Other Issues in Media and Society

I’d like to invite you to check another blogs by my classmates to read about other issues in media and society .

First one id like to recomend is blog by Anastasia that focuses on 21st century representation of beauty in todays media. You can read it here : http://21centurybeauty.wordpress.com/ . This topic is closely tied to my blog as its another view of how women are being viewed in todays media and how they are setting these unrealistics representations of beauty.

Next id like to recomend blog by Dominika that focuses on sexualization of women in media . You can read it at http://dominikasindlerova.blogspot.cz/ . Its important to realize how much all the images in media we see are all tampered with to create the fake beauty that we as consumers see.

Another blog is by Bahram that discusses the Hip-Hop music in western world. You can find it at http://onmusicandus.blogspot.cz/ and its interesting to see the positive and negative effects hip hop music has especially on the younger generation and how we should focus on controlling the content.

Next blog id recoment one by Eduardo that focuses on Media violence. It can be found http://xcernae.wordpress.com/ here. Its important to open talk about how much violence there is in todays media and if the industry is not doing anything to make sure whom such an violent entertainment targets.

Last one ill suggest is another Anastasias blog that discusses the sports and media. You can find it at https://asuxodolskayaa.wordpress.com . Its important to realize what media has done for many sports and how it has changed them and their perception of them. Because of internet we are able to watch any sport at any given time at all of our devices .

How I see it

Gender equality in sports media has been always a big problem as women have been used in sports media and broadcasting more as a way to make the men’s experience more pleasurable. Women were meant as distraction during half time ( cheerleaders , dancers etc. ) or just as a ‘goofy’ player interviewer. Its quite baffling to see the studies that were done by the Birmingham University that showed that only about 3,5% of articles in any sports newspaper were related to the women’s sports. We should be quite alarmed at this number as its quite obviously not equal but mostly how drastically low it is ( the fact that even during Olympic games which were represented by most women in history in 2012 still the number of articles was only about 4,5% of all). Media use the excuse that its simply the fact that viewers are not interested in these sports which is not true as social media says otherwise. During the women’s FIFA world cup final in 2011 this event was actually the most tweeted event in history at that time. There has been increase in interest in womens sports of late and its surprising to see that the media has not realize this trend and still mostly maintains very old school with the way they represent womens sports. Argument can be made that its simply also based on the quality of athletes but to counter that id say its more based on the funding that each sports receive. To take NBA and WNBA in contrast , the male league is taken as place gladiators at top of their powers fight in these historic events , soaring through skies to dunk the ball and win these spectacles of game , while the WNBA barely gets any coverage and is widely mocked even in general media.

To fight this gender bias we must push for successful sports reporters such as Doris Burke in NBA to get the meaningful broadcasting jobs that can provide in depth analysis and can make the broadcasting more colorful and remove many of these ”fossils” that have been reporting on sports since 70s and still have these old views where women are represented as objects for male pleasure , and rather diversify the sports media and move into 21st century like rest of the world. There is argument to be had that for example womens pay is still not equal to male for same kind of job ( women make 93 cents to each dollar that men make in same job in US ) but its quite substantially higher than the amount of reporting done on women sports. It is surprising that in multi billion business such as sports this quite obvious gender inequality is being allowed and easily overlooked by the general public.

Its good to see atleast USA sports broadcasts are pushing more female broadcasters and reporters in their broadcasts and are trying to balance the field atleast some while for example football in England and Europe is still being very traditional and not wanting to break the traditions. Its important for us as viewers trying to put pressure on the media for them to become modern and really fight for gender equality at their workplace and for us as viewers to let them know that we are interested in womens sports and in more female broadcasters.

