4. Results
4.1 Content Analysis of Sports News
4.1.1 Gender Differences
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Note: The gender ratios were calculated with the news articles of Men’s Basketball divided by that of Women’s Basketball.
4.1.1 Gender Differences News Coverage
Within the 378 samples, a total of 257 articles of which were for men’s
basketball or with emphasis more on men’s basketball, 115 articles were for women’s basketball or with emphasis more on women’s basketball, 3 articles were with
emphasis equally on both genders, and in the other 3 news articles, only the Jones Cup was covered as an activity without mentioning both genders (See Table 2). In comparison with the gender radio of games as 1.58 (see Ch. 3, p. 27), the gender ratio of the number of news coverage as 2.23 (257: 115) indicated that the current three Table 2. The Number of the Jones Cup News Stories Mentioning Men’s and Women’s Basketball Games.
Apple Daily Liberty Times United Daily Total
Men’s 110 65.9% 82 69.5% 65 69.9% 257 (68%)
Women’s 53 31.7% 34 28.8% 28 30.1% 115 (30.4%)
Both Men’s and Women’s 2 1.2% 1 0.8% 0 0.0% 3 (0.8%)
Didn’t Mention Any 2 1.2% 1 0.8% 0 0.0% 3 (0.8%)
(Gender Ratio) (2.08) (2.41) (2.32) (2.23)
Total 167 100% 118 100.0% 93 100%
(44.2%) (31.1%) (24.7%) 378 (100%)
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newspapers failed to present women’s basketball with the equal proportion in response to the real situation. In addition, the news coverage for men’s basketball is 7.79 articles per game, while the news coverage per game for women’s basketball is 5.48. That is, for each game, the men’s basketball could be covered with 2.31 articles more than women’s basketball in average.
In terms of the news coverage of foreign teams and our national teams for both genders, although there was no significant gender difference (χ2 =2.591, p = n.s.), the results showed that foreign women’s basketball teams received less coverage in newspaper. For men’s basketball, the numbers of news articles for our national teams and other foreign teams were almost equal, with 93 and 88 articles respectively (see Table 3). However, for women’s basketball, our national teams had 1.79 times of news articles more than the foreign teams, with 50 and 28 articles respectively, showing room for more coverage on foreign women’s basketball teams.
When the news articles with focus on the foreign teams were excluded to examine the gender presentation in news for the Chinese Taipei National Basketball Teams only, there were 162 news articles with focus on the Chinese Taipei Men’s Basketball Team, while 78 articles were on the Chinese Taipei Women’s Basket Team, making the gender ratio of 2.08 (162:78). In comparison with our standard index of 1.58, the gender ratio of actual number of games, the women’s basketball has proven not yet to be presented in balanced amount. The news coverage per game for our men’s national teams was 4.91 and 3.71 for the women. That is, women’s basketball of Chinese Taipei was reported with 1.2 articles fewer per game in average than men’s basketball.
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Coverage Size
The sizes for the sampled news articles were first calculated. The average size of the total articles is 335.82 cm2, while the average size of news articles for men’s and women’s basketball is 341.05 cm2 and 334.05 cm2 respectively. The sizes were then divided into five categories, i.e. rather small, small, medium, large, and rather large.
The articles categorized as “rather small” ranged from 35 to 130.5 cm2 with the average size as 100.36 cm2; those categorized as “small” ranged from 130.5 to 176 cm2 with the average size as 153.11 cm2; those categorized as “medium” ranged from 180 to 289 cm2 with the average size as 228.93 cm2; those categorized as “large”
ranged from 294.5 to 580 cm2 with the average size as 419.68 cm2; those categorized as “very large” ranged from 581.3 to 1322 cm2 with the average size as 760.04 cm2. Table 3. The Numbers of News Articles for Chinese Taipei National Teams and Other Foreign Teams on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball in the Three Newspapers.
