Covering the Home Nation at Its Home Games: An Analysis of Australian Nationalistic Broadcast Coverage of the 2018 Commonwealth Games

Abstract

This study explored how nationalism unfolded within the Australian broadcast of the 2018 Commonwealth Games that were held on the Gold Coast, Australia. Applying social-categorization theory, over 31 hours of the total coverage was content analyzed for name mentions, description of success or failure, and personality and physicality of the athletes. Results of this study underscore large differences in the amount of commentary that was provided to Australians and non-Australians during the broadcasts, with Australians being mentioned more than non-Australian athletes. As Australia performed well at the Commonwealth Games, Australians featured highly on both the top most-mentioned athletes list and the overall percentage of name mentions also favored Australians. The Seven Network emphasized Australian athletes to its viewers, as Australian viewers would share many of the group characteristics with athletes who were featured on television. This study contributes to the literature by uncovering how in-group members were portrayed in the Australian sports context while also providing insight into how consumers’ media consumption could potentially affect how the network broadcasts the Commonwealth Games from a nationally partisan perspective.

Keywords

Commonwealth Games Australia media nationalism content analysis

Covering the home nation at its home games: An analysis of Australian nationalistic network broadcast coverage of the 2018 Commonwealth Games

There are many events held annually on the sporting calendar; however, few can attract global audiences in massive numbers like events conducted every 4 years, such as the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, the FIFA World Cup, and the Rugby World Cup. The Commonwealth Games positions itself as one of the largest and most important quadrennial sporting events globally, with around one-third of the world’s countries and territories taking part in this event (Martin, 2018). In the Global Sport Impact project’s report, the Commonwealth Games is the fifth most attended global mega event in the world only exceeded by the Summer Olympic Games, FIFA World Cup, Paralympics, and Rugby World Cup in terms of total spectators (Slater, 2014). The 2018 Commonwealth Games were held on the Gold Coast, Australia, attracting 4426 athletes competing from over 71 nations and territories (Gold Coast 2018, 2018a). The event broadcasts were watched by 1.5 billion people across the world (Gold Coast 2018, 2018a). In Australia alone, nearly 16 million viewers watched the Games on Channel Seven, the official broadcaster of the Commonwealth Games (Queensland Government, 2018).

Sport has always been associated with national identity, particularly with the trend of globalization and the popularity of international mega sporting events (Crolley & Hand, 2006). Sporting events provide a platform where the general public can express their national values, pride, and identity (Allison, 2004). In order to attract more attention and boost viewership and readership, the media incorporate nationalistic elements into their coverage, particularly through emphasizing their own countries’ athletes and team performance (Scott et al., 2012; Vincent et al., 2010). For instance, print media use military metaphors and imagery to create potential conflicts between athletes (Li et al., 2016, 2019; Vincent et al., 2010). For national broadcasters, they attempt to use nationalized symbols or languages to emphasize the connection between these athletes, audiences, and the country (Billings et al., 2019). The dichotomy of an “us versus them” narrative has frequently been highlighted in broadcast coverage of major events to encourage viewers to support their nations and their athletes (Scott et al., 2020).

Informed by self-categorization theory, this study aims to explore how the Australian national broadcaster, the Seven Network, incorporated nationalism in their coverage during the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Focusing on the Australian narrative of the 2018 Commonwealth Games from a nationalized perspective could be quite insightful, as Australian media has been characterized as one of the most home nation–focused of all Olympic broadcasters (Billings & Angelini, 2007). Australia indeed characterizes itself as a sport-loving nation (Duncan, 2018). Australia has historically been quite successful at the Commonwealth Games. Thus, studying the role of nationalized focus during the 2018 Commonwealth Games through prime-time coverage from the Seven Network’s main channel could be particularly insightful into the nationalized focus of one of the Commonwealth Games’ most successful countries in terms of medals won. To the best of our knowledge, no known study has examined the Commonwealth Games media coverage by focusing on quantitative measures of salience and description to advance important insights into the nature of “us versus them” commentary within the context of Australia at the Commonwealth Games. In addition, there is a long-standing rivalry between Australia and England in sport (Maguire, 2011). For instance, the Ashes urn is one of the biggest competitions in cricket where the Australian and English teams meet every 2 years to play on a special series of test matches that started in 1884 (BBC, 2019). Both countries have also been fighting for the top place in the medal tally at the Commonwealth Games. From a British colonial nation to a dominant sporting power in the Commonwealth world, the Commonwealth Games provide Australians with the opportunity to show their independent national culture and end their sense of cultural dependence on Great Britain (Maguire, 2011). Therefore, it is necessary for us to explore how Australian media incorporate nationalism in their Commonwealth coverage.

The Commonwealth Games

The Commonwealth Games are a quadrennial mega event of nations from the British Commonwealth. First hosted in 1930 as the British Empire Games in Hamilton, Canada, it has been held on a quadrennial cycle since its inception, excluding times of war. Since its beginning, the Commonwealth Games has undergone many changes, from changes in name including the British Empire Games, the British Empire and Commonwealth Games, and the British Commonwealth Games, the inclusion of team sports in 1998 when the Games were held in Kuala Lumpur, to the inclusion of elite athletes with disabilities (EADs) in 2002. This was the first time ever that disabled athletes participated in the same athletic program with able-bodied athletes (Smith & Thomas, 2005), and their medals count toward their nation’s overall medal tally (Commonwealth Games Federation, 2020).

