Sport,gender,and national interest during the Olympics: A comparative analysis of media representations in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

Researchers have documented patterns in sports media coverage across a variety of geographical and media contexts extensively, but relatively few studies focus on the Central and Eastern European region. This study examines the agenda diversity of European public service media in Hungary, Croatia, and Slovenia on their sport-related Facebook accounts during the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. A content analysis identified featured sports, gender balance, and the role of national interest in the events and athletes represented. Sports agenda diversity was driven by the hegemony of men's football and national success at the Olympics. Gender imbalance in media coverage persists in the region even on public service broadcasters’ social media accounts. Women received coverage only when representing the home nation at an Olympic event. The hegemony of men's football is a transnational phenomenon, while Olympic coverage emphasizes sports that share historical associations with national identity. Sports agenda diversity in the three countries is heterogeneous and regionally distinct. In practice, broadcasters might temporarily minimize gender imbalance in Olympic coverage, but in ways that routinizes the national focus. Theoretical developments in agenda setting in coverage of international events should account both for transnational patterns in public service media in the region and local particularities.

Keywords

social media agenda diversity Olympics women's sports national identity

The lack of diversity in sports media coverage globally is evident from decades of sociology of sport and sports media research. In Europe, most routine coverage focuses on men's football (Horky and Nieland, 2013), while women's sports remain on the margins (Bruce, 2016). Social media platforms of legacy media organizations replicate the same patterns by emphasizing a select few men's sports, while dedicating minimal coverage to women's sports and disability sports (Ramon and Rojas-Torrijos, 2021; Rojas-Torrijos and Ramon, 2021). Sports associated with national pride and international success appear prominently during mega-events such as the Olympic Games, World Cups, and European Championships (e.g. Bartoluci and Doupona Topič, 2017; Hayashi et al., 2016; Jakubowska and Ličen, 2019; Ličen and Billings, 2013). Driven by national interest, broadcasters tend to temporarily feature sports that otherwise might not receive coverage, including women's sports (Billings et al., 2018).

We examine European public service broadcasters’ agenda diversity on sport-related social media platforms during the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. In particular, this study focuses on the articulations of sport, gender, and national interest in three countries in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region: Hungary, Croatia, and Slovenia. The lack of diversity in sports media content is a global issue, but representation patterns are influenced by political, social, and technological forces specific to cultural and national contexts (Markula et al. 2010). As Ličen and Billings (2013: 380) argued, media in post-socialist countries present “different issues and challenges than those typically found in western media.” The three countries share regional histories of political transformations, but also differ in terms of language, media systems, and sport priorities (Jakubowska 2022). Writing about Slovenia and Croatia, Bartoluci and Doupona (2020: 492) argued that “sport and sporting success are indicators of social changes” and “serve as an element for understanding a specific post-socialist context.” Further, Molnar and Whigham (2021) argued that in the Hungarian context mass media offer evidence of the connection between sport and politics. Sports media coverage in this region provides insight into the specific social and cultural conditions of transitioning societies in one area of Central and Eastern Europe. The purpose of this study is to expand empirical evidence on agenda diversity in sports media and advance theorizing on the process whereby articulations of sport, gender, and national identity are strengthened and/or weakened.

The findings of this study confirm that sports media reproduce hegemonic articulations of sport through men's football even while the Olympics are happening, while the volume of posts about other sports is connected to national success. Men's sports were the focus of a majority of the posts across all three platforms, illustrating a gender imbalance in coverage. The findings also indicate that the platforms focused primarily on home nation athletes. In Olympic coverage, national interest drives the amount of coverage dedicated to both men's and women's competitions, but these articulations are heterogeneous and reflect sport priorities of each nation. These findings have implications for media practice. If public service broadcasters continue to focus primarily on home athletes, then gender imbalance is interconnected with nationalism. Agenda diversity in sport and gender might perpetuate the lack of diversity in representation of athletes who are not from the home country. The interconnected articulations of gender, sport, and nationality also carry theoretical implications for agenda setting research. While conducting comparative research is challenging, studies on media coverage of international events should account both for transnational patterns and local particularities.

Literature review

Lack of agenda diversity in sports media coverage

The study of agenda diversity in sports media coverage is informed by agenda-setting, a communication framework that explains that media organizations choose to feature specific issues and these decisions tell audiences, not what to think, but what to think about and “how much importance to attach to that issue” (McCombs and Shaw, 1972: 176). Agenda setting is the process whereby media producers’ (e.g. broadcasters’) decisions determine which sports are deemed important (Billings, 2008). The media do not simply reflect values of society, but play an important role in determining which sports, stories, and voices become dominant. As Eagleman et al. (2014: 457) argued, “these agendas can have profound impacts on citizens’ views on topics such as gender, nationality, and the perceived importance of some sports over others.” The lack of agenda diversity in sports media coverage manifests in numerous ways, including the narrow range of sports disciplines, marginalization of women's sports, and overemphasis on nationalism (Billings et al., 2018; Rojas-Torrijos and Ramon, 2021; Ramon and Rojas-Torrijos, 2021). These practices can be attributed to the dominance of hegemonic masculine ideologies and the emphasis on the nation in sport and in media, which are structured by economic, political, and sociocultural forces (Rowe, 2013).

