Abstract
This study examines NBC’s U.S. prime-time broadcast coverage of the 2012 summer Olympic games for gender equality and compares that coverage to previous years. Olympic coverage is particularly important to female athletes because many receive little media attention beyond Olympic competition. The study found that, for the first time since 1996, NBC gave more airtime to women’s sports than to men’s sports. However, most of that coverage devoted to women’s events was confined to “socially acceptable” sports.
Keywords
The president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, pointed out that for the first time in Olympic history, all the participating teams had female athletes at the 2012 summer Olympics in London. Even the countries of Brunei, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia fielded female athletes, something they had never done. And the London Olympics broke gender barriers in the United States too. For the first time, female Olympians from the United States outnumbered their male teammates (269 women and 261 men). They also went on to win more medals than their male counterparts, winning 58 of the 104 (56%) American medals, including 30 of the 46 (66%) American gold medals.
In this study, we seek to determine whether this increase in female participation and success at the Olympics prompted National Broadcasting Company (NBC) to adjust its prime-time coverage (as broadcast in the United States) of these summer games. We thus examined the amount and scope of NBC’s coverage of men and women competing in the 2012 summer Olympic games and how that coverage compares to previous years. Because many Olympic athletes and sports receive little media exposure beyond Olympic competition, how they are framed when they do get coverage warrants close scrutiny.
Literature Review
The summer Olympic games are the most-covered mixed sporting event in the world. They feature all types of sports, whether they were once classified as masculine, feminine, or gender neutral (Hardin & Greer, 2009; Koivula, 1995). In the summer of 2012, more than 10,000 athletes (about 44% of whom were female) traveled to London from 204 countries to participate in 302 events in 26 sports.
This provides researchers a unique opportunity to examine gender differences on a rather leveled playing field: In contrast to most other events, the Olympics are not seasonal, with men and women competing separately. The Olympics reduce the effects of biases on media coverage because (1) both male and female athletes are competing on the same days and (2) both male and female athletes compete in the same facilities. As such, it is essential to study the framing of sports coverage during the Olympics.
Framing Theory
Framing theory is credited to Goffman (1974) who defined frames as mental schemas made to ease information processing. These frames, Goffman indicates, affect people and can thus be used to shape perceptions of reality. In communication, framing theorists hypothesize that the way media content is shaped through processes of selection, exclusion, and emphasis influences what audiences learn and affect their opinions (Entman, 1993). As McQuail (2010) explains, through framing theory, “the audience is thought to adopt the frames of reference offered by journalists and to see the world in a similar way” (p. 557). When media organizations in the United States do not cover women’s sports or offer only trivial coverage of them, the American audience is led to believe that women’s sports are not important, that we should not care (Coakley, 2004; Cunningham, 2003; Duncan, 2006). But lack of women’s sports coverage in American media is exactly what research has shown time and time again (Boutilier & SanGiovanni, 1983; Eastman & Billings, 2000; Hardin, Lynn, Walsdorf, & Hardin, 2002; Messner & Cooky, 2010; Smith, 2011).
The Lack of Women’s Sports Coverage
Women make up more than half of the population. Yet, as stated above, research suggests that they have been widely forgotten in sports media coverage in the past. Despite increases in women’s sports participation after the passage of Title IX in 1972 (Adams & Tuggle, 2004), the coverage of women’s sports in American media has remained sporadic in print—both newspapers (Alexander, 1994; Eastman & Billings, 2000) and magazines (Boutilier & SanGiovanni, 1983; Hardin, Lynn, et al., 2002)—and in broadcast news (Duncan, Messner, & Wilson, 2000, 2005; Messner & Cooky, 2010).
In a longitudinal study conducted at the University of South Carolina since 1989, the most recent results revealed that the amount of women’s sports coverage on three Los Angeles network affiliates (KNBC, KCBS and KABC) during three 2-week segments (for a total of 6 weeks of data) hit an all-time low in 2009 with only 1.6% of sports coverage devoted to women’s sports (Messner & Cooky, 2010). In comparison, 5% of the analyzed coverage in 1989 and 1993 were dedicated to women’s sports. That figure went up to 8.7% in 1999 when the U.S. women’s national team won the soccer World Cup at home and remained at 6.3% in 2004 (Messner & Cooky, 2010).