The 2018 Games had 4426 athletes competing from over 71 nations and territories (Gold Coast 2018, 2018a). The Commonwealth Games is also the only multi-sport carnival that has gender equity in terms of having an equal number of medals available to be won by both men and women. In terms of the Games’ prestige, it has been suggested that the Commonwealth Games are positioned only behind the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup in terms of its size and profile (Lockstone & Baum, 2008; Van der Westhuizen, 2004) and is fifth in overall attendance in world events (Slater, 2014).

The Commonwealth Games Federation governs the Commonwealth Games, and brands it as the “Friendly Games” (Gold Coast 2018, 2018b), which seeks to have an inclusive event while also being individually challenging for all competitors. Further, the Commonwealth Games Federation has three core values: humanity, equality, and destiny. These three values underscore each decision that is made by the federation. Moreover, the Commonwealth Games highlights these values by noting that “They (the values) bring together members of the Commonwealth of nations to compete on a level playing field in a spirit of friendship and fair play often referred to as the ‘friendly games’” (Gold Coast 2018, 2018b, para. 16).

Since its inception in 1930, Australia has competed at every Commonwealth Games and has achieved sustained success at these games, winning both the most gold medals and total medals. In addition, Australian cities have hosted the events five times, and consumption of the Commonwealth Games is extensive. For example, the 2018 Commonwealth Games was watched by nearly 16 million Australians (Queensland Government, 2018), so it was an important event on the sporting calendar for Australian viewers, as approximately 64% of the population was engaged in watching the events. Australia won the most gold medals and total medals in 2018, so there were many opportunities for Australians to cheer for their home athletes and for broadcasters to feature home-country content.

Literature Review

In performing an analysis of how nationalistic a broadcaster is during mega events, one highly relevant theoretical underpinning is self-categorization theory (SCT, Turner et al., 1987), which is based on social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). This theory unpacks an individual’s perceived in-groups and out-groups and their membership in these groups based on factors such as demographics, psychographics, sociological elements, or a blend of these characteristics. How an individual categorizes their group membership is impacted by the importance they perceive in being a member of the in-group (Turner et al., 1987), and the relevance can change based on circumstances (Stott et al., 2001). SCT is appropriate to employ in media studies, as the nationality of broadcasters may shed light on the athletes advanced within the coverage of an event, such as the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Each announcer’s Australian nationality is a central identification point for how events and athletes are described and the expected responses that viewers might have (Scott et al., 2018).

Individuals categorize and compare themselves to others and create prototypes of category memberships. These prototypes are based on characteristics that are symbolic for each category and serve as benchmarks to evaluate oneself and others; thus, they also influence an individual’s behavior and attitudes (Hogg & Terry, 2000). In global sporting events, one central dichotomy that occurs frequently is that of “us versus them,” which is largely formed based on nationality and whether an individual perceives themselves as being part of the in-group (or not). Stott et al. (2001) suggested that major sporting events are rife with opportunities to form in-groups and out-groups with the fluid nation of sporting rivalries, depending on what athletes and which teams are participating.

Furthering the notion of the salience of identification with one’s nation, Dimmock and Grove (2005) suggested that identifying oneself with one’s nation is likely if “the team is involved in a number of games within a short period, the team is involved in a playoff or finals series, or the team is playing against a fierce rival” (p. 44). In settings where nationality is important, the salience of being a member of one’s nation might be higher than it is in daily life (Scott & Kunkel, 2016). Thus, the individual’s self-identification becomes a latent identity when the setting is relevant (Turner, 1987), such as during mega events when the nation is heavily promoted.

The advancement of the idea of nationalism and sport is important to study because both concepts “form arguably two of the most emotive issues in the modern world” (Bairner, 2001, p. xi) and feelings of nationalism can be a sufficient stimulus for non-sports fans to watch sport (Billings & Hundley, 2009). Thus, in-groups might come to the fore when important sporting events occur, especially when a nation is playing against a fierce rival, such as the New Zealand All Black versus the Australian Wallabies in rugby union or an ice hockey match between Canada and the USA at the Olympic Games. The same game, in the examples given, would be perceived quite differently in each nation, as the “shared group membership (and the positivity extoled toward those categories with which an individual possesses membership), fans of a team will be more likely to interpret the behaviors of that team favorably relative to fans of an opposing team” (Bruner et al., 2014, p. 52). Thus, the national identity of viewers would have heightened salience during these events.

Nationalized Sporting Events

The use of the home nation in promoting sporting events attempts to unite a country under its flag and may increase interest in an event (Alabarces et al., 2001). Thus, media often focus heavily on home nation athletes and teams; and events that typically produce medal success for the home nation, such as swimming in Australia (Scott et al., 2019) and athletics (track and field) in the USA (Billings et al., 2017) at the expense of featuring foreign athletes and teams. Presumably, viewers in the home nation will have more in common with athletes of their nation than foreign athletes; thus, they may have a sense of loyalty to their country (Rothi et al., 2005). Anderson (1983) suggested that a nation can be described as an “imagined political community” (p. 6), in which people living in the same nation “will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” (p. 6). Similarly, the strength of the concept of nationalism stems from its ability to locate a person’s identity (Greenfeld & Chirot, 1994) and the ability for each person to have a connection with others.

