Andrew C. Billings and James R. Angelini’s 2007 “Packaging the Games for Viewer Consumption: Gender, Ethnicity, and Nationality in NBC’s Coverage of the 2004 Summer Olympics” is an interesting article that explains exactly what is in the title. Billings and Angelini (2007) examines the presentation of the 2004 Athens Games through the lens of gender, ethnicity, and nationality. The results are probably not really surprising to those of us who have had many discussions on gender, ethnicity, and nationality in sport. White American males are those most covered during the Olympics, at least in the top 20 athletes mentioned and for the most part, all over the entire coverage (Billings & Angelini, 2007).
While the overall results may not be surprising, one thing did catch my attention. Men and women received roughly the same amount of coverage during the Games, yet the majority of the most mentioned athletes were male (Billings & Angelini, 2007). I found this interesting because the gender coverage seems to be scripted to provide equality and fairness. In fact, this is mostly confirmed in the article, when the authors state that “They also found that the host of the Olympics (predominantly Bob Costas) generally fared better than on-site reports in achieving gender fairness – perhaps a function of increased host scripting” (Billings & Angelini, 2007, p. 98).
This states to me that the either for their own reasons or for gender equality, the Olympics is being scripted to be more fair in terms of gender coverage. However, the reporters on the ground who are less scripted are still having a difficult time being fair in their coverage. While I do not know the background of the reporters, I am going to guess that these sports are not always their forte. They may not know the sports they are reporting on as well and rather than learning the obscure names of athletes they may never see again, they focus on the few that stand out. This allows us to notice the gender inequality that still exists but is hidden and more difficult to get at. It is likely the same for ethnicity and nationality, though I feel the nationality issue in the Olympics is much more open and blatantly obvious reasons. While issues like sexism and racism are more difficult to easily see in a society that is becoming more successful at hiding them, they still exist and instances such as this article help us to notice what we may often overlook.
This is an astute analysis of why the conditions of inequality may persist. I especially like the fact that you could see that strategies have been employed to mask the inequities that exist. I remember reading a study about media coverage in which the author suggested that whenever reporters lacked in-depth knowledge of an athlete or sport, s/he often resorted to using stereotypes. This seems to confirm your observations.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your observations. There are sports less well known that get less coverage. in many of those cases women are the color analyst. Bob Costa does a good job, in my opinion, of appearing to report all sports equally in terms of gender, but a close look as yo pointed out shows the inequality in gender reporting.
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