Homogenization or heterogenization: An analysis of Korean newspapers coverage of women's professional golf tournaments held in Korea and the U.S.

摘要

The purpose of this study was to find out how Korean newspapers covered women's professional golf tournaments held in Korea and the United States. Additionally, an attempt was made to ascertain any trends in the newspapers' coverage of players and activities associated with both tours. This study focused on one daily sport newspaper (Ilgan Sports) and one general newspaper (Chosun Ilbo) from 2004 through 2008. The two newspapers produced 1,699 stories related to the LPGA (n=1,234 articles) and the KLPGA (n= 465 articles). Thus, the newspapers covered the LPGA (72.6%) much more frequently than then KLPGA (27.4%). The newspapers covered the LPGA more in all three categories, with the LPGA receiving 79.4% of the large articles, 74.1% of the medium stories, and 68.7% of the small articles. In addition, the newspapers provided the LPGA more feature story coverage (83.9%) and more photographic coverage (75.7%). It is notable that this study's principal innovation is the finding of changes in the overall approach of the Korean media over the five-year analysis. Specifically, the coverage devoted to the KLPGA tour increased from 21.9% (2004) to 36.13% (2008) of the total coverage given to women's golf by the selected newspapers.