National broadcasters attempt to capitalize on the connection people have with their country by promoting the commonalities viewers have, such as culture and language (Rowe et al., 1998) and the same flag (Billings et al., 2017). Using nationalized symbols, sporting events can create a sense of commonality between viewers by highlighting national identity and encouraging consumption of the sporting event (Billings et al., 2019; Haynes & Boyle, 2017). Further, sport is readily amenable to creating situations where one’s nation is highlighted, particularly in antagonistic competitions where one’s identity is defined (Hobsbawm, 1990). Sport’s culture enables the dichotomy of “us versus them” that helps to encourage citizens to support the nation, as each nation attempts to claim dominance over others (Scott et al., 2020). Sporting events are innately nationalistic (Billings et al., 2017), and broadcasters attempt to capitalize on the nationalistic qualities by embedding cues for viewers, such as the use of the personal pronoun “we” or “us” that help to signify one’s membership in the national group. Personal pronouns help to replace differences that members of the same name have (De Cillia et al., 1999) in an attempt to create a large homogenous group of fans cheering for the same athletes and teams united under the national flag (Scott et al., 2012).

Sport media tend to frame elite competitions as national rituals in which consumption of these events is “virtually mandatory” (Real & Mechikoff, 1992, p. 325). Many studies have been conducted on the coverage of major sporting events and have found that home broadcasters will focus more of their coverage on athletes from the home nation (Angelini et al., 2017; Billings et al., 2017). The narrativization of the home nation pervades media outlets globally, from the United States (Billings et al., 2017), to Canada (Angelini et al., 2017), to China (Xu et al., 2018), to Australia (Eagleman et al., 2014; Scott & Kunkel, 2016), and others (Li et al., 2016; Xu & Billings, 2020). Further, Billings and Hundley (2009) suggested that the feelings of nationalism can be a stimulus for consumers to watch sports, even sporting events that they would generally not consume.

Sporting mega events, such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, and other world championships, such as the FIFA World Cup and Rugby World Cup, attract the interest of much of the globe when they are occurring. During the telecasting of these events, broadcasters use many different frames to reference the home nation to capture and maintain consumer interest. For example, the media may attempt to have consumers view themselves as part of the nation, known as the in-group, and view others as outsiders, known as the out-group. To that end, “a common culture, attached to a clearly demonstrated territory” (Guibernau, 2007, p. 23) amongst citizens is promoted and emphasized in the broadcasts, which may reaffirm one’s national identity.

Name Mentions Salience during Sporting Telecasts

During major multi-sport events, such as the Olympic and Commonwealth Games, broadcasters choose which athletes and sports are shown. However, there are limits to how much home content can be shown to audiences, based on the events shown and whether there are home-country athletes taking part. Thus, researchers have used the number of name mentions of both home and foreign athletes to measure the salience of nationality during broadcasts, with much of this work has focused on the Olympic Games (Angelini et al., 2017; Billings & Angelini, 2007). As no known study has statistically analyzed the name mentions in the broadcasts of the Commonwealth Games, this section will review relevant literature of Olympic Games analyses with a focus on the nascent work in the Australian context conducted to date and show how analyzing the number of name mentions is an exemplar for how nationalism plays out in the coverage.

In an analysis of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, Scott and colleagues (2019) found that the majority of name mentions on the Seven Network were to Australian Olympians. Despite Australia’s limited medal success at Rio, viewers might have been primed to think that Australia was more successful than it was, because of the sheer volume of name mentions of their country’s people. However, the results of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics found that Australians only made up seven of the top-20 most-mentioned athletes; yet, four of the top-10 and the top-2 most-mentioned athletes were from Australia (Scott et al., 2020). While the statistics-driven studies of Australian broadcasters are in their infancy, there are signs that Australian broadcaster of the Olympic Games favor the home nation.

There have been numerous studies using name mentions as the metric to analyze nationalism in the Olympic Games coverage (Angelini et al., 2017; Billings et al., 2017; Eastman & Billings, 2000). In the context of the United States, American athletes typically account for more than 60% of all name mentions during the prime-time coverage of the Olympic Games since 2000 (Billings et al., 2017). Thus, there appears to be a high level of favoritism toward home athletes from the broadcaster. Similar findings were found by Xu et al. (2018), who analyzed the Chinese coverage of the entire gymnastics events at the Rio Olympics and found that 40% of the top-20 most-mentioned athletes were Chinese, despite China only sending 10 of the 196 gymnasts to the Olympics. The metrics of name mentions have also been used to analyze nationalistic favoritism in the Canadian context, where all of the top-20 most-mentioned athletes were Canadian (Angelini et al., 2017).

There appears to be a trend of biasing the home nation and describing home nation athletes more than foreign athletes in both Australia and elsewhere. As name mentions have been extensively applied in sport media studies to examine telecasts devoted to home and foreign athletes during international sporting events, two hypotheses are constructed to examine whether name mentions of Australian and foreign athletes are different at a Commonwealth Games. The following two hypotheses are posed:

Hypothesis 1: The majority of the 20 most-mentioned athletes in Australian prime-time broadcasts of the 2018 Commonwealth Games will be Australian.

