2007至2009中華台北男女籃國家代表隊在瓊斯盃新聞中的性別差異 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學國際傳播英語碩士學程. International Master’s Program in International Communication Studies College of Communication National Chengchi University 碩士論文. 治. 論文題目. 學. ‧ 國. 立. 政 Master’s Thesis 大. ‧. sit. y. Nat. Gender Differences in News Coverage between Men and. er. io. Women Players for Chinese Taipei Basketball Teams in Jones. n. aCup iv l C from 2007 to 2009 n hengchi U. Student: Ricie Chiang (江佳琪) Advisor: Dr. I-Huei Cheng (鄭怡卉教授). 中華民國 99 年 1 月 January 2010.

(2) 論文題目 Gender Differences in News Coverage between Men and Women Players for Chinese Taipei Basketball Teams in Jones Cup from 2007 to 2009 研究生: Ricie Chiang (江佳琪). 政治大指導教授: 立 Dr. I-Huei Cheng (鄭怡卉教授). er. io. sit. y. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. Nat. 國立政治大學國際傳播英語碩士學程碩士論文. al. n. v C h A Thesis U n i engchi Submitted to International Master’s Program in International Communication Studies National Chengchi University In partial fulfillment of the Requirement For the degree of Master in International Communication Studies. 中華民國 99 年 1 月 January 2010.

(3) Gender Differences in News Coverage between Men and Women Players for Chinese Taipei Basketball Teams in Jones Cup from 2007 to 2009. 立. 政A Master治Thesis大. ‧ 國. 學. National Chengchi University. ‧. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Art. by Name: Ricie Chiang (江佳琪) Date: January 18, 2010.

(4) Acknowledgements Allow me to express my appreciations for those who have ever helped me or supported me IN CHINESE… 不管啦! 我要用我的母語感謝各位，才有辦法完美表達出我心裡的感謝。首先，最要感謝的是怡卉老師，雖然老師總是說沒有教我什麼，但能有今天的這份論文，真的完全都是靠老師仔細、專業、又犀利的教導。謝謝怡卉老師!!. 政治大. 再來要感謝口委教授們，謝謝劉昌德教授，從一開始就讓我的思考很受挑戰，. 立. 從最開始到最後口試，劉教授提供的點子總是讓我可以一改再改，讓這份論文得以. ‧ 國. 學. 如此豐富!! 還要感謝陳子軒教授，在完全不了解我的情況下，還願意擔任口委，即使現在任教於桃園體大，還是願意千里迢迢到政大來參與我的口試，並且給予許多. ‧. 體育與傳播媒體專業的建議!!. Nat. sit. y. 最最要感謝的是我爸媽，把我生下，讓我當學生當到 25 歲，過去三年來提心. n. al. er. io. 吊膽我到底會不會畢業，終於! 你們的小女兒完成論文了!! 這是你們唯一看得懂的. i Un. v. 一頁，不過相信你們一定很為我驕傲! 謝謝爸媽! 我愛你們!!. Ch. engchi. 再來要感謝很多身邊的朋友，飯友兼戰友的小個、老盃、瑞，EXCEL 跟 word 教學、半夜趕工的精心字字手打笑話、一直的陪伴與鼓勵、喔當然還有激將法! 全部都感謝!! 還有政大女籃校隊的大家，讓我研究生的生活快樂到不行! 思晨、肥猴、大頭、點點、小玉，有妳們的鼓勵跟幫助，才讓我不用繼續再讀下去!! 謝謝寶寶的無言支持!! 謝謝我的愛女江江無數夜晚的陪伴!! 謝謝很多很多給過我鼓勵的人，有妳們，才有這本論文! 有妳們，才有不再當米蟲的小米!! ^^ 謝謝大家!! 喔對~還要謝謝在看這本論文的你和妳，謝謝你們的抬愛!!. By 小米 2010/1/20 政大.

(5) Abstract Gender Differences in News Coverage between Men and Women Players for Chinese Taipei Basketball Teams in Jones Cup from 2007 to 2009 By Ricie 治(江佳琪) 政Chiang. 大. 立. ‧ 國. 學. The current study is aimed to more closely examine the gendered coverage for basketball in. ‧. Taiwan’s newspapers. Newspaper coverage of the Jones Cup from 2007-2009 was content analyzed, along with in-depth interviews with the reporters and editors. The results revealed. y. Nat. io. sit. that quantitatively, news coverage on women’s basketball has greatly improved in comparison. n. al. er. with data in the past literature. However, qualitatively, the gendered values proved, such as. Ch. i Un. v. infantilization and sexualization, still exist and are embedded in sports news nowadays.. engchi. The examples of better the reporting patterns for women’ws basketball were identified with the principle of emphasizing on sports performance. In addition, there are a few consensuses among the interviewees on the challenges and suggestions for women’s basketball in Taiwan, including (1) the current system, (2) marketing and (3) media relations. In short, the purpose of the current study provides and offers practical suggestions of how to fairly report women basketball games and other women sports. Keywords: Gender difference, women’s basketball, men’s basketball, Jones Cup, gender representation in media.. ii.

(6) TABLE OF CONTENT 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................1 1.1 Research Background ...................................................................................................1 1.2 Significance of Study ...................................................................................................3 2. Literature Review .........................................................................................................5 2.1 Social Meaning of Mediated Sports .............................................................................5 2.1.1 Sports Fields as Miniature Society ....................................................................5 2.1.2 Media as Magnifier for Social Values...............................................................6 2.2 Gender Differences in News Coverage of Sports.........................................................9 2.2.1 Amount of News Coverage ...............................................................................9 2.2.2 Visual and Editorial Elements ......................................................................... 11. 政治大 2.2.3 Values Embedded 立 in Gendered News .............................................................13 ‧. ‧ 國. 學. 2.3 Influence of Newsroom Operation on Gendered Sports News ..................................21 2.3.1 Media as Gate-Keepers....................................................................................21 2.3.2 Newsroom Operation.......................................................................................22 3. Methodology...............................................................................................................25 3.1 Content Analysis.........................................................................................................25 3.1.1 Samples............................................................................................................25 3.1.2 Coding Categories ...........................................................................................27 3.1.3 Coding Procedure ............................................................................................31 3.2 Depth Interviews ........................................................................................................32 4. Results ........................................................................................................................34 4.1 Content Analysis of Sports News...............................................................................34 4.1.1 Gender Differences..........................................................................................35 4.1.2 Reporting Patterns and Examples....................................................................60 4.2 Interview Findings......................................................................................................85 4.2.1 Gendered Ideology & News Production..........................................................85 4.2.2 Challenges .....................................................................................................105 5. Discussions and Conclusions ................................................................................... 119 5.1 Discussions ............................................................................................................... 119 5.2 Conclusions ..............................................................................................................127 5.3 Future Research ........................................................................................................128 Appendix 1: Coding Timeframe...................................................................................130 Appendix 2: Coding Sheet............................................................................................131. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i. i Un. v.

(7) Appendix 3: Interview Protocol ................................................................................... 135 Appendix 4: Selected Interviews Transcription ...........................................................137 References ....................................................................................................................175. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. ii. i Un. v.

