33 9 069 555

The Daily Telegraph 27 9 735 201


The Sunday Telegraph 6 3 911 232

The Sunday Times (Perth) 4 1 284 800

Sunday Herald Sun 4 2 480 000

The Australian 2 265 960

Volume Circulation

0

50

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Amanda Lulham Warren Partland Robert Craddock

0

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Volu

me

Circulation

The

Dai

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aph

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Leading radio comperesChart 133: Volume of coverage of female sport and general sport by leading radio compere

Table 61: Volume of coverage of female sport and general sport by leading radio compere

Compere Program Sport type Volume Audience

Kevin Bartlett

Hungry for Sport — SEN 414 N/A

Female sport 27 N/A


Terry Kennedy and Michael Slater

Big Sport Breakfast — Sky Sports Radio 296 N/A

Female sport 25 N/A


Andrew Maher, Tim Watson and Billy Brownless

Morning Glory — SEN 184 N/A

Female sport 26 N/A


Steve Moran

Racing Central — SPORT 927 97 N/A

Female sport 3 N/A



Volu

me

0

100

200

300

400

500

Femalesport

Generalsport

Femalesport

Generalsport

Femalesport

Generalsport

Femalesport

Generalsport

Hungry for Sport Big Sport Breakfast Racing CentralKevin Bartlett Terry Kennedy and Michael Slater

Morning GloryAndrew Maher, Tim Watson

and Billy BrownlessSteve Moran


SECTION SIXQuantitative analysis of

non-news television coverage

January–December 2008

Leading television comperes Chart 134: Volume of coverage of female sport and general sport by leading television compere

Table 62: Volume of coverage of female sport and general sport by leading television compere

Compere Program Sport type Volume Audience

Lisa Wilkinson and Karl Stefanovic

Today (Channel Nine) 362 19 246 424



David Koch and Melissa Doyle

Sunrise (Channel 7) 287 24 844 064



Ron Wilson and Deborah Knight

Ten News 196 35 258 560



Volu

me

Audience

Volume Audience

0

70

140

210

280

350

Female sport General sport Female sport General sport Female sport General sport

Today Sunrise Ten News

Lisa Wilkinson and Karl Stefanovic David Koch and Melissa Doyle Ron Wilson and Deborah Knight

0

7 000 000

14 000 000

21 000 000

28 000 000

35 000 000

Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media110 SECTION SIX 111

the size of the audiences (for example, golf had the second-highest duration but the eighth-highest share of audience, and rugby league had the sixth-highest duration but had the highest audience share).

There were more viewers of female tennis coverage than of the larger proportion of male tennis coverage in Melbourne (Charts 149 and 150). Charts 151–154 emphasise the small proportion of audiences watching Fox Sports coverage, despite the lengthy durations on these stations. A comparison of Chart 150 to Chart 149 clearly shows the discrepancies in coverage duration versus audiences. For example, horseracing had the 26th-highest duration in Melbourne but the ninth-highest audience reach.

Channel Nine Sydney was a sports ratings winner (for its broadcast of rugby league and cricket), with a higher audience reach than all the other free-to-air stations combined, across male, female and mixed sport (Chart 152).

More than one-third of the audience across the top ten sports in Melbourne watched AFL. This was more dominant than rugby league in Sydney (Charts 154 and 152).

Charts 155 and 156 show signifi cant discrepancies across the board in female sports coverage compared to men’s on each platform. Tennis was the only female sport that would rank among the top ten durations for male sport (Charts 157 and 158). Interestingly, a higher proportion of the female sports coverage was on free-to-air television than male sports coverage, but female sport received less than 15% of the amount of coverage of male sport on free-to-air television and around 7% of male Fox Sports coverage.

There were major differences in the duration of coverage attributed to the three football codes of Australian rules football, rugby league and rugby union (Charts 157 and 158).

As with durations, the audiences accumulated for tennis were the only female sport audiences that would rank among the top ten for male sport. Behind women’s tennis on Channel 7, female lawn bowls on the ABC attracted the highest audience for female sport during the year (Charts 159 and 160).

Cricket was the second most prominent sport in both Sydney and Melbourne, and had the highest cumulative audiences across the two markets (Charts 161 and 162). Australian rules football had the second-highest audience across both markets, while rugby league was the third-most prominent. The prominence of Australian rules football was due to its high Melbourne audience fi gures (there were more viewers in Melbourne of Australian rules football than of rugby league in Sydney and Melbourne combined).

Key fi ndingsThis section presents fi ndings from an analysis of more than 53 984 hours of sports programming, broadcast between 1 January and 31 December 2008 (the census of material) on channels Ten, Nine and 7; ABC1 and ABC2; SBS; and Fox Sports 1, 2 and 3 in the Sydney and Melbourne markets. All fi gures for national stations ABC2, SBS and Fox Sports 1, 2 and 3 can be interpreted as national.

As seen in Chart 135, 86% of the total duration of coverage was of male sport, while 73% of the audience was also attributed to male sports coverage. The audience for male sport would have been larger were it not for Olympics coverage (classifi ed as ‘indeterminate’), which attracted signifi cant audiences for a relatively small volume of coverage.

