Women in sports and media coverage

Women in sports and media coverage   

 The sports industry is known as one the of most passionate industry and only industry where fans and athletes try to give their best to impress and a grab the attention. The sports industry is considered one of the major business as it includes athletes, teams, clubs, leagues and federations sports agencies, sponsors, investors, and broadcasters. Like another industry this one is also considered as male dominant industry because according to the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota, have produced “Media Coverage and Female Athletes,” 

An innovative documentary that focus on the amount and type of media coverage given to female athletes as compare to men, this should be an eye-opening documentary to all especially to the fans who love sports and who passionately follow sports but ignores efforts of female athletes who put equal amount of time energy. According to the University of Minnesota’s Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, women’s athletics receive only about 4 percent of all sports media coverage.   

Women's frozen four was one of the major examples of the media coverage shown in the documentary. 3 times NCCA title holder team did not get the media coverage because television networks did not want to bear the cost of thousands of dollars to broadcast the championship match. It’s not just women’s hockey that’s being ignored but also the amount efforts and passion been dedicated by the female athletes was completely ignored.   

No one is interested in women sports said many reports and senior journalist, Mary Jo Kane, Ph.D. Director Tucker center of U of MN. Why women sports don’t get much of attention by media the thinking goes in a way that is it worthy of more coverage, Perdue professor Cheryl Cooky points out, a lot of our perceptions of how interesting women’s sports have come from the media itself. “Men’s sports are going to seem more exciting,” she says. “They have higher production values, higher-quality coverage, and higher-quality commentary. When you watch women’s sports, and there are fewer camera angles, fewer cuts to shot, fewer instant replays, yeah, it’s going to seem to be a slower game, and it’s going to seem to be less exciting.”  

The media like to give more emphasis on the story behind the female athlete, but they don't want to focus on their game, female athletes are highly objectified in media despite the fact that there is amazing journey behind any female athlete which needs an exposure but not in objectifying way.  

It is the nature who divided us between the male and female, but it is the world of men which is very well explained in the chapter Stereotyping by Horner A classic example of stereotyping is the fictional and non-fictional representation of women as sex objects, defined by a dominant male view of what constitutes sexual attractiveness.   

Equally, women are massively underrepresented in the position of power, in film industry women are stereotypes as suited to certain kind of social role particularly associated with caring. Usually, such female occupations or rules are perceived as inferior to men. Equally the interest of women is less worthy of media attention than men and so on. Consider the way in which inordinate attention is paid to some ‘male sports’. in addition, some forms of stereotyping interest to reinforced negative effects for example older women may become socially invisible in a way that men don’t.  

While doing some research on women in sports and media coverage I got the opportunity to learn few more things like “Mainstream sports media outlets are essentially ‘mediated man-caves,’” said Dr. Cheryl Cooky, an associate professor of American studies at Purdue University. “It’s a space where men can go and know it’s going to be by, for, and about men.” also one of contributor in the documentary while sharing her experience she says while doing the research on coverage on female athletes, they took tally of stories run through the stories on local channels and even channels like ESPN, the research shows the gradual decline in the coverage of women sports despite the fact of development in women sports sector.  

 It, not just the sports industry which ignores the female efforts, according to the chapter of “stereotyping by Honer” Especially the case for women and who is in front of the camera. this discrimination on the ground of unattractiveness is also frequently linked to age. There have been a number of high profile case in which news presenters, on reaching middle age have lost their job or sidelined in one way or another. According to the sponsored report by New York film academy and authored by Dr. Martha M. Lauzen of the center of study of women in television, film and new media, the academy claimed that by shedding light on gender inequality in films, we hope to start a discussion about what can be done to increase women's exposure and power in big budget films. A survey of the 500 films produced between 2007 and 2012 found that the only one –third of speaking parts were filled by women and only 10% of films were equally balanced in terms of role.  

Women get the attention when we get into the men's arena, and that's sad.- Billie Jean King  

 Yet, 44 years after the passage of Title IX, women and girls in the United States are playing and following sports in unprecedented numbers. Forty percent of all sports participants are female, according to the Tucker Center, and roughly a third of fans of major sports are women. The evolution of women’s sports over the last four decades has been dramatic; the media coverage, not so much. Source- The Nation 

 While going through all the facts about the number of coverage women gets in media industry it gives us a groundbreaking reality that it's just limited to one nation on a large scale it is related to female athletes on worldwide level.