(8) LIST OF TABLES Table 1. The Number of Games of the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball During 2007 to 2009. ...........................................................................................27 Table 2. The Number of the Jones Cup News Stories Mentioning Men’s and Women’s Basketball Games.................................................................................................35 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. ...............................................................................................37 Table 4. Sizes of the Jones Cup Men’s and Women’s Basketball Coverage. .................38 Table 6. The Distribution of Sections of News articles on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball. .....................................................................................41. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. Table 7. Page Placement Distribution of the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.............................................................................................41 Table 9. Photo Presentation of the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage...............................................................................................................44 Table 10. Uses of Tables on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage...............................................................................................................45 Table 11. Story type of the news articles on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.............................................................................................46 Table 12. Main Content on the Jones Cup Men’s and Women’s Basketball Coverage..47 Table 13. Source Presentation and Source Origins on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.............................................................................48 Table 14. Tones on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.48 Table 15. Performance Emphasis on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.............................................................................................49 Table 16. Emphasis on Gender Features in the Headline on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage. .....................................................................50 Table 18. Application of Ambivalence on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.............................................................................................51 Table 20. Application of Formulae of Exclusion on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.............................................................................54 Table 21. Application of Gender Marking on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.............................................................................................54. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. iii. i Un. v.

(9) Table 22. Application of Gender Marking on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage in the Three Newspapers....................................................55 Table 23. Application of Infantilization on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.............................................................................................56 Table 24. Application of Infantilization on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage in the Three Newspapers....................................................56 Table 25. Application of Sexualization on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage.............................................................................................57 Table 26. Application of Sexualization on the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Coverage in the Three Newspapers....................................................58 Table 27. Summary of Overall Findings. .......................................................................59. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. iv. i Un. v.

(10) LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Example of the News Article with Stronger Emphasis on Gender Features. .............68 Figure 2. Example of the News Article with Stronger Emphasis on Gender Features...............69 Figure 3. Example of the News Article with Infantilization. ......................................................70 Figure 4. Example of the News Article with Infantilization. ......................................................71 Figure 5. Example of the News Article with Sexualization. .......................................................71 Figure 6. Example of the News Article with Negative Naming and Sexualization. ....................72 73. 治政大 (2009/07/19 on Apple Daily D4).......................................................................................73 Figure 8. Example of the News立 Article with Good Patterns for Men’s Basketball in Liberty Times. Figure 7. Example of the News Article with Good Patterns for Men’s Basketball in Apple Daily. ‧ 國. 75. 學. (2009/07/22 on Liberty Times S4).....................................................................................74 Figure 9. Example of the News Article with Good Patterns for Men’s Basketball in United Daily. ‧. (2009/07/25 on United Daily D4). ....................................................................................75. y. Nat. 76. er. io. 77. sit. Figure 10. Example of the News Article with Good Patterns for Men’s Basketball...................76 Figure 11. Example of the News Article with Good Patterns for Men’s Basketball with Neutral. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. Gender-Marking................................................................................................................77 78. engchi. Figure 12. Example of the News Article with Good Patterns for Men’s Basketball with Sexualization. ..........................................................................................................................................78 78 Figure 13. Example of the News Article with Good Patterns for Men’s Basketball with the Extensive Theme (2009/07/21 on Apple Daily D4)...........................................................................78 .. 78. Figure 14. Example of the News Article with Less Emphasis on Gender Features. ..................79 Figure 15. Example of the News Article with Alternatives for Gender-Marking. ......................80 Figure 16. Example of the News Article with Avoidance of Infantilization................................81 Figure 17. Example of the News Article with Avoidance of Infantilization................................82 Figure 18. Example of the News Article with Performance Emphasis, Despite Sexualization. .83 Figure 19. Example of the News Article with Performance Emphasis, Despite Sexualization. .84. v.

(11) 1. Introduction. “The concept of ‘emphasizing on the male and deemphasizing on the female’ has been held long by the Taiwanese, even on the basketball court.” By Dr. dd (2004, March 23) on Apple Daily.. 1.1 Research Background In Taiwan, the fact that women basketball has been overlooked by the. 政治大. government and the media is just like an elephant in the room. In June 2008, the. 立. coach of the national women basketball team, Ling-yao Hong, revealed her sorrow. ‧ 國. 學. and anger for the neglect of the women basketball by the basketball association in Taiwan in two text messages posted on the official website of Cathay Women. ‧. Basketball Team by referring to the national women basketball team as “the neglected. y. Nat. sit. blown-off kite” after losing the Olympics qualifying tournaments in Spain 1. Not only. n. al. er. io. did the basketball association fail to offer enough budget for the team, but also the. i Un. v. media in Taiwan were not interested in publicizing the games, giving rise to many. Ch. engchi. complaints among the women basketball fans at that time.. On the most popular Bulletin Board Station, PPT (bbs://bbs.ppt.cc), the unique social online community in Taiwan providing space for instant, free-of-charge, open communication and freedom of speech, there are forums such as G-Basketball, rosachien, and WSBL dedicated to women basketball with comments supporting 1. Cathay Women Basketball Team. (2008). Two text messages [Announcement posted on the World Wide Web]. Taiwan: Hong, L. Y. Retrieved Jun 12, 2008 from the World Wide Web: https://www.cathaylife.com.tw/bc/cwb/html/HttpDispatcher/IndexAction/Prompt?ne wTxRequest=true. 1.

(12) women basketball and cheering for female basketball players. There are also posted complaints about the local basketball association not paying equal attention to both male and female basketball. That is, fewer women basketball games are broadcasted. Some even called for greater support for broadcasting more women basketball games. For example, one fan with the ID as hikaruyuro wrote a comment titled as, “There is no women basketball in Taiwan” to express disappointment after finding the splendidly designed 30th Jones Cup’s official website had almost no information about women basketball 2. In another online comment with the title as “Why isn’t the women basketball included in the Olympic broadcasting schedule?”, a viewer who. 治政 found women basketball games receiving much less media 大 attention than women 立 soccer games advocated other fans to put pressure on the television station that ‧ 國. 學. broadcasted the 2004 Olympics 3.. ‧. Although there are no statistics or measures for how the public perceives the. sit. y. Nat. sufficiency of women basketball broadcasts, some past research has suggested that the. io. er. media do neglect women sports, either intentionally or unintentionally. According to Media Report to Women (2007, p. 1), news about women sports takes up only about. al. n. iv n C 8% of newspaper sports sections inh United States. Similarly, e n g c h i U Tuggle (1997) found that the coverage of women sports was less than 5% on Sports Center of ESPN and Sports Tonite of CNN. In addition to the limited media coverage, women sports were also found to be described with more lopsided, stereotypical contexts that portrayed female athletes as. 2. Posted with the ID, hikaruyuro, on 2008, Jul. 11. There is no women basketball in Taiwan (台灣沒有女子籃球). Retrieved on 2008, Dec. 20 on bulletin board “rosachien” of bbs://bbs.ptt.cc.. 3. Posted with the ID, themiracle, on 2004, Aug. 12. Why isn’t the women basketball included in the Olympic broadcasting schedule? (奧運專播節目表為什麼沒有女籃). Retrieved on 2008, Dec. 20 on bulletin board “G-Basketbal” of bbs://bbs.ptt.cc.. 2.

