Bon, Marta; Doupona Topi?, Mojca - Gender differences in televised coverage of handball matches

摘要

The topic of gender differences and the media coverage in sport has been practically uninvestigated in Slovenia. Hence, the purpose of our study was to investigate the social climate and media attitude towards female athletes on an example of handball coverage. We analysed the coverage of Slovenian male and female handball teams by the national programme, TV Slovenia. The investigation covered sport reports on handball matches in the 2001/2002 season (14 matches) and the 2002/2003 season (22 matches). The aim of the study was to analyse the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the televised coverage of women’s and men’s handball in Slovenia. We used similar methodological instruments as Duncan, Messner and Williams (1990). Special attention was given to verbal commentary and technical production. Our results show that there are still differences in the attitude of the media as regards gender. It was established that there are on average 0.94 slow-motion shots per each goal scored in women’s handball matches, while in men’s handball matches there are 1.20 slow-motion shots per each goal scored. We can say that television broadcasts show a greater number of technically more interesting shots in men’s handball matches than in women’s handball matches; there are more slow motion shots; more angles of view are shown using a greater number of cameras. As we expected, the media images of women and men in team sports on the national TV tend to conform to the prevailing gender stereotypes.