Gender is a factor in the agenda setting process (Braumüller et al., 2020) as sports media normalize the articulations of sport with masculinity. Bruce (2016: 363) defined articulation as “the process by which different discourses are conjoined, often to the point where they become so taken-for-granted that the joining itself never comes into question.” Articulations of sport and masculinity are evident in male-dominated media spaces. Newspapers and television networks have dedicated less than 10% of routine coverage to sportswomen globally (Markula et al., 2010). An international sports press survey in 2011 found that male athletes received 85% of print media coverage and close to 70% of photos and illustrations, much of which constituted football (Horky and Nieland, 2013). Media organizations marginalize women's sports in routine coverage, but highlight women's accomplishments when the athletes represent their nation (e.g. Bell and Coche, 2020; Bruce, 2016; Coche and Tuggle, 2018; Coche, 2022; Pavlidis et al., 2020), notably during the Olympics. The sports vary depending on the context, but generally women have to be successful and win medals to receive attention (Billings and Angelini, 2019; Braumüller et al., 2020; Xu et al., 2019).

Indeed, nationalism is a significant news value in Olympic media (e.g. Billings et al., 2018; Elder et al., 2006; Lee and Maguire, 2009). Broadcasters convey meanings about national identity by featuring sports associated with success, promoting athletes of the ‘home’ country, and constructing discourses that highlight specific features of the nation (Ličen and Billings, 2013; Scott et al., 2019). Prominent is also the ‘us versus them’ dichotomy (Bruce, 2016), whereby broadcasters exert “superiority over other countries by enthusiastically complementing in-group members” (Xu and Billings, 2020: 243). Nationalism also drives commentary, though the type of commentary differs both based on the nation and between public and private broadcasters (Hayashi et al., 2016). Further, national identity intersects with gendered and ethnicized discourses to produce contested meanings about who represents the nation, and again these constructions have culturally specific meanings (Billings and Eastman, 2003; Bartoluci and Doupona, 2020).

Digital platforms provide expanded space without the restrictions of television programming, but media organizations do not necessarily cover a wider variety of sports. In the United States, sports broadcasters dedicate 4.2% of their Twitter coverage and 2-3.2% of their Instagram coverage to women's sports (Cooky et al., 2021; Romney and Johnson, 2020; Sheffer, 2020). On websites of sports broadcasters in the US, Canada, France and Great Britain, women's sports represent 4% of the stories (Coche, 2015). On Twitter accounts of public service broadcasters in the UK, Spain, France, Italy, and Ireland, (men's) football still dominates the media agenda receiving between 30 and 62% of Tweets on individual platforms, while women receive less than 11% of the Tweets overall (Ramon and Rojas-Torrijos, 2021; Rojas-Torrijos and Ramon, 2021). These findings indicate a continued lack of agenda diversity in routine digital media coverage.

On digital platforms, women's sports garner more, though still not equitable, coverage during mega-events. One study of six countries (Australia, Brazil, China, Great Britain, Kenya, and the United States) found that “very few gender, nationalistic, or sport biases existed” on news websites the London 2012 Olympic media coverage (Eagleman et al., 2014: 457). However, Eurosport websites in France, UK, Spain and Germany dedicated around 15% of stories on women's soccer during the 2019 Women's World Cup, which was statistically significantly lower than the expected 26% based on the number of men's and women's games played during this time period (Coche, 2021). The findings on agenda diversity on digital platforms are valuable, but do not include data on Central and Eastern European countries. Nearly a decade ago, Ličen and Billings (2013: 380) made a case for studying post-socialist societies (e.g. Slovenia) and argued that “examining Olympic media discourse in societies in transition offer insight into the specific discursive mechanisms” of gender and national identity in these contexts.

Sport and media in Central in Central and Eastern Europe

Media play an integral role in reimagining the nation through sport, with particular features in the Central and Eastern European region. Since the late 1980s, due to significant social and political changes, new nation-states have tried to find their place on the European as well as world social and political scene where successes in sport have played an important role (Bartoluci, 2020; Molnar and Dóczi, 2020). One of the most effective ways to feel and express a collective awareness of belonging to one nation as ‘imagined community’ (Anderson, 1983), is offered by sports competitions. Imagined communities can be developed through the mass consumption of mediated sports reports. As Vincent and Kian (2014) state, Anderson's concept becomes particularly relevant because of the interaction between media narratives and images of national teams competing in major international sporting events. Having recognized the advantages of sports in this regard, newly formed nations have used them to become recognized on the international political scene. Sport became an indicator and symbol of an imagined community through which the nation is emphasized and articulated (Maguire et al., 2002). Sport and sports results have frequently been tools used by the political elite in promoting their own goals both within the borders of their state and on the international level (Jakubowska, 2022). In this process, sport is a site where national identity becomes formalized and ritualized through the “invention of tradition” (Hobsbawm, 1983), which results in a fictional continuity between past and the present. As such, the discourse of sport history strengthens national unity and becomes a tool in the process of reimagining and reinventing the nation (Bartoluci, 2020; Molnar and Dóczi, 2020). The nations in our analysis have used sport to “display their power and promote their interests” (Doupona Topič, 2015: 427) and as a tool for ethnically rooted national politics (Molnar and Whigham, 2021). This is evident also from the political discourses in relation to athletes who compete for the nation in international events, especially in cases where athletes’ citizenship changes (Bartoluci and Doupona, 2020; Bartoluci and Draženović, 2017).