(13) over-feminized and less powerful, either physically or mentally (Hardin & Whiteside, 2008). For example, there seems to be more women sports coverage of tennis and gymnastics, emphasizing the glamour and grace of these sports. There are also a handful of studies examining media coverage of women sports in the Olympic Games, all indicating a problem of gendered presentation of female athletes (e.g., Daddario, 1994; Roedl, 2007). 1.2 Significance of Study In Taiwan, there are few studies on the media coverage of women sports, with only two master theses found (i.e., 洪嘉蔆, 2003; 連思晨, 2008). The former. 治政 studied the newspaper news on various biliards events 大 in Taiwan with the findings 立 that the gendered stereotype in media representation for female athletes marginalizes ‧ 國. 學. and trivializes their performance in sports. The latter studied television coverage of. ‧. women basketball and found out that gender disproportion exists in the Taiwan sport. sit. y. Nat. programs. The current study is aimed to more closely examine the gendered coverage. io. er. for basketball in Taiwan’s newspapers, which have been suggested to play a more influential role in setting media or public agenda than television (Benton & Frazier,. al. n. iv n C 1976; King 1994). More specifically, study examined the coverage of h ethenpresent gchi U. Taiwan’s national women and men basketball teams in the Jones Cup in the past three years. The Jones Cup is the international basketball tournaments held annually in Taiwan since 1977 for both the male and the female players. Newspaper coverage of the Jones Cup from 2007-2009 was content analyzed, along with in-depth interviews with the reporters of the coded articles. The results not only revealed the differences between media coverage of men and women’s basketball games in Taiwan, but also provided examples of better and fairer coverage of women basketball games based on the reporting patterns and styles identified. These examples may serve as references or models for the reporters who 3.

(14) wish to improve their reporting on women sports. In addition to the content analysis of newspaper coverage, interviews with reporters were also conducted. The interviewers not only helped understand why the gender disparity existed, but also helped identify potential ways to improve gendered presentation of female athletes as a result of a better understanding of the editorial process. In short, the purposes of the current study provides and offers practical suggestions of how to fairly report women basketball games and other women sports.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 4. i Un. v.

(15) 2. Literature Review The media coverage of women sports has received attention among communication scholars. The relevant discussions can be organized into three main areas as follows: (1) the social meaning of mediated sports, (2) gender differences in news coverage of sports, and (3) newsroom operation and gendered news.. 2.1 Social Meaning of Mediated Sports 2.1.1 Sports Fields as Miniature Society. 政治大. Many people consider sports as one kind of entertainment, but sports are more. 立. than just that. Through games and races, people not only learn the rules of sports, but. ‧ 國. 學. are also instilled with social rules, the values and concepts that are implanted in sports. Many scholars have stated that sports are the socialized mechanism embedded with. ‧. ideology, which allows the public to receive the values and standards expressed. y. Nat. sit. through sports unconsciously (Hargreaves, 1982; Real, 1975; Wenner, 1989). Lipsky. n. al. er. io. (1981) even regards sports as the dramatic life-world where social values are. i Un. v. enhanced and developed. As the miniature of the real society, sports can serves as the. Ch. engchi. mirror of the society and reflect the social circumstances (黃雅惠, 2003). Under this premise, it is easy to discover the presence of gender inequality, one of the most commonly discussed and analyzed phenomena in the social science studies, to be reflected in the miniature of the real world –sports fields. Therefore, the gender issue discussed widely in the sociological field is also worth studying in the sports field, the critical site for the construction and maintenance of gender identity. In a biological point of view, men and women were born to be different. However, gender differences are not only naturally formed, but are also reaffirmed, enhanced and built through the socialized process. In the sports field, the acclamation 5.

(16) for achievements of male athletes indicates the cultural message of dominance by powerful male athletes, and thus reinforcing gender ideology (Weiller, Higgs & Greenleaf, 2004). Men’s sports activities, featuring masculine virility, power, toughness etc., construct masculinity and represent the power of sports to shape male gender identity (Katzs, 1996). On the contrary, for the female, and even though there is research stating that women sports have progressed and are considered important (Gibbon, 2003), female athletes are overall ignored and undervalued. Women are discouraged from participating in more aggressive sports, and are encouraged to participate in sports. 治政 “appropriate” for them, which are usually graceful and大 aesthetically pleasing. In 立 Hardin and Whiteside’s research (2008), the sports are generally categorized as ‧ 國. 學. feminine or masculine based on the level of contact and aesthetic elements. Some. ‧. scholars see the problem of gender disproportion in sports in a more serious and. sit. y. Nat. extensive way by stating that the sports culture has arbitrarily and habitually long. io. er. been the male’s culture with the female as the audience, which leads to the stereotype that the female is innately inferior to the male (Coakley, 1977; 張孝銘, 1998; 黃郁. al. n. iv n C 婷, 2005). With the sports embedded with stereotypedUand imbalanced hierarchy for he ngchi both gender, the concept of male-dominance in the real world is brought into the sports field, and is further strengthened and developed. 2.1.2 Media as Magnifier for Social Values Dated from the 1990s, a decade after the first sports news in 1733, studies have shown that sports news hold significant status in newspaper reporting. In Laster’s 1988 research, the sports news accounts for 21% of the front news in USA Today, ranking first among all kinds of news. In 1992, after its 102-year history, even The. Wall Street Journal, the newspaper known for its financial specialty, published a daily sports page during the 1992 Winter and Summer Olympics (Donaton, 1992). In 6.

(17) Taiwan, sports news has proven its significance in newspapers as well. Chen pointed out that main newspapers in Taiwan include specialized pages for sports news. Sales for China Times Express even increased by 10% after the establishment of the specialized column for professional baseball (陳芸英, 1994). According to the research, more than 20.2% of people read the sports news in newspaper frequently and sports news has occupied regular pages and amounts, indicating that people have a certain level of need for sports news (胡幼偉, 1999). With the help of advanced media, the time and space limits are lifted and sports news has penetrated into our daily life quietly, yet profoundly. According to USA. 治政 Today, the television broadcasting time for the Summer 大Olympics was estimated to 立 reach 171.5 hours by 2000, with the increase of ten times from the merely 15 hours ‧ 國. 學. back in 1960. The broadcasting rights cost US$ 4,169,096 per hour by 2000, growing. ‧. hundreds of times from US$36,667 at the very beginning (1996, 3E). For the recent. sit. y. Nat. 2008 Beijing Olympics, the value of TV broadcasting right has been in argument with. io. er. various statistics and measurements. Some estimate the broadcasting right as US$800 million (香港文匯報, 2007), while the scholar, Lin, offers another figure of. al. n. iv n C US$1,714.7 million (林永富, 2004). which figure is the most correct one, it hNo e nmatter gchi U all points to the fact that the broadcasting and news coverage for the sports have. become the new focus for various forms of media and it is obvious that sports have penetrated into our life for the mass public and develop its influence. In addition to the basic functions of entertainment and education, many scholars have agreed that the media contain the function of socialization as the mirror to present the society as a whole by providing images and information, and thus reflecting, transmitting, and continuing the cultural values and social norms (Cohen, 1963; Laswell, 1948; Lippman, 1922; McQuail, 1983; 李慈梅, 2003; 侯致遠, 1991). However, more scholars believe that the media can do more than just being the 7.