Sydney media had more coverage of each gender category, except male sport, than Melbourne (Chart 136). The larger amount of male sports coverage in the Melbourne market was due to a combination of different broadcast times for Australian rules football, as well as rugby league and rugby union coverage. There was over 124 more hours of coverage of Australian rules football in Melbourne than in Sydney, and almost 32 more hours of rugby league coverage and 55.5 more hours of rugby union coverage in Melbourne than in Sydney.

Melbourne generally had higher audiences across the board per hour of coverage (for all except the ‘indeterminate’ sport gender type), as seen in Chart 137.

There were more men watching all-gender sport categories than women (including more men watching female sport than women), as shown in Chart 144.

In Sydney, the ABC (ABC1 and ABC2) was the only network with more female sports than male sports coverage, by duration. However, coverage across all networks, including the ABC, had larger total audiences for male sports coverage (Chart 145). This chart also shows the impact of local code rugby league on audiences.

In Melbourne, all stations except ABC2 had more coverage of male sport than female, and had much larger audiences for male sport (Chart 146). This chart also shows the impact of local code AFL on audiences.

Tennis had the most diversifi ed gender split across the top sports, in terms of participants, although coverage was still predominantly of male athletes. There was a more even split in audiences watching this sport (Charts 147 and 148).

The dominance of male sports coverage by share of audience in the Sydney market is shown in Chart 148. When compared to Chart 147 (which shows the duration of air time devoted to coverage), it is easy to see discrepancies in the volume of coverage versus

Charts 136 and 137 show all coverage analysed from the Sydney and Melbourne markets, respectively (durations and audiences of each market’s coverage).

Competitor comparisonChart 135 shows all coverage analysed from 2008, split across the sport gender types (that is, the gender that was the focus of the coverage).

Dur

atio

n (h

h:m

m:s

s)

Audience

DurationAudience

0:00:00

12 000:00:00

24 000:00:00

36 000:00:00

48 000:00:00

60 000:00:00

0

70 000

140 000

210 000

280 000

350 000

46 282:43:00 3 762:21:00 2 395:16:00 1 544:25:00

302 830 28 823 71 124 12 211

Male sport Female sport Indeterminate Mixed sport

Dur

atio

n (h

h:m

m:s

s)

Audience

0:00:00

12 000:00:00

24 000:00:00

36 000:00:00

48 000:00:00

60 000:00:00

0

70 000

140 000

210 000

280 000

350 000

23 123:10:00 1 881:22:00 1 203:23:00 772:55:00

150 219 13 423 35 777 5 298


Duration

Audience

Chart 136: Sports coverage by sport type, Sydney

Chart 135: Overall sports coverage by sport type


Chart 139 shows the proportion of audience, by sport gender type, in both Sydney and Melbourne.

Chart 139: Audience by sport type, Sydney and Melbourne

Chart 137: Sports coverage by sport type, Melbourne

Share of voiceChart 138 shows the proportion of duration, by sport gender type, for coverage in both Sydney and Melbourne.

Chart 138: Duration of sports coverage by sport type, Sydney and Melbourne

Dur

atio

n (h

h:m

m:s

s)

Audience

0:00:00

12 000:00:00

24 000:00:00

36 000:00:00

48 000:00:00

60 000:00:00

0

70 000

140 000

210 000

280 000

350 000

23 159:33:00 1 880:59:00 1 191:53:00 771:30:00

152 611 15 400 35 347 6 913


Duration

Audience

Female sport7%

Indeterminate4%

Mixed sport3%

Male sport86%

Female sport7%

Indeterminate17%

Mixed sport3%

Male sport73%

Chart 142 shows a breakdown of audience, by sport gender type, in Sydney.

Chart 142: Audience by sport type, Sydney

Chart 143 shows a breakdown of audience, by sport gender type, in Melbourne.

Chart 143: Audience by sport type, Melbourne

Chart 140 shows a breakdown of duration, by sport gender type, of coverage in Sydney.

Chart 140: Duration of sports coverage by sport type, Sydney

Chart 141 shows a breakdown of duration, by sport gender type, of coverage in Melbourne.

Chart 141: Duration of sports coverage by sport type, Melbourne

Female sport7%

Indeterminate4%

Mixed sport3%

Male sport86%

Female sport7%

Indeterminate17%

Mixed sport3%

Male sport73%

Female sport7%

Indeterminate4%

Mixed sport3%

Male sport86%

Female sport7%

Indeterminate17%

Mixed sport3%

Male sport73%


Audience demographicsChart 144 shows the proportion of male and female viewers of each of the different sport gender types overall.

Chart 144: Male and female audience by sport type

Leading stationsCharts 145 and 146 show the breakdown of coverage of each sport gender type (male, female and mixed gender sports coverage only) and the audience across each station in Sydney and Melbourne. Fox Sports 1, 2 and 3, as well as SBS and ABC2 coverage was the same in both markets.