Hypothesis 2: Australians will represent the majority of total athlete mentions in Australian prime-time broadcasts of the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Descriptors of Nationalism

Apart from using name mentions during the broadcasts of major events, another measure used widely is nationalized descriptors of home and foreign athletes (Angelini et al., 2017; Billings et al., 2017; Scott et al., 2020). Past work in this domain has found marked differences in the way that success and failure are characterized by announcers. In this area of analysis, two foci are generally studied: (1) the attribution of success of failure and (2) the description of athletes’ personality and physicality (Angelini et al., 2012; Billings et al., 2017). These two descriptor foci have been tracked by Billings and colleagues since the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in the United States. Analyses of the Olympics have found that Americans’ success or failure is typically described in subjective terms, such as commitment, composure, intelligence, or consonance (luck); whereas foreign athletes have their success or failure described in objective terms, such as experience, intelligence, or athletic skill (Billings et al., 2017). Similar findings have been found in other contexts, such as Slovenia (Ličen & Billings, 2013), Canada (MacArthur et al., 2017), and Australia (Scott et al., 2019). These findings suggest that announcers provide home nation athletes with a more well-rounded discussion of both their athletic pursuits and their lives, which might occur because announcers are more familiar with athletes from their home nation. Thus, foreign athletes are described in objective terms, which can be researched, as announcers may not know much about them (Billings et al., 2017).

In terms of the description of personality or physicality by announcers of elite athletes, previous research has found that broadcasters tend to describe home athletes as more outgoing or extroverted, both globally (Billings et al., 2017; Ličen & Billings, 2013) and in Australia (Scott et al., 2020). Yet, there is an example where foreign athletes were described as modest or introverted in the analysis of the gymnastics events at the 2016 Rio Olympics in the Chinese coverage (Xu et al., 2018). In analyses of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Australian newspapers, online websites, and broadcasts of these games indicated that the storylines were closely linked to national ideology and favored Australian athletes (Rowe et al., 2010), while Scott and Kunkel (2016) found that Australian newspapers published more pictures of Australian athletes compared to foreign athletes. Results from the 2016 Rio Olympics, that were also broadcasted on the Seven Network, found that Australian athletes were characterized as outgoing and extroverted (Scott et al., 2019), which has been described as an Australian value (Li et al., 2019), and athletes are encouraged by the Australian Olympic Committee to express themselves (Rio, 2016). In addition, the Seven Network described non-Australian athletes in more neutral terms while also describing Australians as being modest or introverted, emotional, attractive, and had their background discussed more often.

It appears the Australian Seven Network and Australian media more generally have similarities to studies conducted in other settings, such as those mentioned in Slovenia, Canada, and the USA. Of note in the Australian context is that the studies have predominantly analyzed the Summer Olympic Games, so a gap in the literature is how home athletes are portrayed during the Commonwealth Games, which is an event where Australia has had extensive success. Australia has won both the most gold medals and overall medals in the history of the Commonwealth Games. To understand how Australian and non-Australian athletes were described by the Seven Network, three hypotheses are posed:

Hypothesis 3: Australian network employee depictions of Australian and non-Australian athletic successes will be taxonomically different.

Hypothesis 4: Australian network employee depictions of Australian and non-Australian athletic failures will contain significant differences.

Hypothesis 5: Australian network employee depictions of Australian and non-Australian physicality and personality characterizations will be taxonomically different.

Method

A total of 31 hours, 36 minutes, and 54 seconds broadcast time of Australian prime-time coverage was utilized during the 11 nights of the Australia-based Seven Network’s 2018 Commonwealth Games (4–15 August), which averaged 2 hours, 52 minutes, and 27 seconds per night (with Opening and Closing ceremonies excluded as they were not showing sporting competitions). The Seven Network is owned by Seven West Media, which is one of Australia’s largest media companies. Seven West Media operates several television channels (the Seven Network, 7Two, & 7Mate) and many newspapers, radio stations, and websites (Seven West Media, 2021). The Seven Network was the official television broadcaster in Australia for the 2018 Commonwealth Games and holds the rights to other major sporting events in Australia, including the Olympic Games until 2022, the rights to the Australian Football League for both men and women, the Australian Open tennis tournament until 2019, the Melbourne Cup carnival, and many other important sporting events (Oztam, 2021).

The Seven Network broadcasted over 327 hours on multiple channels and platforms (Gymnastics Australia, 2021); however, given the highest ratings are for prime-time coverage each evening, the hours of 7p.m.–10p.m. were selected for the sample as they hold the potential for the largest impact. The total dataset was 29 hours, 36 minutes, and 54 seconds. Only comments spoken by network-employed individuals were included for analysis for descriptions and mentions of athlete names, because this dialogue can be frequently scripted and supervised by producers and directors of the Seven Network (see Billings and Angelini, 2007). These network employees included host commentators (e.g., Hamish McLachlan), on-site reporters (e.g., Nathan Templeton), special assignment reporters (e.g., Rachael Finch), color commentators (e.g., Andrew Gaze), and all play-by-play announcers for both individual and team sports (e.g., Basil Zempilas).