(18) passive channel of transmission and informing. With the ability to broadcast the values to people they can reach through controlling the mediated sports content as a vehicle, the media is able to reinforce the cognition, beliefs, cultural values, stereotypes, and attitudes suffused in the world. Moreover, it is also capable of constructing values and producing ideology with its own version of interpretation, thus making audience enforce the judgment for the values embedded in the mediated sports, e.g. heroism and male-dominance in the sports field (Dominick, 1990; McQuail, 1983; McPherson, Curtis, & Log, 1989; Tuchman, 1978).. 治政 Hargreaves (1982) asserted that though the media context 大 cannot control the 立 audience’s thoughts directly, it is actually potential to create and frame the issues to ‧ 國. 學. enforce its interpretation. Other scholars also agree that the media hold the power to. ‧. choose how to feature athletes and the narrative to highlight their performances, thus. sit. y. Nat. shaping popular beliefs, attitudes and values, and constructing a sense of reality (Lee,. io. er. 1992; Weiller et al., 2004). It is this interpretive power of media which influences the audience’s reception. Thus, Weiller et al. (2004, p.14) state that, “By emphasizing. al. n. iv n C certain facets of female participation while ignoring others, sports media h inesports, ngchi U. effectively shape public agenda and influence the public’s judgement about the world of sport.” With this regards, this research is aimed to examine whether the media exercise their power in influencing the values in the sports news in newspaper by reinforcing conceptions of sexual difference in Taiwan.. 8.

(19) 2.2 Gender Differences in News Coverage of Sports According to nearly all the related literature, female athletes are less emphasized in media coverage than male athletes, no matter in newspapers or televised programs, in quantity or quality. The following paragraphs are aimed to examine the female image presented in the mediated sports content in the past research from three angles: (1) the amount of news coverage, (2) visual and editorial elements in sports news, and (3) values embedded in gendered sports news. 2.2.1 Amount of News Coverage The research on the image of female athletes in the media has been conducted. 治政 since 1980s. The amount of the coverage has been the 大 focus of the research at this 立 beginning stage. Sports Illustrated was included and examined in many longitudinal ‧ 國. 學. studies, e.g., Lumpkin & Williams in 1991. In Soley and Reid’s 1979 study, it is also. ‧. proven that the female athletes are underemphasized with the text coverage. sit. y. Nat. accounting for 3.2% only. At the end of 20th century, many scholars studied the. io. er. presentation of female athletes in sports news and concluded that there was rather less coverage of women’s sports in comparison with men’s sports (Crossman et al., 1994;. al. n. iv n C Duncan & Messner, 1994; Lee, 1992; 1997). In the research for NCAA’s h eTuggle, ngchi U. Finals Four in 1991 conducted by the Amateur Athletic Foundation, the ratio for male and female news coverage is 23:1. Duncan & Messner (1994) even found that only five percent of the time was devoted to female athletes for the 126 local newscasts in Los Angeles. In Tuggle’s study in1997 on Sports Center of ESPN and Sports Tonite of CNN, the coverage on women sports takes up less than 5%. With the advanced technology and the trend of globalization in the 21st century, it is believed that the sports news coverage of women athletes should also increase with its surging number of sports fans. However, according to Media Report to Women (2007, p. 1), research about newspaper sports sections indicate that news 9.

(20) about women sports takes up only about 8% of newspaper sports sections. It is disappointing that when data show women sports fans are surging in number (Gibbon, 2003), women sports are still confined in the small portion of the total coverage and far fewer column inches than men sports (Whisenant & Pedersen, 2004; 連思晨, 2008). Overall, from the results dated from 1980s to the recent research, it is evident that the growth of the female athlete coverage is slow. A more recent research also confirmed the gender difference in quantity of representation in broadcasting for NCAA games in 2000. In Billings, Halone & Denham’s research in 2002, the results revealed that there were more lines of. 治政 broadcast commentary for the men’s games than the women’s 大 games. In the most 立 recent research on gender differences of media coverage for 2006 NCAA games (Kain, ‧ 國. 學. Mondello & Vincent, 2009), Internet sport journalism was examined. There were. sit. y. Nat. men’s basketball took up 72% of the entire population.. ‧. significant quantitative differences on media coverage with the fact that the articles on. io. er. In addition, it deserves attention that this imbalanced coverage between male and female athletes is a universal situaion, with the research in West Germany (Klein,. al. n. iv n C 1988), Australia (Bryson, 1994; McKay 1987), Canada (Crossman, Hyslop, h e n& gRowe, chi U & Guthrie, 1994), England (Hargreaves, 1994), Sweden (Koivula, 1999), Taiwan (洪. 嘉凌, 2003; 連思晨, 2008). With the small quantity and the partial selection of sports, the news for the female athletes are neither comprehensive nor fair in the aspects of amount and content. Though most past research has shown dissatifaction with the amount of sports news for the female athletes, some recent studies have been conducted to prove that the quantity of the news have been improved, accepted, or even desirable (Cunningham, 2003; Roedl, 2007). A study of Media Report to Women (2002, p.7) found that Sports Illustrated offered “representative coverage of female and minority 10.

(21) athletes” for the Summer Olympics. Hardin, Chance, Dodd, and Hardin (2002) also approved that the number of female athletes’ photos in the 2000 Olympics is fair and that the female athletes were depicted in a realistic way. In another research, Hardin, Dodd, and Chance (2005) examined the magazine for running and pointed out that equitable coverage of women was provided. However, though the quantity of the coverage has been identified to be improved, the quality of the news reamins another dispute in the presentation of female athletes in media. 2.2.2 Visual and Editorial Elements In sports news, many techniques in broadcasting or editing, including the. 治政 application of camera, the supplement of game-related大 information and etc., influence 立 the quality of technical production of the sports news; the better the techniques, the ‧ 國. 學. better the technical quality of the news. For the technical quality study on the sports. ‧. media coverage, research or studies show that the reporting quality for men sports is. sit. y. Nat. much better than the women sports in televised broadcast. In the 1998 conference held. io. er. by Women, Men and Media, where journalists, sports information directors, athletes and academics were brought to discuss the state of news coverage of women in sports,. al. n. iv n C Monica Heppel clearly pointed out h that the technical approach used in covering engchi U. women’s sports events is less dazzling in comparison with that in covering men’s sports events. The excitement and uncertainty are the attractions for the audience, which will bring better profits for the games (Real, 1975; Wenner and Gantz, 1998). Without the better technological application for the broadcasting for female sports to enhance the excitement of the games, the attractions for audience are lost, leading to low financial interest for the low audience’s interest, and the vicious circle thus forms, impeding the promotion for women sports. Many detailed studies were conducted based on Duncan and Messner’s study (1998) about the four techniques for the media to represent athletes’ gender: 11.

(22) production, athletic attributions, formulae of exclusion, and symbolic dominance. For production, it is further categorized into three aspects, with “the amount of coverage” mentioned previously in this study and “technical quality” and “intentional audience building” to be elaborated in the following paragraph. From the “technical quality” aspect, studies show that the reporting quality for men’s sports is far more superior to women’s sports. Shenker and Armstrong (1990) found that the camera angles for female games were fewer and dull, failing to offer visual stimuli for the audience. The analysis of television broadcasting for NCAA’s Final Four in 1990 and 1993 also indicates that better techniques – including the. 治政 camera angle, the planning and structure of the program 大and the audio application – 立 are applied for men’s than for women’s games. With more slow-motion replay and ‧ 國. 學. detailed statistics presented on the screen in the men’s games, the quality of the games. ‧. is elevated, thus constructing the value for the audience that men’s games are more. sit. y. Nat. enjoyable (Duncan & Messner, 1998). On the contrary, the plain and indazzaling. io. er. techniques applied in the womens’ games lower the audience’s interest, thus resulting in the lack of capital investment for better techniques and creating the vicious circle. al. n. iv n C which dampens the development and promotion of women’s sports. he ngchi U. With “intentional audience building” in representing athletes’ gender, the media. not only transmit information through news, but also frame the information by choosing and recomposing the sports information in order to offer the audience the specific meaning and context that the media try to convey. Duncan & Messer (1998) found that the men’s games were promoted before the 1990 and 1993 NCAA Men’s Final Four with advertising in TV or print media, publicity activities, interviews with the players, replay of the regular series of games, etc. in order to attract audience. However, there was no promotional plan made for womens’ games, indicating the neglect of womens’ sports. In addition, the women’s games were scheduled earlier 12.