The exception to this quantitative inequity happens every 4 years with the summer Olympic games, during which time American media offer more coverage of women’s sports and their athletes (Adams & Tuggle, 2004; Billings, 2008; Davis & Tuggle, 2012). However, this increase in media coverage comes with conditions.
Olympic Coverage: Some Sociological Differences
Even though there is little to no quantitative gender gap in NBC’s Olympic coverage in all summer Games since 1996 (Billings, Angelini, MacArthur, Bissell, & Smith, 2014; Davis & Tuggle, 2012), sociological differences have consistently been found. Media include characteristics deemed as masculine (i.e., aggressiveness, self-assurance, promotion) or feminine (i.e., compassion, kindness, warmth) in their coverage of sports, which perpetuates audiences’ ideas of what masculine, feminine, or gender-neutral sports consist of (Koivula, 1999).
Generally individual sports judged by aesthetics, such as gymnastics and figure skating, are deemed feminine (Pedersen, 2003) because they demonstrate grace and flexibility “‘natural’ to women” (Baroffio-Bota & Banet-Weiser, 2006). In contrast, team sports with a contact element, including football, basketball, and soccer are deemed masculine (Greer, Hardin, & Homan, 2009) while other sports that involve neither body contact nor aesthetic judgment, such as track and field or tennis, are usually deemed neutral. In those sports, athletes perform in ways that do not strongly violate gender norms (Riemer & Feltz, 1995). However, Greer, Hardin, and Homan (2009) explain that those “neutral” sports still involve athletic skill for which media to usually favor men. Most coverage of women in the Olympics has been of “feminine sports,” that is, those events socially acceptable for women to participate in (Davis & Tuggle, 2012).
This gender gap in the type of sports that are covered was noticed early on in academic research with Bryant (1980) and Boutilier and SanGiovanni (1983), among others. Tuggle, Huffman, and Rosengard (2002, 2007) and Davis and Tuggle (2012) found that by far the most-covered event for women in the Sydney (2000), Athens (2004), and Beijing (2008) games was gymnastics. Diving, swimming, and track were also always in the top five and so was beach volleyball since it was introduced in Athens in 2004. All of these sports, except for beach volleyball, are predominantly individual sports. Team sports have indeed often been found to not be socially acceptable for women (Koivula, 1999). Since 1999, women’s soccer has been an exception.
Every 4 years, women’s soccer receives attention from national media during the World Cup. Markovits (2006) conjectured that women were able to establish themselves in soccer (even though it is a team sport) because of the lack of men’s soccer culture in the United States. He writes, soccer became a perfect venue for women to occupy a niche in large numbers which—unlike in the rest of the world—remained relatively unoccupied by men, who had concentrated all their energies on the hegemonic sports cultures of the Big Four. (para. 11)
The second team sport that has received some media coverage is beach volleyball. Once again, it happens only every 4 years, not during the World Cup but the summer Olympics. As its name suggests, the sport is played on the beach, and the International Olympic Committee’s bylaws call for female players to wear bikinis (Clarke, 2012). Covering this team sport in particular is consistent with Billings’s (2008) accusation that NBC sports devotes too much of its coverage of women’s events to sports that involve leotards and swimsuits.
Furthermore, when Bissell and Duke (2007) visually analyzed the beach volleyball games of the 2004 Olympics, they found gender biases in both the shots chosen and how the cameras were angled. Greer et al. (2009) came to similar conclusions when they analyzed track-and-field events of the same Olympics.
In the same vein, the focus of reports on women’s sports has been found to be placed on their appearance and private lives rather than the athletic aspect of the sport (Bissell & Duke, 2007; Hardin, Chance, Dodd, & Hardin, 2002; Jones, 2006).