The unit of analysis used was the name of the athlete and the verbal descriptors, including all adjectives, adjectival phrases, adverbs, and adverbial phrases spoken by Seven Network employees. All descriptors were coded for (a) the sex of the athlete, (b) the ethnicity of the athlete (Asian, Black, Indian, White, Pacific Islander, or other), (c) the nationality of the athlete (Australian or non-Australian), (d) the athlete’s sport, (e) whether the athlete was able-bodied or an elite athlete with disability (EAD), and (f) the word-for-word descriptive phrase. Following this, the Billings et al. (2008) taxonomy was used to classify all descriptors used. Based on this taxonomy, the commentary was divided into three categories: (a) attributions of success or failure in the athlete’s performance; (b) depictions of an athlete’s personality of physicality, including those external variables that are not attributable to the athlete’s performance; and (c) neutral comments, which often included play-by-play dialogue.

Descriptors were classified into one of 16 categories, which include comments about (a) concentration, (b) strength-based athletic skill, (c) talent/ability-based athletic skills, (d) composure, (e) commitment, (f) courage, (g) experience, (h) intelligence, (i) athletic consonance, (j) outgoing/extroverted, (k) modest/introverted, (l) emotional, (m) attractiveness, (n) size/parts of the body, (o) background, and (p) other. In addition, a second type of coding looked at the commentators’ use of the athlete’s names, counting every mention of every athlete, by name, by any on-air employee of Seven Network.

Two researchers from the research team coded the dataset. Both coders have a PhD, and have completed and published content analysis projects in the past using this taxonomy. An initial sample of approximately 15% of the total dataset was coded by each coder. After completion of the coding, the lead researcher coded the two coders’ samples to calculate for intercoder reliability using Cohen’s (1960) formula, and reliabilities were determined for the following variables: (a) the sex of the athlete [K = 1.00], (b) the ethnicity of the athlete [K = .96], (c) the nationality of the athlete [K = 1.00], (d) the sex of the announcer [K = 1.00], (e) the word-for-word descriptor or descriptive phrase [K = .87], and (f) the name of the sport being discussed [K = 1.00]. Intercoder reliability scores using Cohen’s kappa exceeded .97 for all seven categories, an acceptable level of intercoder reliability (Riffe et al., 2019). These scores represent a good level of reliability between the researchers for their coding of the broadcasts into the appropriate categories. Once this process was completed, each of the two coders coded their sample in isolation.

Once all data were analyzed and tables created, chi-square analysis was employed to determine significant differences between groups by using the percentage of overall comments as expected frequencies. For example, because 68.14% of all attributions for personality/physicality were about Australian athletes, it was expected that roughly the same proportion (68.14%) of comments about outgoing/extroverted, modest/introverted, emotional, attractiveness, and so on should be established as expected frequencies for Australian athletes, and that significant deviations would be substantially more meaningful than employing .50 as an expected frequency for each individual category.

Results

During the 2018 Commonwealth Games broadcast on the Seven Network, there were 2558 descriptors and 8510 name mentions found within the dataset.

Hypothesis 1 posited that the majority of the top-20 most-mentioned athletes would be Australian, and that was indeed the case. Table 1 lists the top-20 most-mentioned athletes from the Seven Network’s prime-time coverage. Upon inspection of Table 1, there are 21 total athletes comprising the most-mentioned list, as there were several athletes with the same number of mentions. Australians represented 16 of the 21 athletes, which represents 76% of the total mentions. In addition, as eight of the top-10 most-mentioned athletes were Australian, hypothesis 1 is supported.

Table 1.

Top-21 Most-Mentioned Athletes.

	Name	Nationality	Sex	Sport	Mentions
1	Cate Campbell	Australia	Female	Swimming	144
2	Mack Horton	Australia	Male	Swimming	122
3	Bronte Campbell	Australia	Female	Swimming	115
4	Mitch Larkin	Australia	Male	Swimming	113
5	Stephanie Morton	Australia	Female	Cycling	103
6	Chad Le Clos	South Africa	Male	Swimming	99
7	Emily Seebohm	Australia	Female	Swimming	92
8*	Kyle Chalmers	Australia	Male	Swimming	83
8*	Taylor Ruck	Canada	Female	Swimming	83
10	Ariarne Titmus	Australia	Female	Swimming	79
11*	Kaarle McCulloch	Australia	Female	Cycling	75
11*	Jack Mcloughlin	Australia	Male	Swimming	75
13	Christopher McHugh	Australia	Male	Beach Volleyball	58
14	Kurt Fearnley	Australia	Male	Athletics	57
15	Jacob Birtwhistle	Australia	Male	Triathlon	53
16	Grant Irvine	Australia	Male	Swimming	50
17	Taliqua Clancy	Australia	Female	Beach Volleyball	48
18*	Shayna Jack	Australia	Female	Swimming	45
18*	Caster Semenya	South Africa	Female	Athletics	45
20*	Adam Peaty	England	Male	Swimming	41
20*	Cedric Dubler	Australia	Male	Athletics	41

*Denotes same number of mentions.

As indicated in Table 2, there were significant differences in the number of name mentions between Australians and non-Australians at the Commonwealth Games. Findings were statistically significant (χ^{2 = 131.667}, df = 1, p < 0.001), in favor of Australian athletes. As Hypothesis 2 posited that Australians would be mentioned significantly more than non-Australian athletes, Hypothesis 2 is supported.