Gender representations in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries reflect global patterns, such as the underrepresentation of women's sport, the focus on ‘our’ athletes, and the exceptional positioning of successful women as ‘model citizens’ during international events (Bruce, 2016: 367), but these manifest through culturally specific articulations. Women's sports constitute between 10–15% in routine media coverage (Antunovic, 2019; Ličen and Bejek, 2019). The quantity of coverage is higher during and in the context of the Olympic Games than in non-Olympic coverage (Organista et al., 2020; Gál et al., 2010; Slepičková, 2010), though men still receive more commentary and different types of commentary (Ličen and Billings, 2013). The post-socialist contexts present “particularly pronounced examples of nurturing a gendered national identity through the coverage of sport” (Jakubowska and Ličen, 2019: 319), which encompasses different traits depending on the country as sports take on nationalistic associations that align with normative, conservative gender roles (Antunovic, 2019). Gender has been central in political ideologies and transformations over the last century. Jakubowska (2022: 523) noted that the “particular sociopolitical context, with a shorter history of feminism, persistent gender inequalities, and the strength of conservative parties in some countries” create barriers for women's advancement in sport.

Further research is needed to better understand the sports media agenda in this region. CEE sport and media systems are distinct from Western systems because of the historical conditions, notably the post-socialist transition, but are also heterogeneous within the regional context (Jakubowska, 2022; Molnar and Dóczi, 2020). The role of public service broadcasters is also unique because of the political and economic systems changes. Since the post-socialist transition, these organizations have typically had rights to the Olympic broadcast (Ličen and Billings, 2013) and provided sports content on free-to-air television (Jakubowska and Ličen, 2019). Even though Eurosport (owned by Discovery Communication) held exclusive rights to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games (Quarrell, 2015), public service broadcasters still provided coverage of the event across Europe.

Research questions

This study builds upon nation-specific analyses of broadcasters’ Olympic media coverage (e.g. Billings et al., 2018) and extends previous comparative analyses of the agenda diversity of European public service broadcasters’ social media accounts (Rojas-Torrijos and Ramon, 2021). While previous studies analyzed European public service media (PSM) Twitter accounts, we analyzed Facebook accounts because the PSM of the countries of analysis either did not use Twitter or used it less prominently than the Facebook pages and/or had significantly fewer followers. We selected Hungary, Croatia, and Slovenia based on their geographic proximity (neighboring countries) and our own cultural and linguistic expertise. No comparative analyses of Olympic media coverage in these three countries exist to date, nor has social media coverage of the Olympics been examined individually in these countries. As such, rather than formulating theoretically driven predictive hypotheses, we built upon the research questions in previous studies and modified the research questions for platform, context, and concepts in our analysis as follows:

RQ1: Which sports received coverage on European Public Service Media (PSM) Facebook platforms during the Olympic Games?

RQ2: What was the amount of coverage dedicated to sportswomen?

RQ3: What was the amount of coverage dedicated to sports and individuals with national interest?

RQ4: How does the amount of coverage strengthen or weaken articulations of sport, gender, and national interest in each context?

Methods

This study examines how European Public Service Media organizations used their sport-related social media accounts for Olympic coverage in three contexts: M4 Sport in Hungary, HRT Sport in Croatia, and RTV SLO Šport in Slovenia. The 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games were postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, our analysis focused during the time of the postponed Tokyo Olympic Games in the summer of 2021. The period of analysis encompassed the 17 days of the Olympic Games, starting with July 23, the day of the Opening Ceremony and concluding with August 8, the day of the Closing Ceremony. We excluded July 21–22 when some events already took place to keep the time period consistent with previous analyses of media coverage during the Olympics (see Billings and Angelini, 2019), which allows for a more precise comparison between data from multiple Games and countries. The total number of analyzed posts was N = 1444.

Aligned with previous studies on sports media coverage (Billings and Angelini, 2019; Rojas-Torrijos and Ramon, 2021; Xu et al., 2019), we utilized content analysis to conduct a comparative study on European PSM social media content. We developed a codebook based on the literature referenced above and adapted it to the context of analysis. Only the original posts by the media organization were coded, the comments were not. For this study, we were interested in the content produced by the media organizations only and not audience engagement. The codebook included the following variables relevant for the present analysis: sport, gender, type of competition, and national identity. For sport and gender, the text and the visual imagery (photo, video, graphics) were coded separately, as some posts included multiple sports in the text, but only one sport in the visual representations.

The sport types were mostly consistent with the Tokyo 2020 sport list (“Olympic Sports,” n.d.), but in a more detailed breakdown in some cases and included non-Olympic sports that received coverage during the time of analysis. Consistent with previous studies (Cooky et al., 2021), we coded for gender based on the sex segregated system of sports (e.g. men's and women's events). As such, this variable does not account for an individual athlete's gender identity, but denotes only the gender construction of the sport category in which the athlete competed. This variable also had a mixed/neutral category, which included mixed events in combination with posts that included multiple sports and ‘neutral’ stories, such as general announcements about the Olympics. Competition type was coded as Olympic and non-Olympic, and the non-Olympic category was further broken down into domestic (e.g. club football leagues, national championships) and non-Olympic international (e.g. UEFA, Formula 1 Grand Prix). In the analysis, we will only differentiate between Olympic and non-Olympic competition. As the codebook consisted of nominal variables and manifest content, only percent agreement was calculated in the pre-test (Lombard et al., 2002). For the pre-test, the two authors this study gathered and coded approximately 5% of the data right before the data collection period, which were excluded from the total dataset. The researchers had 1.00 agreement on the sport variable, gender variable, and competition type variable.