Finally, analyses of the Olympic games since 2000 have shown differences in how commentators analyze success or failure by gender. While male Olympians are deemed successful because of their intelligence, composure, and determination, successful female athletes were framed as owing their victories to concentration, experience, and courage (Angelini & Billings, 2010; Angelini, MacArthur, & Billings, 2012; Billings et al., 2008). Alternatively, when male athletes failed, they were accused of a lack of commitment, but when female Olympians failed, it was generally because of a lack of strength (Angelini & Billings, 2010; Angelini et al., 2012; Billings et al., 2008). This is also consistent with the findings of several analyses of commentary for male gymnasts at the 2004, 2008, and 2012 summer Olympic games (Angelini & Billings, 2010; Billings, 2007; Billings et al., 2014). Indeed, all three studies showed that male gymnasts who succeeded were more likely to have their success credited to their strength than were their female counterparts.
Hypotheses
Based on the literature aforementioned, the researchers are able to make certain predictions about possible differences in coverage of male and female athletes competing in the 2012 summer Olympics.
Men’s team sports typically receive more attention than women’s team sports, so it is expected that coverage of men’s team sports will outweigh coverage of women’s team sports.
Previous studies have found that television coverage of women’s sports at the Olympics in general tends toward events such as gymnastics, beach volleyball diving, and swimming. All of these sports are defined by the authors, based on the literature, to be “socially acceptable” forms of female athleticism. NBC’s coverage of the 2012 summer Olympics is expected to follow this pattern.
Following this logic, women involved in sports that require physical bulk, power, and/or hard physical contact between athletes are expected to receive almost no coverage compared to “socially acceptable” sports, such as gymnastics and swimming.
Moreover, past research has revealed that, in addition to being the subjects of a great majority of the coverage, males are generally quoted more often than females in sports coverage (Davis & Tuggle, 2012; Duncan, Messner, & Wilson, 1994; Tuggle, 1997). Although the amount of coverage of women competing in the 2012 Olympics is expected to be fairly balanced, the proportion of females as on-camera sources is expected to be lower than that of males.
Method
This study is a quantitative content analysis of NBC’s prime-time Olympic coverage from July 28, 2012, to August 12, 2012, for a total of 16 days, 15 of which involved competition. The NBC’s prime-time programming was chosen for three main reasons: (1) access to NBC is easier than any other broadcast partner, (2) prime-time programs have larger audiences than those that air during the day, and (3) broadcast managers are able to carefully choose what they deem worthy of inclusion in prime time. Indeed, even though NBC stated an intention to broadcast more live events in 2012 than years prior, those live events did not air in prime time. In its promotional spots, NBC defined prime time as starting at 7 p.m. and going until the late local news, typically at 11 or 11:30 p.m. By that time, competition in London had ended for the day due to the time difference between Great Britain and the United States. This means that NBC decision makers could choose which event they wished to show in prime time, and how much of each event. As a result, similar to how journalists or editors frame their stories, these decision makers also selected which Olympic events they deemed worthy of prime time, thus framing the importance of the various competitions.
Overall, 44 hr and 40 min of prime-time coverage was coded. Opening and closing ceremonies were not included in the analysis, nor were segments that did not include direct participation by athletes, such as stories detailing the history of the United Kingdom, or other human-interest features. Ryan Seacrest’s analyses of social media were also not coded.
The unit of analysis was the broadcast segment. As in studies of the 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008 games, coding included the sport covered, the duration of the segment, the type of coverage (event, interview, awards ceremony, etc.), the sex of the participants, the role and sex of quoted sources (athlete, coach, sports official, etc.), and speakers (anchors, reporters, commentators, etc.), whether the segment was presented live (or as live) or edited into condensed form, and whether individual or team medals were at stake. Coding also included whether the competition involved physical power or hard body contact as a primary component. Those power sports were distinguished before coding as being boxing, rowing, canoe/kayak, wrestling, weight lifting, judo, cycling and Tae Kwan Do.
Coding was completed by the authors. For each variable, a segment either fell into a category or did not. All data were thus categorical in nature, so calculating intercoder reliability was not necessary. The data were then compiled using SPSS 22.00 for Mac. The study uses nonparametric tests. Because all of NBC’s prime-time coverage was included and coded for this study, the entire population examined here is included, hence there is no need for inferential statistics. Calculated differences in percentages are actual differences.