(23) before, serving as the overture for the coming men’s champion matches. In the timeout period of the women’s final match in 1993, the commentators even put their emphasis on the coming men’s game (Hallmark & Armstrong, 1999). With the unequal techniques in dealing with men’s and women’s games, it is undoubtful that the audience would consider men’s games as more important and exciting than the women’s. Based on past research, the production process of the news with gender inequity tend to frame sports and feature females sports as less deserving of coverage than males sports with the scant amount, lower technique, and less attentional building for. 治政 the audience. The current study is aimed to examine whether 大 these kinds of 立 approaches appear in the Taiwan sports news, create concrete differences, and have ‧ 國. 學. impact on gendered news for male and female athletes. In addition, the current study. ‧. is aimed to define “good coverage” with good reporting content and without gendered. sit. y. Nat. bias in order to offer the model for sports news reporters in Taiwan.. io. er. RQ1: How are women and men basketball games presented in newspaper (i.e., in terms of the amount of coverage, visual and other editorial elements)?. n. al. ni C h News 2.2.3 Values Embedded in Gendered U engchi. v. Within the limited media coverage on women sports, there are great parts of. lopsided, stereotypical contexts including the reinforced stereotype portraying female athletes as over-feminized and not strong enough, either physically or mentally, to deal with success and failure on the playing field, or to emphasize the glamor and grace of sports such as tennis and gymnastics. Many studies on media coverage of women in Olympic Games, from Daddario in 1997 to Roedl in 2007, indicate that the problem of gendered presentation of female athletes still exist. In 2004, Weiller et al. asserted that real parity in narrative presentation was not achieved in these Olympic Games. By 2007, the content analysis for the front pages of 50 U.S. newspapers on 13.

(24) the gender portrayals of Olympic athletes in 2006 Winter Olympics still specifies the disappointing truth that the problem of stereotypical gender representations is still present (Roedl, 2007). Within this stereotypical representation of gender, certain gendered values are emphasized in the gendered news in mediated sports. Many scholars consider that gender differences are socially constructed and state that the sports, the battle field for ideological competition between the two genders, have long maintained and preserved the gender ideology (Hardin & Whiteside, 2008; Messner, 1988; Weiller et al., 2004; 連思晨, 2008). There has been the cutural warning sign in the sports field implicating. 治政 that women should not participate in sports while highlighting 大 the masculinity of the 立 male athletes in the sports field, presenting male-dominance and prejudice on female. ‧ 國. 學. Most recent research on the female representation in mediated sports is not. ‧. aimed to examine whether the female athletes are misrepresented or underrepresented;. sit. y. Nat. instead, it is the embedded value in the contexts that has become the focus to be. io. stereotype, attribution, and symbolic dominance.. al. iv n C Stereotype is thehover-simplified, inflexible and over-analogized engchi U n. Stereotype. er. discovered. The commonly studied gendered values in mediated sports include. point of view that the mass hold for a certain group of people (洪萬生, 2003). When it is applied to the geneder issue, the gendered stereotype thus occurs. It is widely believed that the expected roles for different genders, defined by the social and cultural rules, are the standard for both genders to abide by for their behaviors, attitude, and characteristics that they are bestowed. Some scholars conducted research to examine what characteristics are considered as femine and what are considered musculine (Auster & Ohm, 2000;李美枝, 1984; 劉秀娟, 1997). The results show that most characteristics for men are mostly instrumental and related to task-accomplishing with men usually described as ambitious, leader-like, competitive, 14.

(25) determined, independent, decisive, dominant etc., while those for women are mainly expressive and related to interpersonal relationship with women mostly described as careful, friendly, ameable, graceful, emotional, affectionate etc. (李美枝, 1984). When observing the media coverage for female athletes, we can easily discover this kind of gendered stereotype brought to the sports field. Among the dearth of the female coverage in media, the researchers found another fact that except for the sports deemed as feminine, appropriate and socially acceptable in nature for women, women sports overall are still not the top priority for the media. Therefore, for the women participating in sports involving power or high level of body contact, substantial. 治政 media coverage is never the outcome that will happen 大 to them. In Kane’s 1988 study, 立 she indicated that the amount of coverage for female athlete has elevated, but only for ‧ 國. 學. sex-appropriate sports. Later on in other studies, the result has been verified that the. ‧. soft sports like gymnastics, swimming, tennis, golf etc. which emphasiz more on. sit. y. Nat. athletes’ appearance, aesthetic and elegant body, are more likely to be reported in. io. er. comparison with other male sports with high level of body contact (Leath & Lumpkin, 1992; Pedersen, 2003; Rintala & Birrel, 1984; Tuggle, 1997; Tuggle et al., 2002).. al. n. iv n C Some studies on the photographs news are also concluded with the h einnsports gchi U. similar results that the feminime characteristics of female athletes tend to be shown in the sports news easily. Two studies both found that female athletes were usually represented in still pose in photographs, rather than in competitive or moving motion (Rintala & Birrel, 1984; Leath & Lumplin, 1992). Ducan (1990) pointed out that the angle of the photograph often positioned the female at a lower place than the male, indicating inferiority of women to men. With the presentation of stereotypical feminime characteristics of female athletes, gender difference is further magnified and extended. With the above stated gendered stereotype, the patriarchal male sport model is 15.

(26) reinforced and legitimized as normative. Pirinen (1997) considers that in sports media, marginalization, one of the three kinds of gender discourses, maintains the exisitence of hegemonic masculinity and standardizes women’s behaviors and values, so as to control the society. According to Billings (2000), only eight female athletes were included in the Top 100 Greatest Athletes by ESPN. Female athletes in sports history is marginalized and neaerly rejected and deprived of the status in sports. For the underrepresented and misrepresented image of female athletes discovered in the previous research, Tuchman (1978) described it as annihilation of symbols for women by the mass media, discriminating the female and endangering the social development. 治政 because there is no positive image for the female to be大 serve as model for their 立 behaviors and thinking. ‧ 國. 學. Attribution. In Duncan & Messner’s 1998 study, they examined attributions. ‧. which are most commonly used for description of athletes, including ambivalence and. sit. y. Nat. successes and failures attribution. They indicate that the media tend to describe the. io. er. male and female athletes with differenct approaches and thus enhance the gender differences. Ambivalence is the strategy that attributions with suggestions of strength. al. n. iv n C and weakness are both presented and provided with both the positive and negative he ngchi U. view of an athlete’s performance, thus trivializing the performance of the athletes to be described. According to Higgs, Weiller, and Martin (2003), commentary in both 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games contains ambivalent language for presenting female athletes, implying their powerlessness and fragility. The strategy of attributions is also applied to describe the achievement and sport ability in the media coverage to imply the gender ideology. The success of the male athletes tend to be attributed to talnet, power, speed, physique, adventrous spirit and other men-natured capibility, while the success of female athletes may be attributed to luck, cooperation and the support from the family other than talent, hard-work and 16.