Men’s Women’s
For Chinese Taipei National Team(s) Only 93 36.2% 50 43.5%
For Foreign Teams Only 88 34.2% 28 24.3%
With More Emphasis on Chinese Taipei
National Team(s) Than Foreign Teams 69 26.8% 28 24.3%
With More Emphasis on Foreign Team(s)
Than Chinese Taipei National Team(s) 2 0.8% 2 1.7%
With Equal Emphasis on Foreign Team(s)
and Chinese Taipei National Team(s) 5 2.0% 7 6.2%
Total 257 100% 115 100%
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The distribution of the article size for both genders was quite balanced. Only slight gender difference existed. The men’s basketball was covered the most with
“medium” (21%) and “small” (21%) sizes of news coverage while the women’s basketball was covered the most with “rather small” size (23.5%). It’s worth noting that news coverage for women’s basketball was with the “rather large” size, which was slightly more than the news coverage for that the men’s (20.8% v. 20.6%).
However, in the average size for the news coverage, women’s basketball with the average size of 334.05 cm2 was still behind the men’s 341.05 cm2, yet the difference was rather small in comparison with the data in the previous research.
With regards to differences of size coverage among the three newspapers, Apple Daily was found to have the most coverage with relatively “large size” within the three newspapers, accounting for 65.3% of the overall “rather large” size coverage. In addition, “large size” news also accounted the most in news articles of Apple Daily for both men’s and women’s basketball (30.7% v. 30.2%), as Table 5 indicated.
Table 4. Sizes of the Jones Cup Men’s and Women’s Basketball Coverage.
Men’s Women’s
Size Categories
Article Number Average Size (cm2)
Article Number Average Size
(cm2)
Rather Small 43 16.8% 97.89 27 23.5% 104.2
Small 54 21.0% 152.76 20 17.4% 152.18 Medium 54 21.0% 230.46 21 18.3% 226.31
Large 53 20.6% 410.04 23 20.0% 445.76 Rather Large 53 20.6% 761.36 24 20.8% 750.72
Total 257 100% 115 100%
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In terms of Liberty Time, gender differences occurred in that 32.4% of the women’s basketball news was with the “rather small” size in comparison with men’s 18.3%. However, women’s basketball was more likely to be covered with “rather large” size than men’s basketball (20.6% v. 17.1%).
United Daily covered the least “rather large” size for news on both men’s and women’s basketball (6.3% v. 3.6%), compared with the other two newspapers and also with the other four size categories in United Daily. Gender differences occurred in that women’s basketball news was more likely to be covered in “rather small” size and “large” size news than men’s basketball (25.0% v. 20.3%; 35.6% v. 26.6%).
Table 5. Sizes of the Jones Cup Men’s and Women’s Basketball Coverage in the Three Newspapers.
Apple Daily Liberty Times United Daily
Men’s Women’s Men’s Women’s Men’s Women’s Rather
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Placements
For Apple Daily, 17.4% of news articles for men’s basketball were placed in the front page of D section, D1, while 13.2% of articles for women’s basketball were placed in D1. In addition, it was found that articles for men’s basketball were placed in D2 (23.9%) more than the women’s (13.2%), indicating that more emphasis and attention was bestowed to the men’s basketball (see Table 6).
For Liberty Times, there was no news for women in S1, the front page of the sports section, while 2.4% of the men’s basketball news articles were placed in S1.
Similar to Apple Daily, it is evident that news articles for men’s basketball were placed in S2 (25.6%) more than the women’s (11.8%), indicating that more emphasis and attention was bestowed to the men’s basketball (see Table 5).
For United Daily, 39.3% of news articles for women’s basketball were placed in AA3, the comprehensive section combining many sorts of news, while 30.8% of men’s basketball news articles were placed in this section (see Table 5). For the more specialized section for sports, the same distribution situation occurs when the men’s basketball news was more likely to be placed in the former section while the women’s basketball news was placed in the latter section.
Regarding to the page placement, the news coverage for men’s basketball and women’s showed no significant gender difference (χ2 =1.286 a, p = n.s.), while the articles for men’s basketball were slightly more likely to be placed on the upper place of the section and the articles for women’s basketball were slightly more likely to be placed on the middle and lower places of the section (see Table 7).
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Table 6. The Distribution of Sections of News articles on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball.
Men’s Women’s
Table 7. Page Placement Distribution of the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.