Citations :

The impact of Keys and Gray’s sexism scandal. (n.d.). Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://www.theawayend.net/component/content/article/50-archive/570-the-impact-of-keys-and-grays-sexism-scandal

Article – Women in Sportscasting: A Brief History, by Lou Schwartz. (n.d.). Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://www.americansportscastersonline.com/womeninsportscasting.html

(n.d.). Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://www.theawayend.net/compohttp://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/magic-johnson-doris-burke-espn-nba-countdown-analyst-174458171–nba.htmlnent/content/article/50-archive/570-the-impact-of-keys-and-grays-sexism-scandal

It’s Time For Sports Broadcasting To Stop Relegating Women to Sideline Eye Candy (Forbes)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/annedoyle/2013/01/21/its-time-for-sports-broadcasting-to-stop-relegating-women-to-sideline-eye-candy/

(n.d.). Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/mar/13/womens-sport-newspaper-coverage-birmingham-university

n.d.). Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/mar/13/womens-sport-newspaper-coverage-birmingham-university

The London 2012 Olympics – a gender equality audit. (n.d.). Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://www.playthegame.org/news/news-articles/2013/the-london-2012-olympics-a-gender-equality-audit/

For Further research

One good page to visit about gender equality in sports is http://www.playthegame.org/news/news-articles/2013/the-london-2012-olympics-a-gender-equality-audit/ which focuses on showing how the olympic games in London in 2012 had effect on the gender bias in media. Its interesting to see the raw data of how there is even massive difference in funding the female sports and how in effect the media was representing it.

Next good page to visit is http://bleacherreport.com/articles/440556-twelve-women-who-pioneered-the-era-of-female-sports-broadcasters which shows the 12 most important women that helped push the gender equality in the sports broadcasting. Its interesting to read more about these women that were pushing for gender equality in the sports media in the early 80s.

And for anyone interested in more scandals about male broadcasters making sexist comments you can visit http://www.theawayend.net/component/content/article/50-archive/570-the-impact-of-keys-and-grays-sexism-scandal and read about the Andy Gray and Richard Keys firing as football commentators after 25 years of work after a tape with them making sexist comments towards female co-anchor and for making sexist comments towards the female sideline referee. It’s good to see that at least some networks have strict policy when it goes with making sexist comments at the workplace.

What experts say 2

http://www.la84.org/gender-stereotyping-in-televised-sports/

This study of Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles focused on the topic of television coverage of women’s sports , to tell us something about the gender stereotyping and portrayal of women during sports broadcasts.  The four main Findings that this study found were :

A. TELEVISED SPORTS NEWS: WOMEN ARE HUMOROUS SEX OBJECTS IN THE STANDS, BUT MISSING AS ATHLETES

B. WOMEN’S AND MEN’S BASKETBALL: SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES IN THE QUALITY OF TECHNICAL PRODUCTION TEND TO TRIVIALIZE THE WOMEN’S GAMES, WHILE FRAMING MEN’S GAMES AS DRAMATIC SPECTACLES OF HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE

C. TENNIS AND BASKETBALL: WOMEN PLAYERS CONSTANTLY ARE “‘ MARKED” VERBALLY AND VISUALLY, AND ARE VERBALLY INFANTILIZED. MALE ATHLETES OF COLOR SHARE SOME OF THIS INFANTILIZATION

D. LESS OVERT GENDER STEREOTYPING EXISTS IN BASKETBALL AND TENNIS COMMENTARY, WHEN COMPARED WITH PAST STUDIES

This shows the reality that still in today’s media men’s sports are taken as the gladiator battles of ancient Rome , while the women sports are being trivialized as lesser significance and women in general are being represented more as distraction for the male audience. These studies shows the fact that sports media is very gender biased even in today’s age based on the facts of how they represent women on the screen. Its important to try to force the media to change this view as on social media women sports are widely followed ( 2011 woman football world cup final was at that time the most tweeted event in history of twitter ) , which shows that’s its not really the customers that expect such gender biased and rather the outdated media view.

What experts say 1

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/mar/13/womens-sport-newspaper-coverage-birmingham-university

This article focuses on the major indifference in sports stories as” women sports are outnumbered 20 to one” in the study mentioned in above article and points out that only 3% of all sports articles were written by women. Research by Birmingham university analyzed 876 sports articles in newspapers during three weeks and only 39 of them ( 4,5% ) related to women’s sport in February / March 2012. This number is quite alarming as it shows how very little are the women sports represented in the general media as opposite to the male sports. Even tho the 2012 olympics game didnt help to solve this gender bias as in year after the olympic games during the same time period the number of articles actually droped down to 3,5%. As Dr Claire Packer the proffesor who lead the study said “Maybe it was unrealistic to expect the 2012 games to solve the gender bias in reporting. It needs a much bigger policy push and a bigger effort to change people’s behaviour within the media.”.