(27) intellignece (Daddario, 1994; Duncan & Messner,1998; Halbert & Latimer, 1994; Hillad, 1994). In addition, when failures occur, the male athletes are seldom to be blamed and the failure is attributed to the opponent’s capability, while the female atheltes are described with the stereotype that they are too nervous, emotional, or incapable, implying their weakness and insignificance in the male-dominant sports field (洪嘉蔆, 2003; 連思晨, 2008; 黃雅欣, 2005). Another strategy called formulae of exclusion can be seen as the discourse that functions to maintain certain dominance by constructing some and separating the others to maintain inner order (Foucault, 1972). In Duncan and Messner’ study on. 治政 NCAA televised broadcasting (1998), formulae of exclusion 大 occurred when the 立 commentator emphasized on the turnovers made by female athletes and indicated that ‧ 國. 學. the turnovers seldom occur in comparison to the male’s games, implying that the male. ‧. athletes are superior and the female athletes are inferior with the contrast. Symbolic dominance refers to the way the media. sit. y. Nat. Symbolic Dominance. io. er. construct difference with symbols (Duncan & Messner, 1998). By stressing the gender difference, the media present “men as the standard” and women as the. al. n. iv n C non-standard, and position “men ashdominant, womenU e n g c h i as subordinate”. The detailed study for symbolic dominance is divided into several types: gender marking (Higgs and Weiller, 1994; Messner et al., 1993; Weiller et al., 2004; 連思晨, 2008), infantilization/ hierarchies of naming (Blinde et al., 1991; Daddario, 1994; Halbert and Latimer, 1994; Higgs and Weiller, 1994; Messner et al., 1993), and sexualization (Duncan & Messner, 1998; 洪嘉蔆, 2003; 黃雅欣, 2005). With symbolic dominance, it is evident that the mediated sports are embedded with gender discrimination, which is based on gendered stereotype and transformed into specific prejudice through direct negation and unfair language. The use of gender marking in sports news or broadcasting has been proven in 17.

(28) many studies (Higgs & Weiller, 1994; Messner et al., 1993; Weiller et al., 2004; 連思晨, 2008). Gender marking occurs when sports are specifically identified or stressed as “male” or “female.” However, there are different levels and presentation of gender marking in different sports. For traditional sports like track and field, and rowing, the gender marking is evident and thus separates the two genders. For sports regarded as appropriate for the female, like gymnastics, male athletes were gender marked more than the female (Weiller et al., 2004). For the sports considered commonly with serious gendered discrimination, like basketball or tennis, the imbalanced gender marking was found to separate the two genders.. 治政 Gender hierarchy, one of the phenomona in the gendered 大 society, refers to the 立 fact that men and women are categorized into difference social hierarchy with ‧ 國. 學. male-dominance, ranking men higher then women, forming the unequal status for the. ‧. two genders (黃郁婷, 2005). Sports with the emphasis on physique, power, and. sit. y. Nat. masculinity, with the function of gendered stereotype and male-dominance in media,. io. er. further accelerate the outcome of gendered hierarchy in sports, enforcing the value of “men are superior and women are inferior.” For Duncan and Messner (1998), the. al. n. iv n C infantilization, or hierarchy of naming, female and male athletes serves as one of h efor ngchi U the proofs for the above mentioned value, which maintains the hegemony of. male-dominance. In their study, they found that female athletes were called “girls,” “young ladies,” or even “babe” whichi labels women as “child-like,” and in contrast, labele men as “adults” (Duncan & Messner, 1998, p.180). By 2004, the situation has not been improved, Weiller et al. found hierarchy of naming from the commentators was still present in track and field and gymnastics, which infantilizes women and presumes a lesser status than male athletes. In Hong’s study about the representation of billiard athletes, hierarchy of naming is also present in Taiwan during broadcasting by the commentators and the mass media (洪嘉蔆, 2003). 18.

(29) Another situation in mediated sports which shows gendered hierarchy is “male-female comparison” in which the performance of female athletes is compared to that of male athletes in same-sport activities, showing men as the standard and indicating women as the less capable ones. In Weiller et al.’s study in 2004, 74% of the instances they observed with male-female comparison, female athletes are compared to male athletes in the same sports. In Lien’s 2008 study for gender disproportion in media for basketball in Taiwan, female basketball players with good performance are often compared to the male players from the commentators in order to show how good they are, implying the value of gender hierarchy with men at the. 治政 top and women at the bottom (連思晨, 2008). 大立 Sexualization empitomizes the image that the media have on female athletes. The ‧ 國. 學. previously-mentioned sex-appropriateness of certain sports can be seen as one form of. ‧. sexualization when the gracefulness and aesthestics are stressed for sports like figure. sit. y. Nat. skating, gymnastics, swimming etc. However, scholars pointed out that commentators. io. er. were very likely to exercise another form of sexualization by commenting on the appearance of female athletes more than male athletes, indicating that the judgment. al. n. iv n C for female athletes tends to be the approval feminine characteristics, physical h e n gofctheir hi U features, and female’s social roles, rather than their sports performance or capability. in order to lower the attention of the performance of female athletes for the audience (Duncan & Messner, 1998; Kane & Parks, 1992; Weiller et al., 2004). More seriously, according to Media Report to Women (2002, p.7), when the appearance of female athletes is overemphasized and presented in “psuedo-sports events” like wrestling or poses in the nude in Playboy magazine, sexualizaion, the biased gendered values, and the image covered in media for female athletes will be deterioated. Contradicted to most of the past research indicating the lack of positive reporting for women sports, Kian, Mondello & Vincent (2009) asserted that female basketball players were 19.

(30) recognized for their “athleticism and skill level” at least as much as male players in media coverage in their study on ESPN Internet and CBS SportsLine of the 2006 NCAA tournaments. Many foreign studies are presented with the revealing fact of the lack of positive reporting for women sports. However, there are few studies regarding to media coverage on woman sports in Taiwan, and even fewer on women basketball. Hong examined the newspaper content and news photographs for Amway WPA Women World 9-Ball Championship and found that media construct the sports with the male athletes as the core and marginalize the female athletes by overemphasizing their. 治政 appearances and ignoring their sports professions(洪嘉大蔆, 2003). Lien studied the 立 televised broadcasting of SBL (Super Basketball League) and WSBL (Women Super ‧ 國. 學. Basketball League) in Taiwan and points out the gender disproportion of the sports. ‧. programs in Taiwan (連思晨, 2008). Yet, the newspaper coverage on women. sit. y. Nat. basketball and the differences of reports between male and female basketball teams. io. er. and players have not been studied before. Based on the previous research, the study is aimed to examine whether the gendered coverage exist in the news for the national. al. n. iv n C women basketball team in Taiwan and to offer suggestion for sports news h ehopefully ngchi U with the better solution for fair reporting for female basketball players in Taiwan.. RQ2: What is the gender ideology embedded in the media coverage of men and women basketball games in Taiwan?. 20.