Men’s Women’s
Upper 119 46.3% 49 42.6%
Middle 81 31.5% 39 33.9%
Lower 57 22.2% 27 23.5%
Total 257 100.0% 115 100.0%
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Photographs
For the amount of photographs in news articles, as Table 8 reveals, 83.5% of news for women’s basketball contained one or more photographs, winning men’s 74.7% by 6.8%, indicating that women’s basketball is not neglected in photo
providing. However, the gender is not significantly correlated in this regard (χ2 =3.354, p = n.s.). 272 photos were contained in 192 articles for men’s basketball while 136 photos were contained in 96 articles for women’s basketball, leading to the results that news article for men’s and women’s basketball both contained 1.417 photographs respectively in average. The average photo size for women’s basketball news coverage (139.15 cm2) is even slightly larger than that of men’s (136.46cm2).
In addition, women’s coverage included more photos with only single player than men’s coverage (27.2% v. 21.7%) and 33.8% of photos were with the close-up angle for the camera in comparison with men’s 28.3%, showing that female players were more often than male players to be shown individually with closer camera angle.
However, the chi-square analysis indicated that the gender was not significantly correlated in this regard (χ2 = 1.309, p = n.s.). It’s worth noting that in the category of Table 8. Photograph Amount of the News Articles on the Jones Cup Men’s
Basketball and Women’s Basketball.
Men’s Women’s
Yes 192 74.7% 96 83.5%
Photograph
No 65 25.3% 19 16.5%
Total 257 100.0% 115 100.0%
(Photo Average size) (136.46 cm2) (139.15 cm2)
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“capture frame emphasis,” 10.3% of women’s basketball news articles were
emphasized with the appearance of the player only while there were only 4% of that in men’s news coverage, showing significant gender difference in this regard
(χ2=6.509, p < .05). See Table 9 for details. On the other hand, 78.4% of news coverage for men’s basketball was with the emphasis on sports performance, while there were 70.6% of news articles for women’s basketball with emphasis on sports performance.
After the further analysis on the caption frame of “appearance only” and “sports performance only” among newspapers, it was found that there was significant gender difference in news of Liberty Times (χ2=9.453, p < .05), showing that women’s news in Liberty Times was more likely to contain photo(s) with the capture emphasizing on the athlete’s appearance only than men’s news. No significance gender difference was shown in either news of Apple Daily (χ2 =1.351, p = n.s.) or United Daily (χ2 =1.552, p
= n.s.).
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Table 9. Photo Presentation of the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.
Men’s Women’s Applied of the
Photo Long Shot 15 5.5% 7 3.7%
Appearance/ Attire/
Expression Only 12 4.0% 20 10.3%
Sports Performance Only 213 78.4% 136 70.6%
Equal Emphasis on Appearance and Performance
0 0.0% 3 1.5%
More Emphasis on Appearance Than Emphasis of the Photo
Others or Can’t Tell 47 17.6% 32 16.9%
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Tables
There was no significant gender difference (χ2=2.915, p = n.s.) in uses of tables.
Though 51.3% of news for women’s basketball contained tables for information, winning men’s 42.4%, more than half (62.7%) of which contained only two or fewer kinds of information. Also, the average table size of women’s basketball was also smaller, implying that women’s news articles contain less information than men’s news articles (See Table 10).
Table 10. Uses of Tables on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.
Men’s Women’s
Yes 109 42.4% 59 51.3%
No 148 57.6% 56 48.7%
Use of Table(s)
Total 257 100% 115 100%
(Average Table Size) (77.78 cm2) (62.96 cm2)
One Type of Contents Only 22 20.2% 3 5.1%
Two Types of Contents 40 36.7% 34 57.6%
Three Types of Contents 26 23.9% 19 32.2%
Levels of Information in Tables
Four or More Types of Contents 21 19.2% 3 5.1%
Total 109 100% 59 100%
Note: Levels of information were defined by the number of types of content provided in the tables with the types in tables including “team/ personal score,” “team/ personal performance statistics in a single game,” “team/ personal performance statistics in previous games” and “game schedule.”
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Story Type
News coverage for men and women’s basketball showed no difference (χ2=.665, p = n.s.) in story type with almost equal proportion in the straight news and feature story (see Table 11). However, for the commentary which was excluded from the samples in the current study, significant gender difference existed as men’s basketball was strongly emphasized. Out of the 36 pieces of commentary by the critics, 31 pieces of which were for men’s basketball and only 5 were for women; out of the 24 pieces of commentary by the fans, 21 were for men’s basketball and only 3 were for
women’s basketball.
Table 11. Story type of the news articles on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.
