Sport and Gender in the Mirror of the Media in Hungary at the Beginning of the 21st Century
Gál Andrea
Sport Sciences
Dr. Radák Zsolt
Semmelweis Egyetem TSK, Kollégium
2007-10-09 10:00:00
Sport- , nevelés- és társadalomtudomány
Földesiné Dr. Szabó Gyöngyi
Földesiné Dr. Szabó Gyöngyi
Dr. Farkas János - egyetemi tanár
Dr. Frenkl Róbert - egyetemi tanár
Dr. Istvánfi Csaba - egyetemi tanár
Dr. Egressy János - egyetemi adjunktus
Dr. Hédi Csaba - főiskolai tanár
According to international literature, women athletes are under-represented in the sports media from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. This issue has never been studied in Hungary. The major aim of this thesis is to analyse the relationship between gender, sport and media as well as the representation of sportsmen and sportswomen in the sports media. Besides, the opinion of women athletes, sport journalists and newspaper readers on the same topics are examined. In the research the following methods were used: content analysis, survey method, and in-depth interviews. In the sample of the content analysis two Hungarian traditional political daily newspaper and the most popular daily tabloid were chosen. In all cases issues published prior to, during and following the 2004 Summer Olympic Games and issues from the same period in 2005 were selected. The survey sample consisted of regular newspaper readers (N=401). In-depth interviews were made with elite women athletes (n=34) and sports journalists (n=7). The hypotheses referred to the proportion of genders in the sport related articles and photos of the daily papers; the changes in the above mentioned dimensions in Olympic periods, the interpretation of gender representation by sportswomen and newspaper readers, as well as to the impact of male dominance in sports journalism on the selection of news. The theoretical framework of the research was based on the theory by Stuart Hall named “circuit of culture” which suggests five factors (consumption, representation, regulation, production and identity) in the shaping, the continuation and the development of the meanings circulating through the communication flows of society. The results of the thesis support the idea that these five factors lead together to the sportsmen’s over-representation in the media. The news are generally selected by men sticking to a traditional conception of masculinity and feminity and believing that men are much more interested in sports than women are. The most popular sports are practiced by men on the whole world and their priority over other sports also means a disadvantage for women sports representation in the media. In our days, Hungarian daily newspapers are not subject to any special regulation with the intention of promoting gender equity. Newspaper readers and sportswomen notice the inequality in gender representation in the media. However, they assume that the differences are much smaller than they are in reality. Believes of them might be rooted in their experiences gained in the Olympic periods. In conclusion, it is stated that the results are in harmony in international trends revealing the sportsmen’s over-representation. Research data concerning the opinion of sportswomen and sport journalists about the same issues are new in the relevant literature.