Table 2.

Total Name Mentions by Nationality.

	N	N per Night	Percentage per Night
Australian	5049^a	459	56.04
Non-Australian	3461^a	360	43.96
Total	8510	819	100

^aχ^{2 = 131.667}, df = 1, p < 0.001.

Hypothesis 3 predicted that Seven Network employees would depict Australian and non-Australian Commonwealth Games athletes’ success differently. As shown in Table 3, there were two statistically significant differences in the depiction of success that favored Australians. Australian athletes’ success was described as having more composure (χ² = 6.992, df = 1, p < 0.008) and commitment (χ² = 5.824, df = 1, p < 0.016) than non-Australian athletes. As significant differences were found in two of the nine categories, partial support for Hypothesis 3 is lent.

Table 3.

Descriptive Analysis of Success/Failure by Nationality.

Nationality
	Success		Failure		Ratio of Success to Failure
	Australian	Non-Australian	Australian	Non-Australian	Australian	Non-Australian
Concentration	7	3	3	0	2.33	-
Athletic strength	38	31	3	6	12.67	5.17
Athletic ability	583	300	81^c	82^c	7.20	3.66
Composure	40^a	9^a	6	5	6.67	1.80
Commitment	32^b	7^b	0	5	-	1.40
Courage	13	3	0	1	-	3.00
Experience	52	30	3	5	17.33	6.00
Intelligence	10	7	1	0	10.00	-
Consonance	19	6	27^d	29^d	0.70	0.21
Total	794	396	124	133	6.40	2.98

^a χ ^2b = 6.992, df = 1, p< 0.008.

^b χ ^2b = 5.824, df = 1, p < 0.016.

^c χ ² = 13.281, df = 1, < 0.001.

^d χ ² = 5.597, df = 1, p< 0.018.

Hypothesis 4 posited that the failure of Australian and non-Australian Commonwealth Games athletes will be significantly different. As indicated in Table 3, there were two significant differences in the depiction of failure: Non-Australian athletes’ failure was characterized by a lack of talent (χ² = 13.281, df = 1, p < 0.001) and consonance or luck (χ² = 5.597, df = 1, p < 0.018). Given that support was obtained in two of the nine categories, partial support for Hypothesis 4 is found.

In terms of the personality and physicality descriptors used by announcers at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, Table 4 shows the frequencies in each category for Australian and non-Australian participants. Hypothesis 5 suggested that there would be different depictions of Australian and non-Australian Commonwealth Games athletes in the characterization of their personality or physicality, and one significant result was found in the analysis. The description of non-Australian athletes’ bodies (χ² = 15.044, df = 1, p < 0.001) was significantly noted more than Australians’ bodies. As only one of the seven pairings was significant, limited support is lent to Hypothesis 5.

Table 4.

Descriptive Analysis of Personality/Physicality Descriptors by Nationality.

Nationality	Australian	Non-Australian	Total
Outgoing/Extroverted	12	5	17
Modest/Introverted	3	0	3
Emotional	52	19	71
Attractiveness	5	1	6
Size/Parts of body	56^a	54^a	110
Background	560	238	798
Other/Neutral	69	37	106
Total	757	354	1111

^aχ² = 15.044, df = 1, p < 0.001.

Discussion

This study identified how the Seven Network portrayed nationality during the Australia-hosted 2018 Commonwealth Games. It breaks ground in being the first known study to use a quantitative, statistically driven study of a broadcaster during a Commonwealth Games and the first of its kind in the Australian context. Results of this study reveal considerable insights into the five hypotheses. Results of this study underscore large differences in the amount of commentary that was provided to Australians and non-Australians during the broadcasts. In this section, each of the five hypotheses is discussed, and conclusions and future directions are then outlined.

Hypothesis 1 posited that the majority of the name mentions would be about Australian athletes, and this was the case during the Seven Network’s broadcasts of the Commonwealth Games. Australians made up 16 of the top-21 most-mentioned athletes, representing 76% of the list. It was unsurprising the Australians would feature so heavily on the most-mentioned list, as Australia won both the most gold medals and overall medal tally, so there would have been ample opportunities for announcers to discuss successful Australian athletes. Australia won 35 more gold medals and 62 more total medals than the 2nd place nation, England.

In addition, 13 of the top-21 most-mentioned athletes were swimmers, a sport in which Australia has traditionally had great medal-winning success. At the 2018 Commonwealth Games, swimmers accounted for 28 of the 80 gold medals and 73 of the 198 total medals, which accounted for 35% of all gold medals and approximately 37% of all medals. In terms of total medals, swimmers won more than double the number of medals of the 2nd-placed sport, athletics. In Australia’s history at the Summer Olympic Games, swimmers have won 69 gold medals and 212 total medals, which represents approximately 42% of all gold medals and approximately 39% of all medals won by Australian athletes.