Men’s Women’s Total
Straight News 155 60.3% 69 60% 224 Feature Story 102 39.7% 46 40% 148
Total 257 100% 115 100% 372
Main Content
The results showed no gender difference in regards of main content (χ2 =.379, p
= n.s.). For the news coverage directly related the game on the previous day, both men’s basketball and women’s basketball were presented in similar proportion of story types. For the news irrelevant to the game on the previous day, it is worth noting that there was no news coverage of women’s basketball for technical analysis though there was only 2.3% of men’s basketball news in this regard, which indicated that professional information on women’s basketball might be insufficient (see Table 12).
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There was gender difference in source presentation (χ2 =5.979, p < .05). Similarly, most of news articles on both genders used one source in a news article, mainly from players or coaches (see Table 13). However, 42.6% of women’s basketball news relied on two sources, more than men’s basketball news by 10.6%, indicating that women’s news articles were more often included with more sources. However, the source origin has shown no gender difference since news for both genders use coaches and players as information sources.
Table 12. Main Content on the Jones Cup Men’s and Women’s Basketball Coverage.
the Previous Day
Subtotal 151 58.8% 63 54.8%
Irrelevant To the Game on the Previous Day
Subtotal 106 41.2% 52 45.2%
Total 257 100.0% 115 100.0%
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Table 13. Source Presentation and Source Origins on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.
Men’s Women’s Total
One Source 173 67.3% 64 55.7% 237 63.7%
Two Sources 82 32.0% 50 42.6% 132 35.5%
Three Sources 2 0.7% 1 0.9% 3 0.8%
Total 257 100.0% 115 100.0% 372 100.0%
Tone
In the current study, presentation of tones in sports news has shown significant gender difference (χ2 =8.820, p < .01). Women’s basketball received more positive coverage (55.7%) than men’s basketball (47%) while more negative coverage were for men’s basketball (21%) in comparison with women’s 8.7%, implying that women’s basketball was covered with positive image more often than men’s basketball (see Table 14).
With regards to the gender difference on the tone of news among three newspapers respectively, significant gender difference was not found (Apple Daily: χ2
=2.332, p = n.s.; Liberty Times: χ2 =3.024, p = n.s.; United Daily: χ2 =2.961, p = n.s.).
Table 14. Tones on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.
Men’s Women’s Total
Positive 121 47% 64 55.7% 185 49.7%
Negative 54 21% 10 8.7% 64 17.2%
Neutral 82 32% 41 35.6% 123 33.1%
Total 257 100.0% 115 100.0% 372 100.0%
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Performance Emphasis
Generally, the news coverage of both genders showed no difference (χ2 =1.498, p
= n.s.) in emphasis on individual or teamwork. As Table 15 shows, news coverage for women’s basketball contained more performance emphasis on individual than
teamwork (47.8% v. 40.0%), while men’s basketball on the contrary (42.0% v. 46.7), showing that women’s individual performance was slightly more emphasized than men’s while men’s teamwork performance was slightly more emphasized than women’s.
Table 15. Performance Emphasis on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.
Men’s Women’s Total
Individual 108 42.0% 55 47.8% 163 43.8%
Teamwork 120 46.7% 46 40.0% 166 44.6%
Not Identified 29 11.3% 14 12.2% 43 11.6%
Total 257 100.0% 115 100.0% 372 100.0%
Emphasis on Gender Features
From the headline of the news coverage, the difference of the gender features for both genders was found (χ2 =38.730, p < .01) though most of the headlines did not contain description of gender features. For women’s basketball, 24.3% of news articles were included with feminine features description in headline, indicating that the editor tended to link the news with women’s socially-constructed features when writing the title for women’s basketball. In addition, about 5% of the news articles for both men’s basketball and women’s basketball respectively contained masculine feature description in the headline, showing that sports performance is unavoidably
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linked with masculine features.
Table 16. Emphasis on Gender Features in the Headline on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.
Men’s Women’s Total
With Masculine
Features 13 5% 6 5.3% 19 5.1%
With Feminine
Features 0 0% 28 24.3% 28 7.5%
No Gender Features
Described 244 95% 81 70.4% 325 87.4%
Total 257 100% 115 100.0% 372 100.0%
Further analyses across newspapers were conducted and significant gender differences were found in all the three newspapers (Apple Daily: χ2 =10.909, p < .05;
Liberty Times: χ2 =8.556, p < .05; United Daily: χ2 =6.429, p < .05). In all the newspapers, feminine features were never emphasized in the headline of men’s basketball news. In addition, in the news with emphasis on gender features, feminine features were used much more than masculine features in women’s basketball news.
