Part One of our Weekly Assignment:
Today’s athletes are often more popular than movie stars. With non-stop sports TV channels (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN News, Fox Sports, The Golf Channel, etc.) and sports magazines, today’s athletes have many different ways to receive coverage in today’s media. What is striking is how many sports stars have infiltrated other media mediums traditionally relegated to movie stars and politicians. Tom Brady is interviewed in GQ; Tiger Woods is covered by Newsweek; Anna Kournikova has a spread in Maxim. Sports is “covered to death” by so many parts of the media today. Unfortunately, media biases are especially evident in how female athletes are portrayed compared to male athletes.
As one can see based on the collage I made, sexiness is a common denominator in almost all portrayals of female athletes today. During my Google searches, I had no trouble finding swimsuit pictures of today’s famous female athletes (even the WNBA stars). A spread in a male magazine is almost a pre-requisite before a female athlete becomes really popular. Even more “serious” female athletes like Annika Sorenstam (a female golfer who’s played on the male PGA tour) and Serena Williams (a female tennis player with such powerful shots that she could easily compete against most professional male tennis players) – even these female stars dial up the sexiness on their web sites and magazine interviews.
Male athletes are usually covered by the media in a way that focuses on their competitiveness and athletic skills, and less on their looks. Male sports stars such as Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant are interviewed constantly on ESPN about their athletic prowess in ways that would never happen with a female athlete. I have to mention that some male athletes also dial up their sexiness in the media. Derek Jeter, Roger Federer, and Tom Brady are great examples of the media mixing a male athletes’ competiveness with his sex appeal. It is interesting that most of the “sexy” male athletes portrayed by the media are disproportionately white or are African-Americans that look “whiter” (i.e. Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriquez, etc.). I could write a whole other critique on the media’s representations of black athletes, but I will stick to the male/female discrepancies.
I think the media is only partially at fault for these stereotypical representations of the female and male athlete. Ultimately, it is the American consumer who decides what the media covers. For example, the WNBA prided itself on female athleticism and has always had trouble staying afloat financially. The WNBA tried “sexing up” its image in recent years, but these efforts have mostly failed as well. Women’s tennis is usually the most popular female sport – in part because of the high-level of play compared to their male counterparts – but I would argue it is more popular because of the “traditional good looks” of its athletes. Women’s golf, softball, and soccer are beginning to see more popularity and coverage in sports media, partly because of some new female athletes who “look great” in a swimsuit (Jennie Finch is a prime example).
I do think the media is responsible for much of these stereotypes and should ultimately be more responsible in what it shows, but we consumers have to realize that the choices we make in our media viewing and spending play just as large if not a larger role in perpetuating these representations.
Part Two of This Assignment:
I also found some journal articles from psychology journals and other sources that describe today’s athlete and the media representations of them.
The University of Minnesota is doing a project on the media’s portrayal of highly-competitive female athletes. They found that media representations of female athletes can have a great effect on female sports involvement. They are specifically working with media guides and the effect they have on recruiting female athletes to universities.
The Journal of Psychology in May 1999 compared differences in “maladaptive behaviors” (alcoholism, drug abuse, gambling, etc.) between athletes and non-athletes. They found that superior athletes are more susceptible to these “problem” behaviors than non-athletes. This could partially explain why athletes seem to have a disproportionate amount of media coverage devoted to their problems with the law.
A 2004 article in Behavioral Science found that women’s sports are often covered in a way by the media that focuses on the athlete’s attractiveness, and often excludes their athletic ability. I think Anna Kournikova is a prime example of this phenomenon. She hardly won any tennis events and never was that good of a tennis player (compared to other female professionals), but she became the most popular female sports star in the last ten years based solely on her looks. The number of references to her on ESPN and ESPN.com (compared to other female athletes) was staggering. Thankfully, her popularity has died down recently.
The Online Journal of Sports Psychology analyzed biases in portraying sex and race in undergraduate sports psychology texts. I find it funny that even academic textbooks fall prey to the same biases that our popular media does.