The total medals won by Australians was 23.57% of the available medals and 29.09% of the total gold medals (Gold Coast 2018, 2018a). When inferences are made using the percentage of Australians at the Commonwealth Games, they made up 10.71% of the total participants, so Australians did outperform if the percentage of athletes is compared to the percentage of medals won. In previous work on America’s coverage Olympic Games in 2014 and 2016 and the Canadian coverage in 2014, results showed that both nations significantly mentioned home athletes more frequently than their achievements would suggest they should be mentioned if name mentions were based solely on medal counts (Angelini et al., 2012; Billings et al., 2017). Thus, results in this study of hypothesis 2 found more equity in terms of favoring the home nation using name mentions as the metric. Using medal counts as the barometer, the Seven Network exaggerated its emphasis on Australians by 2.04–2.52 times. These percentages are lower than what was found in the American coverage in 2014 (4.6–4.8) and 2016 (3.5–4.2) and the 2014 Canadian coverage (4.8–5.7). While the Seven Network did focus much of its coverage on Australians, it was at a rate that is lower than the coverage in the USA and Canada.

In the Australian context, results of this study also show that the Seven Network had less focus on Australian athletes than in the broadcasts of the 2016 Rio and 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Games. In the prime-time coverage of the Rio Games, Australian athletes accounted for 41.85% of the total name mentions (Scott et al., 2019), and Australians won 8 gold medals (2.61%) and 29 total medals (2.98%) out of 973 available medals and 307 gold medals. At the Rio Games, the Seven Network emphasized Australian athletes between 14.04 and 16.03 times what would be expected if using the number of medals to compare with name mentions. Thus, results of this study show that Australians were mentioned less frequently than what has been found at a previous Summer Olympic Games, but not at a Winter Olympics. Australians won 3 medals (no gold) at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games and accounted for 11.05% of all the name mentions (Scott et al., 2020), which represents an overemphasis of 1.13 based on the metric of percentage of name mentions divided by percent of medals won. Historically, the Australian Olympic broadcaster was criticized by former U.S.-based National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) President of Sport and Olympics, Dick Ebersol, who suggested that Australian broadcasters would emphasize and highlight Australian athletes, even those whose performances would not warrant publicity in the American broadcast (Billings, 2008). Thus, it appears as though the overemphasis of Australian athletes at the 2018 Commonwealth Games was less than previous analyses of Canadian, American, and two Australian Olympic Games broadcasters.

As Australia performed well on the Gold Coast at the Commonwealth Games, it is not surprising that Australians would feature highly on both the top most-mentioned athletes’ list and the percentage of overall name mentions. Australia sent 474 athletes to the Commonwealth Games, which made up 10.71% of the total of 4426 participants, but Australians were overrepresented in terms of overall name mentions, with Australians making up 56.04% of the names mentioned on the Seven Network.

In terms of the coverage of the Seven Network that focused on Australian athletes, many of the group characteristics would be shared between viewers and Australian athletes (Oakes et al., 1991). Thus, the Seven Network may have attempted to create an Australia-centric broadcast to appeal to the greatest number of potential viewers. Previous studies have also found that Australian media outlets will provide a broadcast that features Australians in a greater number than would be warranted (Billings, 2008, Scott & Kunkel, 2016; Scott et al., 2019). Further, self-categorization theory also suggests that there will be inherent opportunities for individuals to outwardly display their nationalistic pride via their in-group status through the consumption of the national team, in this case, athletes representing Australia.

In addition, a love of sport is a characteristic that has been noted as being a part of the Australian identity (Adair & Vamplew, 1997; Billings et al., 2019), which is shown through high levels of spectatorship and viewership. The Commonwealth Games was an event that had ample opportunities for broadcasters to highlight the nation and Australian-ness during the telecasts, especially because the event was held in Australia. Also, success and athlete representation often determine media coverage. When Australian athletes are highly present and successful, it is obvious that they would be shown more frequently and extensively to viewers. Thus, the broadcaster may have been able to create, build, and foster consumption capital, which generates further interest in athletes and sports, which ultimately benefits these athletes and sports in terms of future coverage, sponsorship contracts, and revenue for their national governing bodies. Thus, the salience of being Australian would have had a greater salience over the 11 days of the Commonwealth Games, which links with Dimmock and Grove’s (2005) suggestion that identifying with one’s nation during a major sporting event of a short period is likely.

In terms of the description of success or failure of Australian and non-Australian athletes, Australians were described as possessing superior composure and commitment, while non-Australian failure was due to a lack of talent and luck. The difference in the depiction of success and failure of athletes is quite stark, as non-Australians did not significantly receive more comments about their success, and Australian failure was not characterized significantly either. Thus, announcers seemed to heap praise on home athletes, while discussing the failures of non-Australians more often. These descriptions of athletes might have aided the Seven Network to create an Australia-centric broadcast, which could have aided in the fusion of Australians to support their nation as a homogenous group. As suggested by Bairner (2001), sport and nationalism are some of the most emotive concepts in the world, so emphasizing the home nations’ successes and the failure of non-Australians might have allowed viewers to get more excited for their athletes. Given the far higher number of comments for every category of success, it appears as though the Seven Network was highly focused on rendering 11 days of celebration of Australian success, which has also been found in other research (Rowe et al., 2010).