(31) 2.3 Influence of Newsroom Operation on Gendered Sports News With previous research, it is assumed that gendered coverage is present in sports news. In order to better solve the problem of unequal coverage for men and women in sports news and to provide suggestion, it is necessary to understand the influence of newsroom operation in sports news. The following literature review is divided into two aspects: (1) gate-keeping and (2) newsroom operation. 2.3.1 Media as Gate-Keepers Due to the limits of distance and time, many sports watchers are not able to view the sports live at scene; instead, they rely on the news media as the channel to watch. 治政 and understand the games indirectly. The information presented 大 by the news media, 立 which influences the audience greatly, is the result of gate-keeping process in media ‧ 國. 學. (許智惠, 2003). Gate-keeping theory emphasizes the key role of the media as the. ‧. gate-keeper because the media gate-keeper hold the decisive power of what to report,. sit. y. Nat. how to report, when to report, and whom the reporting is resorted to (Cutlip, Center,. io. er. & Broom, 2000). Media, as the magnifier and filter, decide which news information is to be presented to the mass through the process of gate-keeping, construct media. al. n. iv n C reality, and influence cognition for h the public, not only e n g c h i Ucontrolling the transmission of. information, but also the social mind (臧國仁, 1998). The gate-keeping study includes three levels: the individual, the organization, and the social system (Hirsch, 1977; Shoemaker, 1991). The current study is aimed to examine in the three levels by interviewing news reporters to see if the representation of sports news in influenced by the individual level, such as reporters’ gender, background, experience, attitude, working roles etc., and the organization level, such as the operation form, policy and system, regular norms and procedure, power operation among sections etc. Through the processing in the newsroom with specific selection and preference, such as the placement priority in news pages, the different angles of camera, 21.

(32) commentary, and the dimension of the content, the news media influence understanding of the news for the public and agenda-setting is thus achieved. The media present the news with coverage of the significance of the issues to the public and elevating the significance of certain issue (Wanta, 1997), teach the audience to learn the news from the angle that the media frame (翁秀琪, 1992), and tell people what to think about, though not be able to tell people how to think (Cohen, 1963). With sports news coverage in press media or broadcasting as the main channel for the sports watchers, gate-keeping and agenda-setting process and deeply influences the perception of the audience and the embedded values that are discussed above in. 治政 this study is further enhanced and extended. Weiller et大 al. (2004) studied media 立 coverage of women in sport particularly for the All American Girls Professional ‧ 國. 學. Baseball League and pointed out that sports media do influence people’s perception in. ‧. participation in sports by emphasizing certain facets of female participation in sports,. sit. y. Nat. while ignoring others, influencing people’s judgment about sports. Eastman and. io. er. Billings (2000) also affirm the ability of media in constructing people’s perception with the repeated words of sportscasters.. n. al. 2.3.2 Newsroom Operation. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. Newsroom operation is the critical link to the news production and the influence of the news. As mentioned earlier, the current study is aimed to examine the three levels of gate-keeping study: the individual level and the organization level. For the individual level, reporters’ gender is the main concern for this study in coverage for female athletes for the reason that liberal feminists generally believe the underrepresented and misrepresented image of female athletes can be improved through having more female staff in newsroom (倪炎元, 2003). The influences of the gender of reporters on media coverage were identified. Craft & Wanta (2004) stated that, with women in managerial positions in the media 22.

(33) industry, good influence tended to be imposed while positive news reporting was encouraged more, and the female reporters were tended to be treat equally with their male colleagues. In Billings, Halone & Denham’s 2002 study, significant differences of the reporters’ genders were found in that male commentators focused more on “physicality” and “athleticism” in their comments while female commentators focused more on the topics of “personality,” and “looks and appearance,” suggesting that, surprisingly, it was the female sportscasters who would employ more gendered descriptors with gendered stereotypes for female athletes. With the interviews of the focus group for female reporters of newspapers,. 治政 Hardin & Shain (2005) also indicated the need to emphasize 大 the retention of women 立 in sports departments. However, in the research (Hardin & Shain, 2005), although the ‧ 國. 學. respondents believed that women had got better opportunities than ever, there were. ‧. more challenges and frustration for female journalists with on-the-job discrimination. sit. y. Nat. while 72% of the respondents considered giving up their careers.. io. er. According to the previous study, the ratio for the male and female sports reports in Taiwan is 4:1, which is not balanced and can not serve as the representative for the. al. n. iv n C overall population (林幼萍, 1999). h A series of research e n g c h i Uwas revealed by Media Report to Women on Associated Press Sports Editors, APSE, covering more than 300 AP. newspapers. In the results in 2006, women made up only 12.6% of total staffs, and within which there is less than 7% of columnists and support staff/ clerks takes up the most in diverse job categories with 24%. By 2008, there is no improvement in gender hiring practices and APSE was ranked with the grade of “F” with the low hiring of female in positions of various job categories, including sports editor (10%), columnist (7%), reporter (9%), copy editor/ designer (16%). In addition, about 75% of reporters in the survey agreed that their sports departments did not reach reasonable gender diversity. After understanding the power of the news media in controlling and framing 23.

(34) the information to the public, it is disappointing and terrifying to find that the gender disproportion rooted in the newsroom is in such serious imbalance. However, there is research indicating that there was no association between the gender of the newspaper staff and the amount of coverage for female and male interscholastic athletes for the fact that female newspaper personnel, like their male colleagues, fail to well-represent coverage of female athletes as well, which leads to the study for the next level which influences the news production in the newsroom – the news media organization (Pedersen, 2003). The scholar studied various kinds of power which control the produced content of newspaper with interviews of news. 治政 reporters and case study analysis, and found that social大 control of newsroom operation 立 is commonly present among newspapers (蘇善村, 1995). Not only the news reports ‧ 國. 學. contribute to the outcome of the final drafts of news, the higher level such as editors. ‧. or directors serve as the critical link with most power in hand. It is obvious that there. sit. y. Nat. is the greater power beyond reporters influencing the final framing of the news. With. io. er. interviews for the Taiwan newspaper reporters and editors, the current study is aimed to discover the power controlling the production and framing of the news within the. n. al. newsroom.. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. RQ3: What are the factors in the production process that may contribute to gendered sports news?. In addition to identify the factors contributing to gendered sports news, with the problem-solving orientation, the purposes of the current study also include to offer practical suggestions of how to fairly report women basketball games and other women sports. RQ4: What improvement can be made during the news production for the news staff to more fairly report women basketball? 24.

(35) 3. Methodology Two methods were employed in the current study, including content analysis and depth-interviews. The content analysis was conducted in order to address the first two research questions by examining how the gendered news is presented in sports news in Taiwan; in addition, gendered news coverage was identified as poor examples of reporting, and fair coverage was identified as examples for better journalistic writing. Depth interviews were conducted with sports reporters and editors to address the third and fourth research questions by understanding the production process of gendered. 政治大 solutions to avoid gendered reporting of sports news. 立. news, which shed lights on the contributing factors and offer insights for possible. ‧ 國. 學. 3.1 Content Analysis. ‧. 3.1.1 Samples. sit. y. Nat. Sports news articles in Taiwan’s main newspapers were selected. According to. n. al. er. io. scholars like Benton and Frazier (1976) and King (1994), newspaper is equipped with. i Un. v. the stronger effect for agenda-setting in comparison with the television broadcasting. Ch. engchi. and newspaper provides more steady news sources and detailed information. In addition, being bestowed with the value of educating the public and promoting social values to the mass, newspaper is expected to be more balanced in the amount of the sports news for both females and males without fewer commercial interests and more a sense of mission in educating the public. Thus, with the more balanced amount of the coverage for female and male, we can focus more on the content and the values embedded in sports news on a fair basis. Moreover, newspaper, with the mission in educating the public, the ability of loading more information, and the power in framing issues, is expected to be the starting point for the breakthrough of female. 25.