Chart 145: Leading station sports coverage by sport type, Sydney

Male viewers Female viewers

63.1%

50.2% 51.1%

36.9%

49.8% 48.9%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Male sport Female sport Mixed sport

Aud

ienc

eD

urat

ion

(hh:

mm

:ss)

Audience

0:00:00

4 800:00:00

9 600:00:00

14 400:00:00

19 200:00:00

24 000:00:00

28 800:00:00

33 600:00:00

0

10 000

20 000

30 000

40 000

50 000

60 000

70 000

Mixed sport duration 173:11:00 229:57:00 213:25:00 61:51:00 53:28:00 7:31:00 5:14:00 28:18:00

Female sport duration 808:38:00 344:29:00 348:29:00 36:58:00 88:57:00 22:18:00 97:01:00 110:30:00 24:02:00

Male sport duration 6 845:16:00 6 861:41:00 6 862:49:00 677:02:00 552:25:00 654:02:00 566:45:00 103:10:00

Mixed sport audience 123 160 196 1 320 2 447 268 216 568

Female sport audience 864 316 376 691 5 477 379 3 268 2 017 35

Male sport audience 9 882 23 230 11 370 62 283 17 490 10 369 12 852 2 743

Fox Sports3

Fox Sports2

Fox Sports1

Channel7

ChannelNine

ChannelTen

SBS ABC1 ABC2

Chart 146: Leading station sports coverage by sport type, Melbourne

Leading sports by competitorChart 147 shows the top ten sports by duration for each sport gender type (male, female and mixed gender sports coverage only) in the Sydney market. See Charts 155 and 157 for a breakdown by solely female sports or solely male sports coverage in Sydney.

Chart 147: Duration of top ten sports by sport type, Sydney

Dur

atio

n (h

h:m

m:s

s)

Audience

0:00:00

4 800:00:00

9 600:00:00

14 400:00:00

19 200:00:00

24 000:00:00

28 800:00:00

33 600:00:00

Fox Sports3

Fox Sports2

Fox Sports1

Channel7

ChannelNine

ChannelTen

SBS ABC1 ABC2

0

10 000

20 000

30 000

40 000

50 000

60 000

70 000

173:11:00 229:57:00 213:25:00 61:56:00 51:58:00 7:31:00 5:14:00 28:18:00

808:38:00 344:29:00 348:29:00 37:34:00 88:56:00 22:18:00 97:01:00 109:32:00 24:02:00

6 845:16:00 6 861:41:00 6 862:49:00 641:48:00 563:21:00 676:29:00 566:45:00 141:24:00

124 134 158 1 312 4 015 288 204 678

793 325 591 587 7 514 408 3 094 2 022 66

6 189 12 449 18 283 35 590 37 562 27 820 11 482 3 236

Mixed sport duration

Female sport duration

Male sport durationMixed sport audience

Female sport audience

Male sport audience


3 408:27:00

2 614:45:00

2 077:24:00

2 665:13:00

2 308:34:00

2 029:32:00

1 797:09:00

1 435:18:00

659:25:00

542:45:00

473:54:00

733:30:00

0:00:00 960:00:00 1 920:00:00 2 880:00:00 3 840:00:00

Cricket

Golf

Tennis

Football (soccer)

Motor sports

Rugby league


Rugby union

Poker

Basketball

Duration (hh:mm:ss)


Table 63: Duration of top ten sports by sport type, Sydney

Sport Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Total

Cricket 3 408:27:00 0:57:00 3 409:24:00

Golf 2 614:45:00 473:54:00 3:00:00 3 091:39:00

Tennis 2 077:24:00 733:30:00 119:35:00 2 930:29:00

Football (soccer) 2 665:13:00 46:57:00 2 712:10:00

Motor sports 2 308:34:00 26:24:00 2 334:58:00

Rugby league 2 029:32:00 2 029:32:00

Australian rules football 1 797:09:00 1 797:09:00

Rugby union 1 435:18:00 1 435:18:00

Poker 659:25:00 16:55:00 676:20:00

Basketball 542:45:00 67:58:00 610:43:00

Total 19 538:32:00 1 323:16:00 165:54:00 21 027:42:00

Chart 148 shows the top ten sports by audience for each sport gender type (male, female and mixed gender sports coverage only) in the Sydney market. See Charts 155 and 157 for a breakdown by solely female sports or male sports coverage in Sydney.

Chart 148: Audience for top ten sports by sport type, Sydney

Table 64: Audience for top ten sports by sport type, Sydney


Rugby league 44 964 44 964

Cricket 36 729 73 36 802

Football (soccer) 13 891 909 14 800

Motor sports 13 782 211 13 993

Tennis 6 700 6 369 613 13 682

Rugby union 8 149 8 149

Australian rules football 7 808 7 808

Golf 4 126 1 020 50 5 196

Cycling 3 830 286 4 116

Lawn bowls 1 566 1 230 2 796

Total 141 545 9 887 874 152 306


44 964 44 964

36 729 36 802

13 891 14 800

13 782 13 993

6 700 13 682

8 149 8 149

7 808 7 808

4 126 5 196

3 830 4 116

2 796

6 369

0 10 000 20 000 30 000 40 000 50 000 60 000

Rugby league

Cricket

Football (soccer)

Motor sports

Tennis

Rugby union


Golf

Cycling

Lawn bowls

Audience

Chart 149 shows the top ten sports by duration for each sport gender type (male, female and mixed gender sports coverage only) in the Melbourne market. See Charts 156 and 158 for a breakdown by solely female sports or male sports coverage in Melbourne.