Results
Women participated in 136 of the 302 events (45%) at the 2012 summer Olympics in London. Focusing on the U.S. contingent, female athletes outnumbered their male counterpart for the first time in history (269 women and 261 men). They claimed 66% (n = 29) of the nation’s 46 gold medals and 56% (n = 58) of the nation’s 104 medals. One team consisting of a man and a woman also won a bronze medal in mixed doubles in tennis, bringing to 59 the number of medals won by the United States thanks to the participation of women. If medal success was the only criterion for coverage, American women should thus have received 57% of NBC’s prime-time coverage. Instead, women received approximately 53% of total airtime (Table 1). For the first time since 1996, though, NBC’s prime-time coverage included more women’s sports than it did men’s sports (46%). Table 1 shows the percentage of airtime by sex since 1996.
Coverage by Year for Males and Females.
Hypothesis 1: Men’s Team Sports Will Receive More Coverage Than Women’s Team Sports
The majority of women’s sports coverage pertained to team events (54% against 46% for individual events). In contrast, as much as 65% of men’s sports coverage pertained to individual events and only 35% of men’s sports coverage was of team events (Table 2). Overall, 12 hr and 45 min of Olympic prime-time coverage was dedicated to women’s team sports (29% of all women’s sports coverage) while only 7 hr and 9 min was devoted to men’s sports events (16% of all men’s sports coverage). This is remarkable when looking at the longitudinal data: In 2012, women’s team events were covered almost twice as much as they were during the 2008 Olympics (Figure 1) while men’s team events received 20 min less airtime than during the Beijing games. For the second time since 1996, women’s team events received more airtime than men’s team events (it also happened during the Athens Olympics in 2004). Accordingly, Hypothesis 1 is not supported.
Airtime by Scope of Event and Gender.
Coverage of team sports by gender since 1996.
Taking a closer look at the 2012 data, almost 70% (8 hr and 43 min) of the women’s team events coverage was either gymnastics or beach volleyball (Table 3). Volleyball and swimming followed with 9% each, and swimming and track and field each represented 5% of the women’s team sports coverage. Team events in men’s gymnastics were also heavily covered compared to other men’s team events (34% of the men’s team coverage), but beach volleyball represented less than 5% of the coverage of men’s team sports (against 28% for females). The top five team sports for men were gymnastics, track and field (21%), swimming (15%), diving (13%), and basketball (6%).
Airtime by Team Sport and Gender.
Hypothesis 2: “Socially Acceptable” Sports Will Comprise the Bulk of Women’s Individual and Team Coverage
Hypothesis 2, which predicted that “socially acceptable” sports would comprise the bulk of women’s individual and team coverage, was supported, as more than 96% of the women’s sports coverage was of sports considered acceptable for women to play (Figure 2). Women’s gymnastics received by far the most exposure with 7 hr and 10 min of coverage (30%), more than two thirds of which was dedicated to the pursuit of a team medal (5 hr and 8 min or 72%, with the rest being coverage of the individual events). Track and field (18%), swimming (17%), beach volleyball (15%), and diving (11%) also garnered attention. It should be noted that it is now customary for the participants in all of these events to wear the equivalent of a bathing suit. A little more than an hour of volleyball (5%) was aired in prime time, too.
Distribution of women’s coverage by sport.
Despite the U.S. women’s team winning its third consecutive gold medal at the Olympics—and fourth since 1996, soccer received only about 15 min of coverage (1%). Cycling and rowing also garnered about 1% of the women’s coverage each. The other women’s sports represented in prime time were tennis (112 s), water polo (73 s), shooting (65 s), triathlon (56 s), basketball (24 s), and equestrian (10 s). All together, they represented less than 1% of the women’s sports coverage. The equestrian coverage, which received the smallest portion of airtime devoted to women, consisted of a short recap of British rider Zara Phillips’ run. As no other male or female rider received airtime, the fact that Phillips is Queen Elizabeth II’s granddaughter is probably the only reason why the sport was covered at all.