(36) athletes and to develop ripple effects so as the visibility in another form of media can be elevated. The three newspapers, Apple Daily, Liberty Times, and United Daily, were chosen because of the high circulation. As the three main newspapers in Taiwan, the great influence they have on the population that they reach is the main reason to be chosen as the sampling subject. The newspaper especially for sports news is excluded for the fact that the sports newspaper only influences those who are specifically interested in sports, which is a rather smaller readers group. However, the study is aimed to research the general influence of gender representation of the newspaper on the. 治政 general public. Thus, the three newspapers with larger 大 circulation and general 立 influence on more population are chosen as the sampling subject. ‧ 國. 學. The census was conducted during the timeframe of 2007-2009. The collected. ‧. data include the news stories in the newspapers during the game period, in addition to. sit. y. Nat. one week before and one week after the game period each year; that is, from one. io. er. week before the game period to one week day after the game period. See Appendix 1 for the sampling timeframe.. al. n. iv n C There is difference in the number for men’s and women’s basketball. h eof ngames gchi U. The total number of the games during 2007 to 2009 for men’s basketball is 117 while that for women’s basketball is 41, in a ratio of 2.85 (117:41); the total number of the games specifically played by the Chinese Taipei National Men’s Basketball Team is 33 in the past three years, while the Women’s Basketball Team have played 21 games, in a ratio of 1.58 (33:21) (see Table 1). Thus, the ratio of 1.58 will serve as the index to examine whether the proportion of news coverage for male and female players of Chinese Taipei National Team is about equal in the amount. The content analysis was conducted with the consensus of the news coverage related to the Jones Cup. That is, all the news coverage regarding to the Jones Cup 26.

(37) during the above-mentioned timeframe in the three selected newspapers was sampled.. Table 1. The Number of Games of the Jones Cup Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball During 2007 to 2009. 2007. 2008. 2009. Total. Men’s. 36. 36. 45. 117. Women’s. 21. 10. 10. 41. Men’s. 9. 9. 15. 33. 5. 5. 21. 學. 75. 212. Total Number of The Games Number of The Games Played by The. 政治大 Women’s 11 立. Chinese Taipei. ‧ 國. National Team(s) Total. 77. 60. ‧ y. Nat. 3.1.2 Coding Categories. er. io. sit. The categories for the content analysis were developed based on the previous literature and research results on the news coverage, the images of different genders in. al. n. iv n C news coverage, and other related topics. Taiwanese scholars’ researches are h e nMany gchi U referenced to take the current circumstances of news covering in Taiwan into. consideration (李淑玲, 1993; 邱金松, 1998; 侯致遠, 1991 ; 施致平, 1992; 廖清海, 1996). The categories are divided into two major parts: (1) the general information of the news reports, including the basic information, use of photographs and tables and (2) the gendered coverage indicators, including description of players’ features, attribution, and symbol dominance. See Appendix 2 for detailed coding categories.. 27.

(38) General Information Basic Information General information of news is recorded, including the headline, date, size, section, placement, and subject gender. The size and the section and placement of the news reports serve as the indicators for the reference of emphasis on the report. The subject gender of the news reports was the major independent variable which resulted in the expected existence of gendered coverage of news reports. Story type is divided into the straight news, the feature story, and. Story Type. the commentary. Straight news refers to the news which is the routine reports with the. 治政 function of informing readers for the games. The feature 大story refers to the news 立 which is purposefully designed for the readers to have more knowledge about the ‧ 國. 學. sports, the teams, the players, or other related information other than the games. With. ‧. the emphasis on news reports, the sampling that was categorized as the commentary. y. sit. io. Main Content. er. in newspaper.. Nat. was not further coded, but only served as a reference for the amount of the coverage. Main content is divided into two parts: directly related to the. al. n. iv n C game and irrelevant to the game. The directly related to the game includes h ecategory ngchi U the content with anything related or happening in the basketball court during the. games, such as game report, records, game forecast, commentary for the game, team performance, or player performance. The category irrelevant to the game includes the content with anything unrelated to the games or happening out side the basketball court during the games, such as technical analysis, player feature story, promotion for the game, personnel, or other issues irrelevant to the games. When there are more than one main contents related in the news reports, the first that appears in the article is considered as the main content of the news report.. 28.

(39) The source of the information used in the sports news can also serve as the index to examine the value of the news and present how sports news for different genders are covered in applying different news sources, i.e., coach(s), player(s), critic(s)/ scout(s), fan(s), or others. The tone of the news, i.e., positive, negative, or neutral, will also be identified. Performance emphasis is the other category that is aimed to examine whether the sports news is framed to focus on individual performance or team performance to show the difference between the news covering of the two genders. Photographs. For photograph analysis, the basic measured categories include. 治政 the size and the numbers of people included. The category 大 of the action of the people 立 is divided into active motion and still motion. The category of the angle applied ‧ 國. 學. includes the close up shot, the medium shot, and the long shot to serve as the major. ‧. indicator for the quality of the photograph and the implication for gendered ideology.. sit. y. Nat. Finally, the category of the emphasis of the caption framing is designed to determine. io. Tables. er. whether the appearance or the sports performance of the players is emphasized. The table analysis is divided into three categories: whether there is the. al. n. iv n C table included, the size of the table,hand the content ofU e n g c h i the table. The content of the. table is further divided into options as: team score, personal score, team performance statistics in a single game, personal performance statistics in a single game, team performance statistics in previous games, personal performance statistics in previous. games, and others.. Gendered Coverage Indicators Based on previous research on gendered coverage on female sports news reports (Duncan & Messner, 1998; Eastman & Billings, 1999; 洪嘉凌, 2003; 陳秀娟, 1997; 連思晨, 2008), gendered coverage indicators are the most important measurement for 29.

(40) the quality of the coverage in this study. Three categories include description of players’ features, attribution, and symbol dominance. Description of Players’ Features The category of the description of players’ features is divided into masculine or feminine in order to examine whether gendered stereotypes exist in sports news. Masculine characteristics include those “instrumental” features related to task-accomplishing, such as ambitious, leader-like, competitive, determined, independent, decisive, dominant etc., while feminine characteristics include those which are mainly “expressive” and related to interpersonal relationship, such as careful, friendly, ameable, graceful, emotional, affectionate etc. (李美枝, 1984).. 立. The category of attribution whether the description of. 學. ‧ 國. Attribution. 政治大. ambivalence or the agency for successes and failures of the game existing in the. ‧. reports appears in the sports news. In addition, a category is further designed to. sit. y. Nat. determine the type of the agency of successes and failures, whether the winning or. io. er. lost is attributed to the player’s competence, the opponent’s incompetence, or other uncontrollable factors. The category of formulae of exclusion is for recording the. al. n. iv n C presence of the news reporters for explaining made by the players during the h e n g cmissing hi U game.. Symbol Dominance. Symbol dominance is designed to determine whether. the content of the sports news is embedded with the gendered values with the possible ways as follows, so as to measure the degree of gendered coverage in the sports news: (1) gender marking – specifically identifying sports for men or women and thus stressing the difference of the male and female; (2) infantilization/ hierarchies of naming – ranking men higher then women, forming the unequal status for the two genders; (3) sexualization – emphasizing the appearance or feminine features of the female athletes and thus trivializing their performance in sports. 30.