Chart 149: Duration of top ten sports by sport type, Melbourne

Table 65: Duration of top ten sports by sport type, Melbourne


Cricket 3 409:37:00 0:57:00 3 410:34:00

Golf 2 615:20:00 473:54:00 3:00:00 3 092:14:00

Tennis 2 077:22:00 734:05:00 119:35:00 2 931:02:00

Football (soccer) 2 665:13:00 46:57:00 2 712:10:00

Motor sports 2 305:57:00 26:27:00 2 332:24:00

Rugby league 1 997:34:00 1 997:34:00

Australian rules football 1 921:21:00 1 921:21:00

Rugby union 1 379:44:00 1 379:44:00

Poker 659:25:00 16:55:00 676:20:00

Basketball 541:45:00 67:58:00 609:43:00

Total 19 573:18:00 1 323:51:00 165:57:00 21 063:06:00


Cricket

Golf

Tennis

Football (soccer)

Motor sports

Rugby league


Rugby union

Poker

Basketball

3 409:37:00

2 615:20:00

2 077:22:00

2 665:13:00

2 305:57:00

1 997:34:00

1 921:21:00

1 379:44:00

659:25:00

541:45:00

473:54:00

734:05:00

0:00:00 960:00:00 1 920:00:00 2 880:00:00 3 840:00:00

Duration (hh:mm:ss)


Chart 150 shows the top ten sports by audience for each sport gender type (male, female and mixed gender sports coverage only) in the Melbourne market. See Charts 156 and 158 for a breakdown by solely female sports or solely male sports coverage in Melbourne.

Chart 150: Audience for top ten sports by sport type, Melbourne

Table 66: Audience for top ten sports by sport type, Melbourne


Australian rules football 52 925 52 925

Cricket 39 819 71 39 890

Tennis 7 766 8 299 692 16 757

Motor sports 14 938 229 15 167

Football (soccer) 8 689 766 9 455

Rugby league 6 878 6 878

Golf 5 164 1 356 51 6 571

Cycling 4 265 284 4 549

Horseracing 3 637 3 637

Lawn bowls 1 635 1 137 2 772

Total 142 079 11 913 4 609 158 601


52 925 52 925

39 819 39 890

7 766 16 757

14 938 15 167

8 689 9 455

6 878 6 878

5 164 6 571

4 265 4 549

8 299

3 637 3 637

2 772

0 10 000 20 000 30 000 40 000 50 000 60 000


Cricket

Tennis

Motor sports

Football (soccer)

Rugby league

Golf

Cycling

Horseracing

Lawn bowls

Audience

Chart 152 shows the top ten sports by audience for each station (male, female and mixed gender sports coverage only) in the Sydney market (see Table 68). See Charts 155 and 157 for a breakdown by solely female sports or solely male sports coverage in Sydney.

Leading sports by stationChart 151 shows the top ten sports by duration on each station (male, female and mixed gender sports coverage only) in the Sydney market (see Table 67). See Charts 155 and 157 for a breakdown by solely female sports or solely male sports coverage in Sydney.

■ ABC1 ■ ABC2 ■ Channel 7 ■ Fox Sports 1 ■ Fox Sports 2 ■ Fox Sports 3 ■ SBS ■ Channel Nine ■ Channel Ten

2 709 2 796

6 160 13 993

10 214 13 682

2 539 8 149

2 991 7 808

5 102 4 854 14 800

3 706 4 116

5 196

2 543 36 802

2 882

3 623

11 750

4 851

2 390

2 530

32 362 44 964

26 369

0 10 000 20 000 30 000 40 000 50 000 60 000

Rugby league

Cricket

Football (soccer)

Motor sports

Tennis

Rugby union


Golf

Cycling

Lawn bowls

Audience

609:25:00

1 620:59:00

261:03:00

1 355:01:00

595:33:00

1 171:14:00

286:28:00

992:26:00

672:23:00

422:13:00

553:41:00

626:30:00

1 468:16:00

485:40:00

1 259:42:00

616:44:00

1 886:26:00

530:52:00

680:59:00

565:24:00

312:13:00

0:00:00 960:00:00 1 920:00:00 2 880:00:00 3 840:00:00

Cricket

Golf

Tennis

Football (soccer)

Motor sports

Rugby league


Rugby union

Poker

Basketball

Duration (hh:mm:ss)


Chart 152: Audience for top ten sports by television station, Sydney

Chart 151: Duration of top ten sports by television station, Sydney


Chart 154 shows the top ten sports by audience for each station (male, female and mixed gender sports coverage only) in the Melbourne market (see Table 70). See Charts 160 and 162 for a breakdown by solely female sports or solely male sports coverage in Melbourne.

Chart 153 shows the top ten sports by duration for each station (male, female and mixed gender sports coverage only) in the Melbourne market (see Table 69). See Charts 156 and 158 for a breakdown by solely female sports or solely male sports coverage in Melbourne.

