Women Vs.

The Media Coverage in the Olympics

What interested me?

ESPN only spent about 1.4% of its time
covering womens sports in 2009

The Olympics seem to make the coverage

equal

The addition of womens ski jumping in the

2013 Sochi Winter Olympics

Title IX
A United States initiative to require more equality in womens sports
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance

Caused an increase in womens sports in the U.S. Did not have much impact on the global level or in the Olympics

Womens Olympic Participation

1900 was the first Olympics where women
participated.

In 1964, women accounted for 13% of athletes. The International Olympic Committee works
every year to increase participation from women

44% of the athletes in the 2012 summer

Olympics were women
Charlotte Cooper from the UK became the first female Olympic Champion in the 1900 Olympics

Media Coverage in the US

Studies show that women are not underrepresented in the media
during the Olympics

Women tend to be overrepresented in newspaper pictures In 2004, NBC spent 27 hours covering men and 23 hours
covering womens sports

International Media Coverage

A study was conducted looking at newspapers in the following
countries: Belgium, Denmark, France, and Italy

Results show that women are covered just about the same as men We cannot make generalizations for other countries such as China
and those countries in the Middle East where women may have a lower status than men

How do we perceive womens sports?

Camera angles and they types of shots can make a big difference
in the way we perceive a sporting event

Do cameras make womens sports visually less exciting? Which womens sports are covered on TV? Typically sports considered feminine sports are featured more
than others such as gymnastics and figures skating

Camera Production
Types of camera angles and techniques are featured in the picture on the
following slide

Long shot: we can see the object and much of its surroundings Close up: we see mostly the object and not much background The camera also has a point of view such as eye level, and birds eye view

A variety of camera angles and shots or lack there of can give us the perception of more or less excitement

How are Women Portrayed?

A large portion of the womens sports covered on TV are the
sports where women wear the least amount of clothing

Women are portrayed as more of a sexual figure rather than

an athlete.

Swimming, diving, gymnastics, and beach volleyball

accounted for of NBCs Olympic coverage of women in 2004

Womens court volleyball was not covered despite winning

the Silver medal

So What?
The issue is not which gender is covered
more, but rather how each gender is covered on TV and by the media women in the Olympics

The issue concerns the overall image of

Media coverage will never be exactly half and
half but maybe someday women will be equally represented in the number of events available to them