Buysse, J. A., & Wolter, S. (2013). Gender Representation in 2010 NCAA Division I Media Guides: The Battle for Equity was only Temporarily Won. Journal Of Issues In Intercollegiate Athletics, 61-21.
2. Two major themes emerge from myriad studies of media coverage of female athletes at all levels across media over the past thirty-five years of sport research. These include the idea that female athletes are underrepresented in terms of amount of coverage compared to male athletes and that female athletes are most often portrayed in …show more content…
Research questions for this study center on whether or not differences exist in depictions of both female and male athletes at the same institution, in the same year, and in the same sport on intercollegiate media cover guides. Primarily, we wanted to know if athletes presented a) in or out of uniform, b) on or off the court, and c) in active or passive poses in media guides published during 2009-2010 athletic seasons. Second, we wanted to know if, within, the same sport, if men’s and women’s teams are depicted differently on media guide covers published during 2009-2010 athletic seasons. Third, we wanted to know, if differences in athleticism and gender-linked indicators are found in depictions of athletes in guides published during 2009-2010 athletic seasons, whether those differences are correlated with particular areas of the country or particular conferences (Wolter & Buysse, …show more content…
Results
a. Uniform presence: Athletes where overwhelmingly represented on media guides in their uniforms 98.2% of the time. Females 98.6% and male 97.7% of the time.
b. Court location: Overall 60.3% were pictured on playing surface. Female 56.3% of the time, male 64.2% of the time.
c. Pose presentation: Overall portrayed in action 66.0% of the time, female 60.1% and male 71.7% of the time. These results indicated men are significantly more likely to be portrayed as a competent athlete than women.
8. Implications for the study can be that men are portrayed as more athletically competent than women. Also, that different conferences, sports, and schools, portray their athletes differently than each other.
9. The ethical issue addressed was whether women are portrayed just as athletically as men were on a media guide. The location and uniform seemed to be equal yet the pose always had men in athletic stances rather than women. Women are typically sexualized and this study wanted to see if the top 6 conferences adhered to that generalization.
10. I would like to ask the researcher what colleges and universities they used for the study, as well as if they talked to the persons in charge of creating the media