In terms of the description of Australian and non-Australian athletes, only one variable was significant, which was the description of non-Australians’ bodies. Upon inspection of Table 4, Australians did receive the bulk of the comments in each category, which suggests that announcers painted a more well-rounded description of Australian athletes at the expense of discussing non-Australian athletes. One rationale for the differences in the total number of comments could be the familiarity with Australians that Seven Network employees would have (Billings et al., 2017; Scott et al., 2020). For example, Basil Zempilas has commented on Olympic Games since 2000 (Perry, 2021), so it might be easier for announcers, such as Zempilas, to more richly describe Australian Commonwealth Games participants than international athletes, who announcers might not have seen before. Further, a nationalized broadcast will appeal to the emotive element (Bairner, 2001) that audiences seek and, thus, more comments that might appeal to Australian viewers were observed in this study.

Implications, Limitation, and Future Directions

The ramifications of this study provide further context on how an Australian broadcaster focuses attention on Australian athletes during a mega event. This study uncovered that Australians made up 76% of the most-mentioned athletes and nearly 60% of all name mentions were to Australian athletes. As the event was a summer-based event held in Australia, these results were not unexpected because Australia excels at summer-based events, such as the Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games. Thus, there were many opportunities for the Seven Network to display highly visible in-group members more than others; especially, as major sporting events have the ability to unite the nation under its flag, so showing many home nation athletes is a method to garner additional interest in viewing the telecasts and capturing both sport fans and non-sport fans alike.

This study collected the number of name mentions of the top-21 most-mentioned athletes and overall name mentions without controlling for the duration of an event of the number of competitions an athlete competed in. Given that 16 of the 21 athletes in the most-mentioned list participated in either athletics or swimming, where they could have competed in multiple events, the number of name mentions might be inflated based on the number of medals on offer and the number of heats that occur in both sports. Further, Australia has, historically, had great success in swimming events at both the Commonwealth and Olympic Games, so it is not surprising that there would be substantial focus on this sport.

This study also breaks new ground in the quantitative statistics-driven analysis of a mega event. Most of the research in this area has analyzed the Olympic Games, and much of the focus has been on the coverage in the USA. Thus, this study adds to the growing body of literature by focusing on a nation that is successful at the Commonwealth Games and has had historical success in terms of medals won. Adding to the body of knowledge in the analysis of mega events is important to understand how events are broadcast around the world and to what extent broadcasters favor the home nation in their coverage. This study found that Australian Commonwealth Games participants were mentioned more often than foreign athletes, yet results showed that the focus on Australians was not at the rates that have been found in the USA (Billings et al., 2017) and Canada (Angelini et al., 2012) and less than the coverage in Australia of the 2016 Rio Olympics (Scott et al., 2019).

Nationalism during sporting events can be heightened by the incorporation of one’s identity in the coverage that might help viewers to become more attracted to watch mega events due to the emotive aspects that can be embedded into telecasts (Bairner, 2001). Further, one’s nationality may not be a salient aspect of one’s identity on a daily basis, but during mega events, the self-identification with one’s nation becomes a latent identity (Scott & Kunkel, 2016). The Seven Network created telecasts that favored Australian athletes the most, so audiences were provided with many cues to reinforce their identity, which has been shown to be a prime stimulus for sports consumption. Thus, fostering the in-group at the expense of others can aid a broadcaster in attracting more viewers to the telecasts.

A central aspect for a broadcaster is to maximize revenue from advertisers and sponsors by providing engaging content that viewers continue to watch over the duration of an event. This is especially true during global mega events, during which much of the world has its focus on these events, and consumption of these events is effectively mandatory (Real & Mechikoff, 1992). Thus, it was important for the Seven Network to create telecast over the duration of the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games that would keep viewers tuning in to the coverage to maximize their revenues from advertisers and sponsors and to recoup their investment in the event.

Limitations and future directions of this research are recognized. The dataset of this study only analyzed the Seven Network’s main channel. The Seven Network used several channels and streamed the Commonwealth Games online. Thus, it would be useful to understand how the other channels were used by the Seven Network and to analyze the streaming platform, particularly as streams of broadcasters are increasingly being viewed.

In addition, this study did not account for an athlete’s place of birth, and there might be differences in the description of athletes born in the home nation (i.e., Australian athletes born in Australia) and those who are naturalized (i.e., Australian athletes born in Canada). For example, Jackson (1998) identified that the description of Ben Johnson’s race and nationality by Canadian media changed over time in the lead-up to the 1988 Olympics and after he tested positive for doping. Johnson was characterized as Canadian when he won and Jamaican when he lost his gold medal. Thus, it would be beneficial to understand whether there are differences in the description of athletes from the same country based on their place of birth, particularly the metrics of success or failure based on the athlete’s performance at a major event.

Conclusion

Major sporting events provide opportunities for broadcasters to capture a large portion of a country to tune in to their coverage. Thus, it is vital for the continued study into how national broadcasters telecast mega events, such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, and various world cups. This study provides a glimpse in how one broadcaster telecasted the 2018 Commonwealth Games held on the Gold Coast, Australia. Results of this study found that the bulk of the name mentions and the top-21 most-mentioned athletes list were Australian athletes. Further, results found that Australian success and failure were significantly differently described by the announcers of the Seven Network. The current study advances this field of scholarship by analyzing a different mega event, the Commonwealth Games, then the Olympic Games, which is normally the site for study. Thus, this research contributes to the literature in its examination of how in-group and out-group athletes were described by the Seven Network in a new and novel context.

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 iDs

Olan Scott

Bo (Norman) Li

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