Ambivalence
There was no gender difference in ambivalence (χ2 =.068, p = n.s.). Around 30%
of the news coverage for both genders included the application of ambivalence (see Table 18).
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Table 17. Emphasis on Gender Features in the Headline on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage in the Three Newspapers.
Size Categorie s
Apple Daily Liberty Times United Daily Total
Men’s Women’s Men’s Women’s Men’s Women’s Men’s Women’s
With
Table 18. Application of Ambivalence on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.
Men’s Women’s Total
Yes 77 30% 36 31.3% 113 30.4%
No 180 70% 79 68.7% 259 69.6%
Ambivalence
Total 257 100.0% 115 100.0% 372 100.0%
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Attribution
For both genders, the attribution occurred in about 50% of the news coverage.
There was no gender difference in attribution in the sampled news coverage when the reported team won the game (χ2 =.001, p = n.s.). Under the circumstance of winning, nearly 90% of the news articles for both genders attributed the victory to self
competence, recognizing the performance of the reported team, showing no gender bias in this regard (see Table 19).
Slight gender difference occurred in statistics when the reported team lost the game. For men’s basketball, more news articles attributed the failure to the self incompetence of the reported team than that for women’s basketball (49.2.7% V.S.
47.4%). 50.8% of news articles for men’s basketball focused the performance to the opponent while 52.6% of women’s basketball news did so (see Table 19). However, through chi-square analysis, the gender was not correlated to attributions (χ2 =.040, p
= n.s.). The failure attribution here implies that for both genders, the news coverage tended to shift the blame of failure of the reported team to the opponent, but the news articles on women’s basketball were slightly more obvious than men’s basketball in this regard.
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Formulae of Exclusion
For formulae of exclusion, no significant gender difference was shown (χ2 =.705, p = n.s.). However, as Table 20 reveals, women’s basketball received more news coverage with exclusion than men’s basketball by 5%, indicating that the news coverage was slightly more lenient and less critical for women’s performance and gave more excuses for the mistakes that the female basketball players made.
Table 19. Application of Attribution on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.
Men’s Women’s Attributed to Self
Competence
Attributed to Self Incompetence
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Table 20. Application of Formulae of Exclusion on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.
Men’s Women’s Total
Yes 34 13.2% 21 18.3% 55 14.8%
No 223 86.8% 94 81.7% 317 85.2%
Formulae of Exclusion
Total 257 100.0% 115 100.0% 372 100.0%
Gender-Marking
Results have identified the presence of significant gender difference in gender marking (χ2 = 97.695, p < .01). For women’s basketball, 45.2% of news articles were marked with “female” or other wordings related to the female in the title, while only 4.3% of men’s basketball news articles were gender-marked (see Table 21).
Table 21. Application of Gender Marking on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.
Men’s Women’s Total
Yes 10 4.3% 52 45.2% 62 16.9%
No 247 95.7% 63 54.8% 310 83.1%
Gender-marking
Total 257 100.0% 115 100.0% 372 100.0%
Further analyses across newspapers were conducted and significant gender difference was found in all the three newspapers (Apple Daily: χ2 =35.360, p < .05;
Liberty Times: χ2 =24.697, p < .05; United Daily: χ2 =39.219, p < .05). In all the three
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newspapers, men’s basketball news was seldom gender-marked while nearly half of the women’s basketball news was gender-marked (see Table 22).
Table 22. Application of Gender Marking on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage in the Three Newspapers.
Gender- Marking
Apple Daily Liberty Times United Daily Total
Men’s Women’s Men’s Women’s Men’s Women’s Men’s Women’s
Yes 5
Results have identified the presence of significant gender difference in
infantilization with (χ2 = 34.804, p < .01) in that 27.8% of women’s basketball news articles were included with the application of infantilization for the naming or description for female basketball players, while only 6% of men’s basketball news articles were found with the application of infantilization (See Table 23).
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Table 23. Application of Infantilization on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.
Table 23. Application of Infantilization on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.