Media Coverage and Women

Gender Bias in Coverage of the 2016 Rio Olympics

Over the past centuries, gender bias has been one of the dominant issues in the Olympic games. While there has been a noticeable increase in the women participation in the Olympic games, nevertheless media bias has been largely remarkable where men receive more media attentions than female counterparts. In the recent 2016 concluded Olympic game in Rio, media have been found using the sexiest languages to refer the female athletes. Based on the tone of the commentators, it is clear that women athletics are treated differently compared with the male counterpart in sport. The commentators lay emphasize on clothing and physique rather than their abilities and performances.

Analysis of more than 160 million words from academic papers, newspapers, and social media reveals that men are three times mentioned than women referring men as big, strong, fastest, or real. However, women are being disproportionately described with reference to their appearance, marital status or age. (Bates, 1). Few days after the takeoff of the 2016 Rio Olympic, big broadcast companies such and Chicago Tribune, and NBC have found themselves in hot water because of their ridicule comments on women athletes. NBC went on air by pointing out that the husband of the Hungarian swimmer should be given the credit for her astonishing win in the Rio Olympic. Chicago Tribune has also been criticized for their infamous comment by giving credit to the husband of female Olympian, Corey Cogdell-Unrein, after winning a bronze medal in Rio by stating "Wife of Bear's lineman wins a Bronze medal today in Rio." (Bates, 1). These comments make the Women Rights Organization asserts that media coverage of Rio 2016 on female medalists were both demeaning and offensive.

All these issues have revealed that female's sports professionals are treated differently than a male counterpart. The comments and the way women are treated show that women are not being taken seriously despite that their competitions and sports are as challenging as the sports and events of the male counterparts. A joint research carried out by South California University and Purdue University in 2009 showed that 96% of sports airtime was devoted to male in sports. Ironically, as there is an increase in female participation in sports, their media coverage decrease. Angelini, Macarthur, & Billings argue that media coverage of women athletes of the previous Olympics was more on men than women athletes and sports. At Beijing 2008 Olympic, women have been identified as the major players with their memorable performances similar to men. Despite these performances, media coverage gap between men and women are still widening with 8.4% gap in 2008 compared with 4.6% gap in 2004. (Billings, James, and Andrea 9)