The national identity variable required additional discussion due to the complexity of national identities in the region and the migration of athletes across borders. That variable had two categories: home nation and other nation. ‘Home nation’ referred to Hungary for M4 Sport, Croatia for HRT Sport, and Slovenia for RTV SLO Šport. We conceptualized ‘home’ as national team representatives at the Olympics and other international competition, ‘home’ nation players who competed for clubs abroad, and ‘home’ nation athletes and coaches in competition in domestic leagues. Athletes from other countries who competed for national teams of other nations or competed for domestic teams were coded as ‘other nations.’ While some studies code the nationality of the mentioned athletes (e.g. Billings and Eastman, 2003), we were primarily interested in the constructions of the ‘us versus them’ categorizations in coverage that have been associated with nationalism (Billings et al., 2013), rather than which nations received attention. We used SPSS software to calculate frequencies and cross-tabulations to identify patterns in sport, type of competition, and national identity with specific attention to gender differences.

Analysis

During the period of analysis, M4 Sport had 787 posts, HRT Sport had 323, while RTV SLO Šport had 334 posts. These differences can be attributed to the varying structures of the media platforms. M4 Sport Facebook page is an extension of the sport-only television channel with the same name, HRT broadcasted the Olympics on HRT 2, and RTV SLO Šport Facebook page is under the umbrella of MMC, the multimedia center of RTV Slovenia. The national delegations also differed in size and medal count: Hungary sent 173 athletes in 24 sports who won a total of 20 medals, Croatia sent 59 athletes in 16 sports who won 8 medals, and Slovenia sent 40 athletes in 17 sports who won 5 medals. We first present the overall findings based on the descriptive quantitative analysis and then highlight the main cross-cultural differences in the articulations of sport, gender, and national interest

Sports agenda

In response to RQ1's focus on agenda diversity, we found that in aggregate the three PSM platforms featured 43 sports: 41 in posts in the text and two additional sports in visual imagery (graphic, photo, or video): M4 Sport featured 35, HRT Sport featured 22, while RTV SLO Šport featured 24 sports. As Table 1 on the sport agenda in the text illustrates, posts that contained multiple sports and/or Olympics news announcements represented the highest percentage (n = 199; 13.78%). Among posts that focused on one sport, football dominated (n = 193; 13.37%), followed by swimming (n = 120; 8.31%), basketball (n = 111; 7.69%), and water polo (n = 107; 7.41). The dominance of football can be primarily attributed to the volume on the Hungarian (n = 133; 16.90%) and Croatian (n = 40; 12.38%) platforms, swimming could be attributed to the Hungarian platform (n = 114; 14.61%), while basketball constituted nearly a third of the posts (n = 97; 29.04%) on the Slovenian platform. Water polo received prominent attention on the Hungarian (n = 71; 9.02%) and Croatian (n = 35; 10.84%) platforms.

Table 1.

Sports agenda in text.

	M4 Sport		HRT Sport		RTV SLO Šport		Full sample
	N	%	N	%	N	%	N	%
Alka (equestrian)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Archery	1	0.13	0	0	1	0.30	2	0.14
Athletics	22	2.80	30	9.29	29	8.68	81	5.61
Badminton	2	0.25	0	0	0	0	2	0.14
Basketball	4	0.51	10	3.10	97	29.04	111	7.69
Beach volleyball	0	0	0	0	1	0.30	1	0.07
BMX	1	0.13	0	0	0	0	1	0.07
Boxing	0	0	6	1.86	0	0	6	0.42
Canoe Slalom	1	0.13	1	0.31	20	5.99	22	1.52
Canoe/Kayak Sprint	54	6.86	3	0.93	5	1.50	62	4.29
Cycling (omnium)	1	0.13	0	0	0	0	1	0.07
Cycling (road)	7	0.89	1	0.31	26	7.78	34	2.35
Diving	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Equestrian	0	0	1	0.31	0	0	1	0.07
Fencing	54	6.86	0	0	0	0	54	3.74
Football	133	16.90	40	12.38	20	5.99	193	13.37
Formula 1	14	1.78	0	0	1	0.30	15	1.04
Golf	0	0	0	0	4	1.20	4	0.28
Gymnastics	4	0.51	20	6.19	6	1.80	30	2.08
Handball	37	4.70	4	1.24	0	0	41	2.84
Ice Hockey	0	0	0	0	1	0.30	1	0.07
Judo	25	3.18	2	0.62	26	7.78	54	3.74
Karate	7	0.89	4	1.24	0	0	11	0.76
Marathon	2	0.25	0	0	0	0	2	0.14
Modern pentathlon	9	1.14	0	0	0	0	9	0.62
Motocross	0	0	0	0	3	0.90	3	0.21
Race-walking	3	0.38	0	0	0	0	3	0.21
Rowing	5	0.64	22	6.81	0	0	27	1.87
Sailing	19	2.41	12	3.72	12	3.59	43	2.98
Shooting	5	0.64	6	1.86	4	1.20	15	1.04
Skateboarding	3	0.38	0	0	2	0.60	5	0.35
Sport climbing	0	0	1	0.31	10	2.99	11	0.76
Surfing	1	0.13	0	0	0	0	1	0.07
Swimming	115	14.61	0	0	4	1.20	119	8.24
Swimming (open water)	10	1.27	0	0	1	0.30	11	0.76
Table tennis	2	0.25	3	0.93	11	3.29	16	1.11
Taekwondo	4	0.51	24	7.43	5	1.50	32	2.22
Tennis	5	0.64	44	13.62	3	0.90	52	3.60
Triathlon	8	1.02	0	0	0	0	8	0.55
Volleyball	1	0.13	0	0	4	1.20	5	0.35
Water polo	71	9.02	35	10.84	1	0.30	107	7.41
Weightlifting	2	0.25	0	0	0	0	2	0.14
Wrestling	35	4.45	12	3.72	0	0	47	3.25
Multiple/Olympics	120	15.25	42	13.00	37	9.28	199	13.78
Total	787	100	323	100	334	100	1444	100