0 10 000 20 000 30 000 40 000 50 000 60 000


Cricket

Tennis

Motor sports

Football (soccer)

Rugby league

Golf

Cycling

Horseracing

Lawn bowls

Audience

2 617 2 772

23 223

13 779 16 757

6 131 15 167

2 945 3 637

8 760 52 925

3 359 9 455

2 560 6 571

5 629

3 014

4 093 4 549

27 888 39 890

4 448 6 878

18 886

2 799

4 622


0:00:00 960:00:00 1 920:00:00 2 880:00:00 3 840:00:00

Cricket

Golf

Tennis

Football (soccer)

Motor sports

Rugby league


Rugby union

Poker

Basketball

Duration (hh:mm:ss)


609:25:00

1 620:59:00

261:03:00

1 355:01:00

595:33:00

1 171:14:00

286:28:00

992:26:00

672:23:00

422:13:00

553:41:00

626:30:00

1 468:16:00

485:40:00

1 259:42:00

616:44:00

1 886:26:00

530:52:00

680:59:00

565:24:00

312:13:00

Chart 154: Audience for top ten sports by television station, Melbourne

Chart 153: Duration of top ten sports by television station, Melbourne

Charts 155 and 156 show the top ten female sports by duration in the Sydney and Melbourne markets (see tables 71 and 72, respectively).

Chart 155: Duration of top ten female sports by television station, Sydney

Chart 156: Duration of top ten female sports by television station, Melbourne

■ ABC1 ■ ABC2 ■ Channel 7 ■ Fox Sports 1 ■ Fox Sports 3 ■ SBS ■ Channel Nine ■ Channel Ten

0:00:00 960:00:00 1 920:00:00 2 880:00:00 3 840:00:00

Tennis

Golf

Netball

Lawn bowls

Basketball

Football (soccer)

Field hockey

Beach volleyball

Gymnastics

Volleyball

Duration (hh:mm:ss)

476:25:00


476:25:00

0:00:00 960:00:00 1 920:00:00 2 880:00:00 3 840:00:00

Tennis

Golf

Netball

Lawn bowls

Basketball

Football (soccer)

Field hockey

Beach volleyball

Gymnastics

Volleyball

Duration (hh:mm:ss)


Charts 157 and 158 show the top ten male sports by duration in the Sydney and Melbourne markets (see tables 73 and 74, respectively).

Chart 157: Duration of top ten male sports by television station, Sydney

Chart 158: Duration of top ten male sports by television station, Melbourne

0:00:00 960:00:00 1 920:00:00 2 880:00:00 3 840:00:00

Duration (hh:mm:ss)


Cricket

Football (soccer)

Golf

Motor sports

Tennis

Rugby league


Rugby union

Poker

Baseball

609:25:00

1 355:01:00

1 381:13:00

586:33:00

1 171:14:00

286:28:00

992:26:00

552:46:00

561:19:00

622:28:00

292:01:00

1 468:16:00

485:40:00

1 259:42:00

530:52:00

520:31:00

673:33:00

1 386:32:00

565:24:00

322:01:00

311:42:00

0:00:00 960:00:00 1 920:00:00 2 880:00:00 3 840:00:00

Duration (hh:mm:ss)


609:25:00

1 355:01:00

1 381:13:00

586:33:00

1 171:14:00

286:28:00

992:26:00

552:46:00

561:19:00

622:28:00

292:01:00

1 468:16:00

485:40:00

1 259:42:00

530:52:00

520:31:00

673:33:00

1 386:32:00

565:24:00

322:01:00

311:16:00Cricket

Football (soccer)

Golf

Motor sports

Tennis

Rugby league


Rugby union

Poker

Baseball

Charts 159 and 160 show the top ten female sports by audience in the Sydney and Melbourne markets (see tables 75 and 76, respectively).

Chart 159: Audience for top ten female sports by television station, Sydney

Chart 160: Audience for top ten female sports by television station, Melbourne


0 10 000 20 000 30 000 40 000 50 000 60 000

Tennis

Golf

Lawn bowls

Netball

Football (soccer)

Basketball

Beach Volleyball

Handball

Volleyball

Cycling

Audience

7 514 8 299

1 356

1 137

812

766

655

403

379

316

284


5 477 6 369

1 230

1 020

909

828

641

396

371

286

282

0 10 000 20 000 30 000 40 000 50 000 60 000

Tennis

Lawn bowls

Golf

Football (soccer)

Netball

Basketball

Beach volleyball

Handball

Cycling

Volleyball

Audience


Charts 161 and 162 show the top ten male sports by audience in the Sydney and Melbourne markets (see tables 77 and 78, respectively).

Chart 161: Audience for top ten male sports by television station, Sydney

Chart 162: Audience for top ten male sports by television station, Melbourne


0 10 000 20 000 30 000 40 000 50 000 60 000

Audience


Cricket

Motor sports

Football (soccer)

Tennis

Rugby league

Golf

Cycling

Rugby union

Lawn bowls

23 223

5 921 14 938

6 265 7 766

8 760 52 925

3 359

5 629

2 135 6 878

5 164

2 430 8 689

3 809 4 265

1 698

1 635

27 817

4 448

18 886

2 799 39 819

4 622


0 10 000 20 000 30 000 40 000 50 000 60 000

Audience

5 990 13 782

2 539 8 149

2 991 7 808

4 737 6 700

5 102

1 405 4 126

11 750

4 851

2 390 1 913

2 530

4 154 13 891

3 420 3 830

1 566

32 362 44 964

26 296 2 543 36 729

2 882

3 623

Rugby league

Cricket

Football (soccer)