Hypothesis 3: Coverage of Power or Hard Contact Sports Will Focus on Males, With Females Involved in Such Events Receiving Relatively Little Attention
Of the 45 hr of prime-time coverage, power sports received only an hour and 26 min of airtime (about 3%), despite the U.S. athletes winning 18 medals in those sports, which is 17% of the country’s medal total (Table 4). This indicates that NBC does not seem to have much interest in power sports in general, even when a U.S. athlete medals. Almost 65% of the airtime involving power sports was of men’s sports (55 min vs. 30 min for women’s sports). The only two power sports shown in women’s events were cycling and rowing, while men’s weight lifting and wrestling both received a few seconds of coverage. Two events in men’s track and field are also categorized as power sports: hammer and javelin. Recaps of these men’s events aired for almost 9 min but their women’s equivalent were not shown at all. Of course, there are more male events (n = 75) than female events (n = 49) in power sports but that is not the case in track and field: each sex competes in four power sports events (discuss, javelin, hammer, shot). Furthermore, American women earned twice as many medals (12, including 4 golds) in power sports events as American men did (6, including 2 golds for men). Accordingly, Hypothesis 3 is supported, despite great female success in power sports. This goes against the latest trend in the longitudinal study since 2008 marked the first year with more coverage of female power or hard contact sports than male power or hard contact sports (Figure 3). Overall, even though NBC seems to take little interest in power or hard contact sports, it has certainly been more inclined to direct that interest toward male athletes. The only exception to that happened in 2008 when the combined amount of coverage for men and women was particularly low. For the first time, the 2012 prime-time coverage included more than 30 min of women’s power or hard contact sports. However, six women medals, including four golds (in judo and boxing), received no prime-time coverage. The same happened to only 1 male athlete (a bronze medalist in Tae Kwon Do).
Airtime by Power Sport and Gender
Note. G = gold; S = silver; B = bronze.
aThrowing events: Discus, hammer, javelin, and shot put.
Coverage of power or hard contact sports by gender since 1996.
Hypothesis 4: Quotes Will Be More Likely to Come From Male Competitors, Coaches, Officials, and Observers Than From Females in the Same Roles
During the 16 days of prime-time Olympic coverage, sources appeared on 327 occasions. Among them, 148 (45%) were male and 179 (55%) were female (Table 5). Accordingly, Hypothesis 4 is not supported. Current athletes were unsurprisingly the most likely to make on-camera comments with 269 of the 327 interventions (82%). It is noteworthy that as many family members made on-camera comments as current coaches overall (19 each). While most family members (n = 13) were female, the great majority of coaches were male (n = 18). In the same vein, three men who used to coach at the Olympic or professional level made comments on camera but no former female coach did.
Number of On-Camera Comments by Type of Source and Gender of the Source.
Most of the on-camera comments were made during coverage of women’s sports (Table 6). Overall, the women’s sports coverage included 183 on-camera comments from outside sources (57%) while the men’s sports coverage included 140 of them (43%). In both cases, some personalities appeared in multiple sequences. For instance, the 18 on-camera comments in women’s beach volleyball were all made by either Kerri Walsh-Jennings or her partner Misty May-Treanor, who won their third consecutive Olympic gold medal in the discipline. In the same vein, both Michael Phelps and his mother appeared several times throughout the 16 days.
Number of On-Camera Comments by Type of Source and Sport.
Conclusions and Discussion
The year 2012 not only marked 40 years since the passage of Title IX, it also made its own mark in the history of women’s sports with the London Olympics, which have been dubbed the “women’s games” (Brown, 2012). Not only were all participating countries represented by at least one female athlete, but on the national level, U.S. female athletes outnumbered their male teammates for the first time. They also went on to win more medals and more gold medals than their male counterparts. Additionally, NBC spent more time covering women’s sports in prime time than it did covering men’s sports. This is remarkable in that it reverses the trend found in previous studies dating back to the 1996 Atlanta games (Davis & Tuggle, 2012; Tuggle, 1997; Tuggle et al., 2002, 2007). As Billings et al. (2014) conclude, “it is clear that NBC’s persistent emphasis on male athletes within its primetime Olympic broadcast was broken in 2012” (p. 48). Of course, the aforementioned remarkable success of American women in these games is likely to have played a big role: The success of American athletes of both sexes has historically been one of the main elements coming into play in NBC’s Olympic programming decisions.