We also coded for visual representations for the purposes of the gender analysis and found that the volume of posts per some sports varied slightly from the text because posts about multiple sports/Olympic news often featured only one sport in the visual imagery. However, these differences were not theoretically significant enough to include a separate table just for sport agenda diversity in visual imagery. All sports that appeared in the text received accompanying visual representations. Two sports did not receive individual attention in the text, but were featured in visual representations: Olympic diving on M4 Sport and the Alka of Sinj (a traditional historically significant equestrian competition in Croatia) on HRT Sport. Several sports received only one post on only one of the platforms, such as beach volleyball, BMX, cycling omnium, equestrian, ice hockey, and surfing (Table 1).

Gender representations

To answer RQ2 regarding the representation of sportswomen, the analysis reflected a gender imbalance on all three platforms in the text (Table 2) and in visual imagery (Table 3). Men's sports were the sole focus of 58.1 to 68.7% of the posts in the text and between 62.6 and 69.0% of the visual images that accompanied the posts. Women's sports represented 16.1 to 24.0% of the posts in the text and were featured in 16.1 to 27.6% of the visual images. In addition, mixed or neutral posts constituted 15.2 to 17.9% of the text and 7.5 to 14.9% of the visual images. The differences between textual and visual representations indicate that when the text of the post referred to multiple sports, the accompanying image often featured men. Of the three platforms, M4 Sport dedicated the highest percentage of posts (both text and visual imagery) to women's sports, followed by RTV SLO Šport, while HRT Sport had both the lowest number and the lowest percentage of posts dedicated to women only.

Table 2.

Gender representation in text.

	M4 Sport		HRT Sport		RTV SLO Šport		Full sample
	N	%	N	%	N	%	N	%
Men	457	58.1	222	68.73	204	61.08	883	61.15
Women	189	24.0	52	16.10	78	23.4	319	22.09
Mixed/Neutral	141	17.9	49	15.17	52	15.6	242	16.76
Total	787	100	323	100	334	100	1444	100

Table 3.

Gender representation in visual imagery (graphic, photo, or video).

	M4 Sport		HRT Sport		RTV SLO Šport		Full sample
	N	%	N	%	N	%	N	%
Men	511	64.93	223	69.04	210	62.87	944	65.37
Women	217	27.57	52	16.10	75	22.5	344	23.82
Mixed/Neutral	59	7.50	48	14.86	49	14.67	156	10.80
Total	787	100	323	100	334	100	1444	100

National interest

To evaluate elements of national interest in response to RQ3, the type of competition and the protagonist's national identity (Table 4) were coded. Olympic-related posts represented the majority of the coverage with 84.2% of all posts, ranging from 81.8% on M4 Sport to 88.9% on RTL SLO Šport. The non-Olympic category, which included international events and a few domestic events, represented 15.8% of the posts, ranging from 11.1% on the Slovenian platform to 18.2% of the Hungarian platform. Thus, Olympic news dominated the PSM platforms’ social media coverage during the duration of the Tokyo Olympic Games. Further, posts about the home nation represented 83.2% of the total posts. The home nation emphasis was most prominent on M4 Sport where other nations were the focus of only 14.4% (n = 113) of the posts as opposed to 18.9% (n = 61) on HRT Sport and 20.7% (n = 69) on RTV SLO Šport.

Table 4.

Proportion of stories about Olympic and non-Olympic (international and domestic) competition by national identity for each platform.

	M4 Sport		HRT Sport		RTV SLO Šport		Full sample
	N	%	N	%	N	%	N	%
Olympic Stories	644	81.8	275	85.1	297	88.9	1216	84.2
Home-nation*	581	90.2	222	80.7	234	78.8	1037	85.28
Other-nation*	63	9.8	53	19.3	63	21.2	179	14.72
Non-Olympic Stories	143	18.2	48	14.9	37	11.1	228	15.8
Home-nation*	93	65.0	40	83.3	31	83.8	164	11.4
Other-nation*	50	35.0	8	16.7	6	16.2	64	4.4
Total	787	100	323	100	334	100	1444	100
Home-nation	674	85.6	262	81.1	265	79.3	1201	83.2
Other-nation	113	14.4	61	18.9	69	20.7	243	16.8

* Note: To illustrate the role of national affiliation within each category, the percentages in the home-nation and other-nation rows reflect the percentage of posts within Olympic stories and non-Olympic stories respectively.

We also examined the relationship between the type of competition (Olympic vs. Non-Olympic) and national identity (home nation vs. other nation). On the Hungarian platform, 90.2% of the posts about Olympic competition were about the home nation (Hungary). In coverage of non-Olympic competition (both international and domestic), 65% of the posts were about the home nation. On the Croatian platform, the home nation represented 80.7% of Olympic coverage and 83.3% of non-Olympic coverage. On the Slovenian platform, home nation athletes represented 78.8% of the Olympic coverage and 83.8% of the non-Olympic coverage (Table 4).