Current Events 2

In the fall of 2013 NBA’s long time sideline Analyst Doris Burke was hired as a full time commentator on the ESPN’s pre-game show , making her the first female analyst to hold full time commentating job in NBA. Doris Burke has been favorite sideline analyst and interviewer for both NBA n WNBA since early 90’s and thus had years of experience in the sport and its been fan favorite too as she provided in depth interviews with the players. ESPN has been lauded for trying to break the conventions of only male run pregame shows and commentating and she was actually replacing the legendary Magic Johnson as the panelist on the pregame show. Her new job as this shows host will also not keep her away from attending many games and still work part time as sideline reporter as much as she can.

She is really the leading lady in representing female reporters on the national television and is widely recognized as one of the best analysts in major league sports in the US. That is quite an achievement in sport such as basketball as NBA is known as trying to push the boundaries and break the walls of inequality ( NBA had first black coach in any major sports in Bill Russell ) and as thus is always trying to fight the perceived notions. Hiring of her not only brought higher quality of analysis as many of the male counterparts ( including Magic Johnson ) were taking the analyst job very unprofessionally and it seemed as if they only watched one basketball game a week , and weren’t really delivering quality commentating. This shows how often many of these old time commentators really don’t care much about the job of analyzing and just expect to talk some random stuff about the sport they once played rather than research and keep working to give the viewers the most in depth analysis possible , such as those that Doris Burke often delivers.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/magic-johnson-doris-burke-espn-nba-countdown-analyst-174458171–nba.html

Current Events 1

During ESPN’s broadcast of BCS National championship in 2013 , legendary sports broadcaster Brent Musburger ( pictured above ) was on air drooling about girlfriend of one of the quarterbacks , a former miss Alabama, who was in stands.  He went on to say on air “You quarterbacks, you get all the good looking women.What a beautiful woman. Wow!” following with “So if you’re a youngster at Alabama start getting the football out and throw it around the backyard with Pop.” . ESPN apologized the next day stating that the commentary went too far and that its unacceptable for that kind of behavior on air. Even after the apology he went on to call the next day his sideline reporter colleague Holly Rowe “… was really smokin’ tonight.” and he maintained at his post actually towards end of last year when he retired.

These kind of comments aren’t a rare occurrence often muttered by these elderly male commentators on air and hasn’t really been on decline lately ( we had our own event here as famous Czech broadcaster made sexists comments during half time when he thought his mic was off ) . It just maintains this picture that sports is meant to be played by men and reported by the stereotypical men from the past. Comments like these said by Brent Musburger are basically telling kids ”yeah go be good at sports so you can have a hot girlfriend” which is demeaning to women as its degrading them into some kind of trophy for being able to kick ball really good. One way how we could move forward in this is to hire younger generation of reporters that didn’t live through the 50’s being used to demeaning women , or that don’t even realize when they are insulting women. Its also surprising that these national television broadcasters let them get away with these kinds of comments without even a slap on a wrist. Sports are watched by many young viewers too and thus the broadcasters should represent certain values and concentrate on the sport itself .

Links : http://www.forbes.com/sites/annedoyle/2013/01/21/its-time-for-sports-broadcasting-to-stop-relegating-women-to-sideline-eye-candy/

Role of women in sports broadcasting

As avid sports fan watching basketball n football games almost every day I’ve started to see how sports broadcasting is still one of the medias most outdated medium and somehow still being stuck in the ’50s as a male dominant profession. Even tho sports on television has been predominantly male oriented broadcasts ( around 97% of articles or television broadcasts are about the male sports ) , it seems like the sports broadcasting haven’t been really keeping up with the times and with proper equality at the workplace.

From personal experience of watching games of NBA in states and Premier League in England i also see the differences in sports and in the cultures as in England football games i haven’t seen actually a single female commentator , or interviewer ; while in states there is rise in female interviewers but they role is usually to make short interview with the players and the reason women appear in sport broadcasting is to attract the male audience with their good looks. There hasn’t been full time female commentator or analysts that would have the same air time as their male counterparts. So for this reason i think its important to look why in such a multi-billion business this form of sexism is widely accepted and ignored in today’s age.