Motor sports

Rugby union


Tennis

Golf

Cycling

Lawn bowls

Tabl

e 6

7: D

urat

ion

of t

op t

en s

port

s by

tel

evis

ion

stat

ion,

Syd

ney

Spor

tAB

C1AB

C2Ch

anne

l 7Fo

x Sp

orts

1

Fox

Spor

ts 2

Fo

x Sp

orts

3SB

SCh

anne

l Nin

eCh

anne

l Ten

Tota

l

Cric

ket

0:57

:00

609:

25:0

099

2:26

:00

1 25

9:42

:00

31

2:13

:00

234:

41:0

03

409:

24:0

0

Golf

17:5

6:00

43

:28:

001

620:

59:0

067

2:23

:00

616:

44:0

0

21:4

9:00

98:2

0:00

3 09

1:39

:00

Tenn

is28

:18:

00

233:

24:0

026

1:03

:00

422:

13:0

01

886:

26:0

02:

45:0

096

:20:

00

2 93

0:29

:00

Foot

ball

(soc

cer)

19:4

3:00

2:

14:0

01

355:

01:0

055

3:41

:00

530:

52:0

025

0:39

:00

2 71

2:10

:00

Mot

or s

ports

152:

21:0

059

5:33

:00

626:

30:0

068

0:59

:00

105:

54:0

034

:56:

0013

8:45

:00

2 33

4:58

:00

Rugb

y le

ague

10

3:45

:00

1 46

8:16

:00

236:

45:0

0

220:

46:0

0

2 02

9:32

:00

Aust

ralia

n ru

les

foot

ball

182:

54:0

01

171:

14:0

013

4:29

:00

153:

28:0

0

15

5:04

:00

1 79

7:09

:00

Rugb

y un

ion

52:0

8:00

24

:28:

0028

6:28

:00

485:

40:0

056

5:24

:00

21:1

0:00

1 43

5:18

:00

Poke

r

215:

04:0

023

6:06

:00

225:

10:0

0

676:

20:0

0

Bask

etba

ll29

:58:

0024

:02:

00

139:

44:0

022

7:56

:00

151:

50:0

025

:16:

0011

:57:

00

610:

43:0

0

Tota

l14

9:00

:00

24:0

2:00

638:

49:0

06

358:

16:0

05

819:

40:0

06

307:

20:0

038

4:34

:00

698:

01:0

064

8:00

:00

2 10

27:4

2:00

Tabl

e 6

8: A

udie

nce

for

top

ten

spor

ts b

y te

levi

sion

sta

tion,

Syd

ney

Spor

tAB

C1AB

C2Ch

anne

l 7Fo

x Sp

orts

1Fo

x Sp

orts

2Fo

x Sp

orts

3SB

SCh

anne

l Nin

eCh

anne

l Ten

Tota

l

Rugb

y le

ague

25

111

750

601

32

362

44

964

Cric

ket

421

530

4 85

11

467

26 3

692

543

36 8

02

Foot

ball

(soc

cer)

209

332

5 10

22

390

1 91

34

854

14 8

00

Mot

or s

ports

6

160

586

846

646

1 18

11

692

2 88

213

993

Tenn

is56

810

214

150

210

1 03

687

1 41

713

682

Rugb

y un

ion

1 17

72

539

357

1 18

12

530

365

8 14

9

Aust

ralia

n ru

les

foot

ball

2

991

1 06

283

493

623

7 80

8

Golf

306

630

1 69

777

867

325

286

05

196

Cycl

ing

40

2916

63

706

175

4 11

6

Lawn

bow

ls2

709

656

25

2 79

6

Tota

l5

011

022

866

10 7

8122

174

9 10

69

828

62 0

9210

448

152

306


Tabl

e 6

9: D

urat

ion

of t

op t

en s

port

s by

tel

evis

ion

stat

ion,

Mel

bour

ne

Spor

tAB

C1AB

C2Ch

anne

l 7Fo

x Sp

orts

1Fo

x Sp

orts

2Fo

x Sp

orts

3SB

SCh

anne

l Nin

eCh

anne

l Ten

Tota

l

Cric

ket

0:57

:00

609:

25:0

099

2:26

:00

1 25

9:42

:00

31

2:39

:00

235:

25:0

03

410:

34:0

0

Golf

17:5

6:00

43:3

0:00

1 62

0:59

:00

672:

23:0

061

6:44

:00

21:5

1:00

98:5

1:00

3 09

2:14

:00

Tenn

is28

:18:

0023

3:24

:00

261:

03:0

042

2:13

:00

1 88

6:26

:00

2:45

:00

96:5

3:00

2 93

1:02

:00

Foot

ball

(soc

cer)

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Mot

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Aust

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648:

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Tabl

e 7

0: A

udie

nce

for

top

ten

spor

ts b

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levi

sion

sta

tion,

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bour

ne

Spor

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Mot

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Foot

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91

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154

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878

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Cycl

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5 15

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377

35 9

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613

158

601

Tabl

e 7

1: D

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ion

of t

op t

en f

emal

e sp

orts

by

tele

visi

on s

tatio

n, S

ydne

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cer)

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00

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ics

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14

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00

14

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00

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l11

0:30

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2:00

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00:0

034

3:59

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807:

38:0

061

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0035

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0022

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001

842:

29:0

0

Tabl

e 7

2: D

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ion

of t

op t

en f

emal

e sp

orts

by

tele

visi

on s

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elbo

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00

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3:54

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Netb

all

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Foot

ball

(soc

cer)

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00

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ics

6:52

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9:00

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14

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00

14

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00

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9:32

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034

3:59

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807:

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061

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0036

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0022

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001

842:

06:0

0


Tabl

e 7

3: D

urat

ion

of t

op t

en m

ale

spor

ts b

y te

levi

sion

sta

tion,

Syd

ney

Spor

tAB

C1AB

C2Ch

anne

l 7Fo

x Sp

orts

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orts

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orts

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SCh

anne

l Nin

eCh

anne

l Ten

Tota

l

Cric

ket

0:57

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609:

25:0

099

2:26

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1 25

9:42

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31

1:16

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234:

41:0

03

408:

27:0

0

Foot

ball

(soc

cer)

2:14

:00

1 35

5:01

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552:

46:0

053

0:52

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224:

20:0

0

2

665:

13:0

0

Golf

43:2

8:00

1 38

1:13

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561:

19:0

052

0:31

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0088

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002

614:

45:0

0

Mot

or s

ports

146:

25:0

058

6:33

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28:0

067

3:33

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105:

54:0

034

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0013

8:45

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2 30

8:34

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Tenn

is

14

4:27

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189:

55:0

029

2:01

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1 38

6:32

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2:45

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4:00

2

077:

24:0

0

Rugb

y le

ague

10

3:45

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1 46

8:16

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236:

45:0

0

220:

46:0

0

2 02

9:32

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Aust

ralia

n ru

les

foot

ball

182:

54:0

01

171:

14:0

013

4:29

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153:

28:0

0

15

5:04

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1 79

7:09

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Rugb

y un

ion

52:0

8:00

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0028

6:28

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485:

40:0

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5:24

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0:00

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5:18

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Poke

r

209:

04:0

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4:06

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216:

15:0

0

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25:0

0

Base

ball

75

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0020

5:19

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322:

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53:0

0

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4:39

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Tota

l53

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000:

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3:56

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5 96

8:04

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5 54

8:50

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5 86

5:03

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334:

52:0

064

8:36

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638:

00:0

019

600

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00

Tabl

e 7

4: D

urat

ion

of t

op t

en m

ale

spor

ts b

y te

levi

sion

sta

tion,

Mel

bour

ne

Spor

tAB

C1AB

C2Ch

anne

l 7Fo

x Sp

orts

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x Sp

orts

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x Sp

orts

3SB

SCh

anne

l Nin

eCh

anne

l Ten

Tota

l

Cric

ket

0:57

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609:

25:0

099

2:26

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1 25

9:42

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31

1:42

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235:

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03

409:

37:0

0

Foot

ball

(soc

cer)

2:14

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1 35

5:01

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552:

46:0

053

0:52

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224:

20:0

0

2

665:

13:0

0

Golf

43:3

0:00

1 38

1:13

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561:

19:0

052

0:31

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19

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0088

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002

615:

20:0

0

Mot

or s

ports

146:

35:0

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6:33

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28:0

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3:33

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54:0

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0013

8:45

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2 30

5:57

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Tenn

is

14

4:28

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189:

55:0

029

2:01

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1 38

6:32

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2:45

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61:4

1:00

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077:

22:0

0

Rugb

y le

ague

10

3:45

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1 46

8:16

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236:

45:0

0

188:

48:0

0

1 99

7:34

:00

Aust

ralia

n ru

les

foot

ball

90:2

2:00

19

5:32

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1 17

1:14

:00

134:

29:0

015

3:28

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176:

16:0

01

921:

21:0

0

Rugb

y un

ion

21:0

2:00

286:

28:0

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5:40

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565:

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0

21

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001

379:

44:0

0

Poke

r

209:

04:0

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4:06

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216:

15:0

0

659:

25:0

0

Base

ball

75

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0020

5:19

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322:

01:0

01:

53:0

0

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4:39

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Tota

l91

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000:

00:0

055

3:21

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5 96

8:04

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5 54

8:50

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5 86

5:03

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334:

52:0

061

4:16

:00

660:

27:0

019

636

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00

Tabl

e 7

5: A

udie

nce

for

top

ten

fem

ale

spor

ts b

y te

levi

sion

sta

tion,

Syd

ney

Spor

tAB

C1AB

C2Ch

anne

l 7Fo

x Sp

orts

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x Sp

orts

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orts

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SCh

anne

l Nin

eCh

anne

l Ten

Tota

l

Tenn

is

5

477

1648

271

55

7

6 36

9

Lawn

bow

ls1

185

427

141

230

Golf

306

291

154

8926

154

1 02

0

Foot

ball

(soc

cer)

209

070

090

9

Netb

all

55

7847

022

582

8

Bask

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ll31

735

128

864

1

Beac

h vo

lleyb

all

3

1038

339

6

Hand

ball

37

137

1

Cycl

ing

28

628

6

Volle

ybal

l

282

282

Tota

l2

017

355

477

370

307

854

2 31

058

337

912

332

Tabl

e 7

6: A

udie

nce

for

top

ten

fem

ale

spor

ts b

y te

levi

sion

sta

tion,

Mel

bour

ne

Spor

tAB

C1AB

C2Ch

anne

l 7Fo

x Sp

orts

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x Sp

orts

2Fo

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orts

3SB

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anne

l Nin

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anne

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l

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7

514

2334

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6

8 29

9

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470

178

129

215

41

356

Lawn

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080

1432

111

137

Netb

all

68

7641

425

481

2

Foot

ball

(soc

cer)