Articulations of gender, sport, and national interest

RQ4 asked about articulations of sport, gender, and national interest Because posts about men's sports dominated on all three platforms, the general patterns reflected men's sports priorities. A separate analysis was necessary to determine which sports received the highest volume coverage in the women's category. A cross-tabulation was conducted between the gender variable and the sport (text data). On M4 Sport, the top three women's sports were handball (n = 33; 17.5%), water polo (n = 30; 15.9%), and swimming (n = 27; 14.3%). Swimming also appeared in the mixed/neutral category with 7 posts. On HRT Sport, athletics (n = 17; 32.7%), taekwondo (n = 12; 23.1%), and tennis (n = 6; 11.55%) were the only women's sports with more than 3 posts each. In addition, 8 posts about taekwondo featured both men's and women's competition. On RTV SLO Šport, judo (n = 19; 24.4%), sport climbing (n = 10; 12.8%), and athletics (n = 9; 11.5%) received the highest number of posts in women's sports. Table 5 features the highest number of posts per gender, illustrating that most, though not all, of the top sports on each platform were medal-winning sports for the nation.

Table 5.

Top five depicted sports for all, men’s, and women’s categories.

	M4 Sport	HRT Sport	RTV SLO Šport
All
1.	Football* (133)	Tennis (44)	Basketball (97)
2.	Swimming (115)	Football* (40)	Athletics (29)
3.	Water Polo (71)	Water Polo (35)	Cycling (road) (26)
4.	Canoe/Kayak (54)	Athletics (30)	Football* (20)
5.	Fencing (54)	Rowing (22)	Canoe Slalom (20)
Men’s
1.	Football* (133)	Football* (39)	Basketball (95)
2.	Swimming (81)	Tennis (37)	Cycling (21)
3.	Fencing (38)	Water Polo (34)	Football* (20)
4.	Water Polo (38)	Rowing (20)	Athletics (17)
5.	Wrestling (29)	Gymnastics (17)	Canoe Slalom (12)
Women’s
1.	Handball (33)	Athletics (17)	Judo (19)
2.	Water Polo (30)	Taekwondo (11)	Sport Climbing (10)
3.	Swimming (27)	Tennis (6)	Athletics (9)
4.	Canoe/Kayak (26)	N/A	N/A
5.	Fencing (16)	N/A	N/A

Note. In men’s and women's sports, bolded are the sports in which the representatives of the country won medals. The number in the parenthesis indicates the number of posts. The table does not include separate data for the mixed/neutral category, but that category is considered within “All”. For the women's category, only three sports are listed for Croatia and Slovenia because the other women's sports received an insignificant number of posts.

*Football posts were not related to the Olympics.

Further analysis of the relationship between gender and type of competition indicated that M4 Sport and HRT Sport had one non-Olympic women's story each, while RTV SLO Šport had 0. In sum, of the 319 stories about women's sports in the entire sample across all three platforms, 99.37% (n = 317) were about the Olympics. In contrast, of the 883 stories total about men's sports, 75% (n = 662) were about the Olympics. Non-Olympic stories about men's sports represented between 10 and 18%, while non-Olympic stories about women's sports represented 0 and 0.3% of all stories on each platform (Table 6). In addition, a cross-tabulation of gender with national identity indicated that stories about men's sports and women's sports as well as mixed/neutral stories were mostly pertaining to the home nation. Women's sports pertaining to other nations received minimal coverage: 2.9% (n = 23) on the Hungarian, 2.8% (n = 9) on the Croatian, and 5.1% (n = 17) on the Slovenian platform (Table 7). Media coverage reproduced nation-specific articulations of sport, gender, and national interest

Table 6.

Proportion of stories about Olympic and non-Olympic (international and domestic) competition by gender for each platform.

	M4 Sport		HRT Sport		RTV SLO Šport		Full sample
	N	%	N	%	N	%	N	%
Olympic Stories
Men's	315	40.03	177	54.80	170	50.90	662	45.84
Women's	188	23.89	51	15.79	78	23.35	317	21.95
Mixed/Neutral	141	17.92	47	14.55	49	14.67	237	16.41
Non-Olympic Stories
Men's	142	18.04	45	13.93	34	10.18	221	15.30
Women's	1	0.13	1	0.31	0	0	2	0.14
Mixed/Neutral	0	0	2	0.62	3	0.90	5	0.35
Total	787	100	323	100	334	100	1444	100*

*Due to the rounding up of the percentages to one decimal point, the totals might not add up to exactly a 100% in individual categories.

Table 7.

Proportion of stories about national identity (home nation and other nation) by gender for each platform.

	M4 Sport		HRT Sport		RTV SLO Šport		Full sample
	N	%	N	%	N	%	N	%
Home nation
Men's	375	47.6	183	56.7	159	47.6	717	49.7
Women's	166	21.1	43	13.3	61	18.3	270	18.7
Mixed/Neutral	133	16.9	36	11.1	45	13.5	214	14.8
Total home nation	674	85.6	262	81.1	265	79.4	1201	83.2
Other nation
Men's	82	10.4	39	12.1	45	13.5	166	11.5
Women's	23	2.9	9	2.8	17	5.1	49	3.4
Mixed/Neutral	8	1.0	13	4.0	7	2.1	28	1.9
Total other nation	113	14.3	61	18.9	69	20.7	243	16.8
Total	787	100*	323	100	334	100*	1444	100

* Due to the rounding up of the percentages to one decimal point, the totals might not add up to exactly a 100% in individual categories.

Discussion

This study examined agenda diversity on European public service media (PSM) organizations’ sport-specific Facebook pages during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and found that men's sports dominated social media coverage. Men's football received a high volume of coverage, especially in Hungary and Croatia. While not reflected in the data analysis, we did observe that men's football stories were primarily related to European and domestic football—in other words, the non-Olympic category (Table 5). This finding is consistent with previous studies that indicate the hegemony of men's football (Horky and Nieland, 2013; Organista et al., 2020; Rojas-Torrijos and Ramon, 2021). Routine non-Olympic men's sports coverage—especially football—was one contributing factor to the gender imbalance during this time period.