However, these findings should be taken with some degree of skepticism, as the great majority of this women’s sports coverage is of sports that are deemed socially acceptable for women. Almost a third of all women’s sports coverage was gymnastics events, a sport often perceived as feminine for the grace and flexibility it requires, which is natural to women (Baroffio-Bota & Banet-Weiser, 2006). Another 43% of women’s athletic coverage was of sports for which women must wear bathing suits or bikinis (swimming, beach volleyball, and diving). Track and field, a traditional Olympic sport, was also well covered, representing 18% of the women’s sports coverage. These findings are in accordance with both Billings (2008), who accused NBC sports of devoting too much of its coverage of women’s events to sports that involve leotards and swimsuits, and Billings et al. (2014), who explained the gender gap in NBC’s 2012 Olympic coverage as a main consequence of “the network’s focus on women’s gymnastics and women’s beach volleyball” instead of covering a “variety of sports in which U.S. women were successful” (p. 49).
As stated in the literature review, framing theorists hypothesize that the way media content is framed influences what audiences learn and affect their opinions. In the Olympic coverage of women’s athletics, by focusing on feminine sports, that is, individual sports judged by aesthetics (Pedersen, 2003), such as gymnastics or diving, and gender-neutral sports that involve neither an aesthetic judgment nor any body contact, such as track and field or swimming, NBC is leading the American audience to believe that those are the only types of sports girls and women can aspire to. On the contrary, the majority of the coverage of both power sports and team sports is dedicated to men’s events. Men’s gymnastics received very little coverage compared to women’s gymnastics, and the same goes for beach volleyball.
One might argue that it is because American women succeeded in those sports while American men struggled. Although success of American athletes is certainly an element that NBC’s decision makers take into consideration when selecting prime-time events (Angelini et al., 2012; Billings et al., 2014), it is not the only one. Indeed, despite a fifth consecutive gold medal, the women’s basketball team did not even receive half a minute of airtime in close to 45 hr of prime-time Olympic coverage. The men’s team, which won its second consecutive Olympic title, was given about half an hour of coverage, with interviews from four players and their coach Mike Krzyzewski. Similarly, the women’s soccer team, which is consistently ranked number one in the world and won its fourth Olympics gold medal in five events, represented only 1% of the women’s sports coverage.
In the same vein, men’s cycling received 3 times as much coverage as women’s cycling, despite the women medaling in four events (while the men returned home empty-handed). Cycling is a power sport, with an emphasis on strength and endurance, so this finding is in accordance with traditional gender stereotypes. One could suggest that had the female team not been as successful as it was, women’s cycling might have been completely forgotten by NBC, much like women’s weight lifting (no medal in either sex), women’s wrestling (one medal for women, three for men), or women’s track and field’s power events (e.g., discus throw, shot put, etc.) were when those men’s events received a few minutes of airtime. Indeed, nationalism (i.e., rooting for the home team) seems not to trump vestiges of sexism regarding whether participation in certain types of sports is appropriate for females.
Boutilier and SanGiovanni (1983) noted that sport serves as a “microcosmic version of the society’s orientation toward women” (p. 24). In other words, the way media treat the relationship between women and sport shapes the direction and content of that relationship in society. Although the findings of the current study do not show an oversight of female athletes altogether, they do show that NBC’s prime-time coverage of the 2012 London Olympics reinforces the idea that women’s athletic participation should be limited to a few, socially acceptable sports only.
Although “NBC cannot be criticized for presenting a primetime Olympic broadcast that marginalizes women athletes in favor of men” (Billings et al., 2014, p. 53), the network’s executives continue to drop the ball when it comes to finding new ways of representing gender in their Olympic coverage. According to framing theory, when media organizations overlook women’s sports or offer only trivial coverage of them, the audience is led to believe that women’s sports should not be cared about (Coakley, 2004; Cunningham, 2003; Duncan, 2006). NBC’s Olympic prime-time coverage did not communicate that. However, based on these 16 days of prime-time coverage, it seems that women are accepted as athletes only if they continue to look and act in traditionally feminine ways.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.