182

584

766

Bask

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766

71

244

655

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h vo

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2

439

740

3

Hand

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937

9

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316

316

Cycl

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28

428

4

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l2

022

667

514

584

320

781

2 20

450

840

814

407

Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media130 APPENDIX A 131

Tabl

e 7

7: A

udie

nce

for

top

ten

mal

e sp

orts

by

tele

visi

on s

tatio

n, S

ydne

y

Spor

tAB

C1AB

C2Ch

anne

l 7Fo

x Sp

orts

1Fo

x Sp

orts

2Fo

x Sp

orts

3SB

SCh

anne

l Nin

eCh

anne

l Ten

Tota

l

Rugb

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251

11 7

5060

1

32 3

62

44 9

64

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421

530

4 85

11

467

26 2

962

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36 7

29

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33

25

102

2 39

01

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413

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Mot

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573

840

624

1 18

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213

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8 14

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219

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8 69

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61 3

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294

141

545

Tabl

e 7

8: A

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nce

for

top

ten

mal

e sp

orts

by

tele

visi

on s

tatio

n, M

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urne

Spor

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anne

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orts

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orts

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anne

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anne

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l

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1 67

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223

8 76

018

220

0

18

886

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25

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ket

252

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5 62

91

489

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172

799

39 8

19

Mot

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ports

5

921

551

527

554

1 21

01

553

4 62

214

938

Foot

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cer)

21

03

359

1 56

91

121

2 43

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6 26

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510

551

660

655

7 76

6

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12

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154

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612

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509

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3027

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777

From this multivariate analysis, an aggregate score is derived and presented on a 0–100 scale (in which 50 is neutral) to provide a sophisticated overall rating of the favourability or otherwise of each article, each media, each source and each writer for the client. Average favourability is also calculated for issues, media, writers and sources, providing valuable data for identifying trends and for comparing with benchmarks or previous data. This aggregate score is called the CARMA®Favourability Rating.

The CARMA®Favourability Rating is more than a positive or negative description, which is the basis of some simplistic (uni-variate) media analysis systems. It provides a precise overall qualitative rating that refl ects the likely impact of coverage.

Quality control to ensure rigour and reliability of analysis is achieved in three key ways:

• most of the variables analysed by Media Monitors — such as media name, page number, positioning, sources’ names, etc. — are objective criteria

• ‘issues’ and ‘messages’ (somewhat more subjective) are identifi ed by either exact word or phrase matching, or presence of acceptable synonyms. A list of acceptable synonyms and coding instructions is provided to analysts, in Coding Guidelines, to maintain consistency and rigour (for example, ‘innovator’ can equal ‘cutting-edge products’, ‘ahead of competitors’ or ‘fi rst to market’)

• Media Monitors uses multiple coders on all projects to minimise individual subjectivity.

Media Monitors uses the CARMA®media content analysis methodology, which is internationally recognised as one of the most sophisticated and rigorous commercial systems available. CARMA® executives are foremost specialists in media research and analysis.

Media Monitors analyses media coverage of companies, organisations, products, events, campaigns, trends and issues quantitatively and, most importantly, qualitatively.

Quantitative analysis is relatively straightforward. However, in addition to simply counting the total number of articles, column centimetres/inches or minutes of air time, Media Monitors is able to calculate the total impressions generated (the total circulation or audience reached by media coverage). Also, where competitors are analysed, Media Monitors can report editorial ‘share of voice’.

Media Monitors analyses media content qualitatively, taking into account multiple key variables that determine the impact of media coverage. These include:

• the media in which articles appear (particularly whether they reach key target audiences)

• positioning (front page, front of business section, etc.)

• prominence (size or length of articles, headline mentions, photo, etc.)

• issues discussed

• messages conveyed in articles (positive and negative)

• sources quoted (favourable and unfavourable)

• other textual and contextual factors, such as tone, headline, photos, etc.

Appendix A: CARMA®methodology

Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media132 REFERENCES 133

Interpretation of CARMA®ratings

Chart 163

100

Highly favourable

No news or current affairs reporting can be 100. This is a perfect advertisement.

News rarely exceeds 80.

66–75 = very favourable coverage.

56–65 quite favourable; positively promoting you.

51–55 = common range for news with little or no crticism.

49–45 = some criticism; needs balance.

44–30 = quite damaging; needs to be addressed.

News is rarely below 30. This indicates biased reporting failing to give balancing points of view.

No news should be in this range. This is litigious.

95

90

85

80

75

70

Moderately favourable65

60

55 Slightly favourable

50 Slightly unfavourable

45

Moderately favourable40

35

30

Highly unfavourable

25

20

15

10

5

0

Feez, S, Iedema, R and White, PRR 2008, Media Literacy, NSW Adult Migrant Education Service,Surry Hills, New South Wales.

Galasinski, D 2004, Men and the Language of Emotions, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, United Kingdom.

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