Men’s and Women’s Basketball Coverage in the Spanish Digital Press During the 2016 Rio Olympics

Abstract

This paper analyzes the differences in the representation of women and men in basketball news in the Spanish digital sports press during 2016 Olympic Games from a gender perspective with the aim of investigating whether media coverage was unequal. The sample comprises 679 news articles published in Marca.com and MundoDeportivo.com from 1 July to 30 September 2016. The study analyzed 15 variables: date, sport, sex of main subject, nationality, number of photographs, authorship, external sources of information, direct and indirect speech, news about medals, main topic, representation of the main subjects, gender marking, and presence of gender stereotypes and their typology in the text and photographs. Results show a clear inequality in the representation of women and men both (i) quantitatively and (ii) qualitatively: (i) female teams were underrepresented in the information and the photographs and (ii) the nature of the content. Finally, it is argued that greater coverage of female athletes by itself is insufficient to achieve equality unless it is accompanied by a qualitative change.