The media are a global element which influence life by a wide range of platforms such as television, press, radio and the Internet, thus their content strike in many ways, through images, voices, music and role models’ behaviours. It is proven that mass media are gender – stereotyped which allows to manipulate receivers’ attitudes. It is, for instance, a threat to adolescents and young adults who shape their world view by consuming media, as an effect children are more likely to adopt negative attitude during the period of socialization. With an easy access to media they may decrease their self–esteem, as well as adapt gender role stereotypes (Centeno and Prieler 2013, ter Bogt et al. 2010). A focus of this essay is to prove that presentation
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There is a tendency in the press and sports broadcasting to focus on men’s achievements and to relegate women’s successes to a secondary priority. Another key issue is that commentators go off–topic when covering female sport events (Jones 1999). The language used to describe female athletes often trivialise them – over half of female participants are referred as ‘lady’ or using informal nicknames, for example babe, bird, broad, chick or dame (Koivula 1999). Along with that, commentators use such phrases as “The slender 6-foot 5-inch center with the modeling contract in her purse”, which is an example of stereotyping and focusing on contestant’s beauty, or “She is the Shaquille O’Neal of women’s basketball”, which shows a similarity with male players (Jones et al. 1999). The second example is almost never working likewise, namely, it is rare to hear men being compared to female ‘equivalent’. Regardless to their great performance, comparable to male’s, they receive much less coverage in media – in 1998 77% of recorded sports news is about men, compared to only 11,7% attention given to women (Koivula 1999). This leads to the reflection whether sport is gender – stereotyped as it is indeed shown in the media as a masculine area. In addition, females are seen as a ‘fair sex’ and, because sport is believed to be physically demanding, it results in receiving female sport as less dramatic due to women’s weakness. Studies presented above support this thesis, however, in contradistinction, the number of female athletes presented in the media is rising. It is proved in an examination done by Koivula (1999) that it increased from 9% in period of 1995/1996 to 11,7% in 1998. Furthermore, women are interviewed more often than men in sports described as masculine (football, ice hockey, soccer) and
There is a tendency in the press and sports broadcasting to focus on men’s achievements and to relegate women’s successes to a secondary priority. Another key issue is that commentators go off–topic when covering female sport events (Jones 1999). The language used to describe female athletes often trivialise them – over half of female participants are referred as ‘lady’ or using informal nicknames, for example babe, bird, broad, chick or dame (Koivula 1999). Along with that, commentators use such phrases as “The slender 6-foot 5-inch center with the modeling contract in her purse”, which is an example of stereotyping and focusing on contestant’s beauty, or “She is the Shaquille O’Neal of women’s basketball”, which shows a similarity with male players (Jones et al. 1999). The second example is almost never working likewise, namely, it is rare to hear men being compared to female ‘equivalent’. Regardless to their great performance, comparable to male’s, they receive much less coverage in media – in 1998 77% of recorded sports news is about men, compared to only 11,7% attention given to women (Koivula 1999). This leads to the reflection whether sport is gender – stereotyped as it is indeed shown in the media as a masculine area. In addition, females are seen as a ‘fair sex’ and, because sport is believed to be physically demanding, it results in receiving female sport as less dramatic due to women’s weakness. Studies presented above support this thesis, however, in contradistinction, the number of female athletes presented in the media is rising. It is proved in an examination done by Koivula (1999) that it increased from 9% in period of 1995/1996 to 11,7% in 1998. Furthermore, women are interviewed more often than men in sports described as masculine (football, ice hockey, soccer) and