The 16–24% women's sports coverage on PSMs’ Facebook page documented in this study was slightly higher than the previously observed 10–15% in routine news media coverage in the region on traditional media platforms (e.g. Antunovic, 2019; Ličen and Bejek, 2019) and on PSM's social media platforms in the UK, Spain, France, Italy, and Ireland (Ramon and Rojas-Torrijos, 2021; Rojas-Torrijos and Ramon, 2021). However, those studies were based on data collected outside of the Olympic time frame. During the Olympics, women typically receive a higher percentage of coverage (Bruce, 2016; Markula et al., 2010), and reach parity in some contexts (Billings et al., 2018).

The broadcasters covered a wide range of sports during the Olympics, shaped by national interest The sports emphasized in this CEE region differed from those observed in other geopolitical contexts (Billings et al., 2021; Coche and Tuggle, 2018; Xu et al., 2019). Broadcasters in Hungary, Slovenia, and Croatia each promoted their own nation, especially in sports that have a history of success and/or earned medals in Tokyo. National interest is also profoundly gendered as only women who represent the nation seem to merit coverage (Jakubowska and Ličen, 2019; Organista et al., 2020). To account for the particular socio-political conditions, we analyze these national contexts separately before discussing the theoretical significance of the findings.

Nation-specific analysis

The findings about M4 sport reflect that the Facebook channel, as an extension of the M4 Sport broadcasting channel, serves the purpose of promoting Hungarian sport (Molnar and Whigham, 2021). In terms of non-Olympic coverage, men's football dominated, but Formula 1 also received coverage during this time, contributing to the high percentage of “other nation” coverage in those contexts. However, the Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest occurred during this time, which means even though no “home” athletes competed, national interest still played a role. In Olympic coverage, the emphasis on water polo, swimming and kayak/canoe is consistent with previous findings considering their historical links to national identity and public funding of these sports in Hungary (Gál et al., 2010; Molnar and Dóczi, 2020). Specifically, Hungarian men's water polo has carried political importance associated with resistance (e.g. the match at the 1956 Olympics against the Soviet Union) and remains a successful sport associated with national pride (Dóczi, 2012). In swimming and a kayak/canoe, Hungarian athletes are winning medals and Hungary has also hosted major sporting mega-events in these sports, which serve as political tools for asserting national identity (Molnar and Whigham, 2021). It is also unsurprising that the Hungarian women's water polo team received coverage, as the team won the bronze medal. In swimming and kayak/canoe, Hungarian women have been positioned as ‘queens’ for their success on the international level (Antunovic, 2019). Handball in Hungary is ‘mediated as having a successful history’ and is ‘sex appropriate’ for women (von der Lippe, 2002: 388). During previous Olympic Games (e.g. 2004 Summer Games in Athens), women were so severely underrepresented in Hungarian media, especially in proportion to medal counts, that neither success, nor nationalism affected coverage (Gál et al., 2010). At the Tokyo Games, Hungarian women won 5 (25%) medals compared to the men who won 15 (75%) and still received coverage in sports associated with national success. As such, the visibility of sports during Olympic coverage is connected to national and gendered connotations.

In Croatia, the sport priorities reflected national sport success. As Bartoluci and Doupona (2020) observed, “Croatia owes its image as a ‘sporting nation’ primarily to success in team sports such as football, handball and water polo, as well as individual sports such as tennis” (p. 491). Non-Olympic football received significant coverage, due to international football news, some of which included prominent Croatian players, and domestic football league scores. In Olympic coverage, tennis dominated the posts as Croatian players won both the gold and silver medals in men's doubles, and a women's singles player advanced to the round of 16. Indeed, Croatia builds on the “legacy and tradition of tennis,” not only to construct a continuity in sport success, but also to develop sport tourism destinations (Peric and Wise, 2015: 1008). Men's water polo entered the Olympics with high hopes for a medal, but finished 5^th. Public service media provided extensive coverage of the team. Water polo “served an ‘extended hand of politics’” at the Olympics in the late 1990s, which is not the case today (Bartoluci, 2020: 52). Media coverage still considers men's water polo as an important sport during the Tokyo Games, especially as this team was Croatia's only representative in team sports. Notable also is the coverage of taekwondo and rowing, which can be attributed to Croatian gold medals in these sports. Medals and national success, thus, played a significant role in the amount of coverage HRT Sport dedicated to each sport.

On RTV SLO Šport, the focus on home athletes is consistent with previous findings about commentary on Slovenia's public service broadcaster's television channel during the Olympics (Ličen and Billings, 2013). Slovenia's focus on men's basketball can be attributed to the prominence of Luka Dončić, who plays in the National Basketball Association (NBA), but the focus on men's basketball is not new. In 2013, Slovenia hosted the men's European Basketball Championships with objectives to facilitate success (e.g. medal winning), catalyze interest in the sport, and promote tourism (Ličen, 2019). More recently, Ličen and Bejek (2019) found that basketball—primarily men's—was the second most represented sport (after football) in Slovenian newspaper coverage, constituting around 13% of all articles. In our study, men's basketball coverage dominated on the Slovenian platform. While Slovenia did not win a medal, the team finished fourth and, thus, competed throughout the duration of the Games. For women's sports, medal-winning events--judo and sport climbing—received the highest percentage of coverage. These sports are not typically included in routine coverage (Ličen and Bejek, 2019), but sports climbing just debuted as the Olympic sport at the 2020 Games. As such, perhaps the gendered and national constructions will evolve into distinct articulations moving forward.

Theoretical implications

The theoretical implications of the findings on the relationship between agenda diversity and reimagining of the nation are significant. The hegemony of men's football seems to be a transnational phenomenon that contributes to the lack of agenda diversity in the variety of sports disciplines and in gender representations. The emphasis on men's sports confirms that legacy sports media organizations perpetuate the articulation of sport and masculinity (Bruce, 2016; Horky and Nieland, 2013)—even on digital media platforms. In the context of Olympic coverage, however, agenda-setting is complex based on sport, gender, and national interest. Public service media Facebook sites emphasized sports with past, present, and anticipated success within a particular country, which reflects the continued attempt by transitioning societies in the region to reimagine and reinvent the nation through mediated international sport (Antunovic, 2019; Bartoluci, 2020; Molnar and Dóczi, 2020; Molnar and Whigham, 2021).

These findings offer a theoretical contribution to research on the agenda setting process during the Olympics by identifying a complex interplay between nation-specific, regional, and global patterns. For example, in the U.S. context, scholars found that agenda setting process is shaped by nationalism and gender ideology, specifically that “national focus (and the ‘follow the medals’ mind-set it imbues) could be resulting in increased women's salience as well as clock time” (Billings and Angelini, 2019: 554). On NBC, 98% of the prime-time coverage of women's sports during the Rio 2016 Olympics focused on socially acceptable sports of gymnastics, track and field, swimming, diving, and beach volleyball (Coche and Tuggle, 2018). In the German context, the focus on athletics, aquatics and gymnastics could be attributed to the “Olympic tradition and tournament mode,” as the narrow visualization of sports that fit into culturally appropriate forms of femininity reflects the role of gender ideology in the agenda setting process, while success had very little relevance (Braumüller et al., 2020: 332). A comparative study drawing on data from Australia, Brazil, China, Great Britain, Kenya and the United States found that (with one exception) online websites dedicated between 32%–38.6% of Olympic coverage to women's sports and between 34% and 51.4% of coverage to the home nation, while statistical analyses revealed few biases based on gender and nationality (Eagleman et al., 2014).

In our study, the high percentage of home-nation posts (over 79% on all platforms) and our culturally sensitive, comparative interpretation of the findings reveals that national interest plays an important role in agenda setting in the three countries’ PSM social media accounts. National success—past, present, and anticipated—at the Olympics is a driving factor for coverage of both men's and women's sports on public service media in all three countries. For women's sports, Olympic participation was a pre-condition for any visibility at all. In fact, women received a high number of posts only in the Olympic context. In this CEE context, the success criteria applied to women's sports even outside of socially acceptable associations of femininity, such as taekwondo and judo—sports that were featured minimally or not at all in Western European, US, and Australian sports media (Braumüller et al., 2020; Coche and Tuggle, 2018; Rojas-Torrijos and Ramon, 2021; Xu et al. 2019) and also rarely appeared in routine media coverage in this region (e.g. Ličen and Bejek, 2019). The finding women's success on the international level disrupts articulations of sport and masculinity is not new (Bruce, 2016), but the articulations of sport discipline, gender, and national interest are distinct.

Considering that we did not conduct a statistical analysis, future studies could calculate whether and how schedules, participation rates, and medal counts correlate with gendered patterns (Billings et al., 2021; Braumüller et al., 2020). Perhaps some patterns could be explained by the practicality of the sport's competition schedule. For instance, in team sports such as water polo, handball, and basketball, the teams play in a group phase and then for each spot, while many individual sports are single elimination. However, previous studies have found that women still received a disproportionately less coverage even accounting for the number of matches (Coche, 2022) and were subject to patronizing descriptions despite winning more medals than men (Jakubowska and Ličen, 2019; Organista et al., 2020). A more complex quantitative analysis as well as a qualitative analysis that problematizes articulations of gendered national identities would be beneficial in this area of research.

Conclusion

In an article for the Olympic Analysis that addressed pertinent issues regarding the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, Billings (2021) asked: “How much is too much home-nation focus in Olympic coverage?” Quantitative patterns in coverage help answer this question. This study expands the geographical scope of research on gender and national identity in sport by providing insight into the way public service broadcasters in Hungary, Croatia, and Slovenia covered the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games on social media. During the Olympics, women received attention only pertaining to the Olympics, while men received attention in other events as well. Media coverage perpetuated the national—rather than international—focus of the Olympics and that focus is gendered.

While culturally specific, the findings can be connected to the prevalence of nationalism in Olympic coverage (Billings et al., 2018; Hayashi et al., 2016; Organista et al., 2020, Xu et al., 2019). This is concerning because, with some differences by nation, Olympic viewing tends to perpetuate nationalism and not internationalism (Billings et al., 2013: 910). From our sociological perspective, the amount of home nation coverage in all three countries was, indeed, too much for an Olympic context.

Scholars could further examine the role of sport in reimagining the nation in transitioning societies in CEE beyond these three countries (e.g. Jakubowska and Ličen, 2019; Organista et al., 2020). As digital media proliferate, there is no reason to believe that representation patterns will shift substantially (Cooky et al., 2021; Ramon and Rojas-Torrijos, 2021; Rojas-Torrijos and Ramon, 2021). Continued examinations of mediated sport can identify persistent patterns, continuities, and changes in the region.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Dunja Antunovic

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