Carson Smith TEL T192 Martins Assignment 3 Female Athletes in the Media It is quite evident that there have been many biases in media coverage between male and female athletes for decades When it comes to athletics men have typically received more money more fame and more exposure no matter how good they are In fact in the article The Televised Sports Manhood Formula the author claims Images or discussion of women athletes is almost entirely absent in the sports programs that boys watch most Messner In order to analyze the media s portrayal of these female athletes I examined a news article published by CNN about tennis superstar Maria Sharapova In doing so I have come to the conclusion that the different types of media coverage received between female and male athletes cause viewers to take female athletes less seriously than they do male athletes This is due to sexualized stereotyping social learning and gender marking According to an article written by Donna A Lopiano When male athletes receive media attention such coverage is primarily focused on their skilled performance When female athletes receive media attention the media is much more likely to focus on their physical attractiveness or non sport related activities Lopiano CNN s article is supposed to be announcing Sharapova s decision to hire Sven Groeneveld as her new coach Instead however the article is sexualized in a way that makes the partnership appear as more of a budding romance The author makes it clear that the tennis star dumped her former coach and refers to Groeneveld as the new man in her life It is stereotypical remarks like this that cause readers to take the athlete s career less seriously and view her more as a celebrity or socialite Messner s work also mentions social learning as a bias towards women s sports coverage There is less enthusiasm towards female athletes because they are supposedly weaker and slower than men The CNN journalist contributes to this assumption by constantly mentioning Sharapova s hip and shoulder injuries The article shows no action shots only pictures of Sharapova falling on the ground sighing on the court after an upset and blank reactions from the crowd sitting in the stands The camera is always angled down on her making her look smaller and less powerful than any male athlete This kind of coverage hurts male and female viewers perceptions of women s sports It leads them to believe women are weak and prone to injury It even makes the sport appear boring and uneventful Perhaps the most prominent and apparent use of gender bias in sports coverage is the use of gender marking An example of this would be a commentator announcing a game as the women s national championship as opposed to just saying national championship Unfortunately gender marking is used in the CNN article when referring to the Women s French Open reminding the audience that Sharapova is a FEMALE athlete Aside from the text itself the article also emphasized her gender by its appearance alone A slide show appeared at the top of the article with pictures of her all dressed up promoting her new candy line Sugarpova even though this had nothing to do with the actual story Colors like hot pink and baby blue are used to attract the female audience and make the article appear more girly But do the targeted female readers even find this appealing The use of gender marking and stereotypical feminine motifs only draws attention away from the actual sport itself and causes male readers to become uninterested With the media s constant use of sexualized stereotyping and gender marking as well as humanity s social learning it is no wonder female athletes do not get the recognition they deserve I think journalists need to take Title IX more seriously If women are allowed to receive the same kind of education and athletic programs as men they should be allowed to receive the same kind of media coverage as well Unfortunately this problem has remained unchanged throughout the years even though there are more female sports reporters than ever before Works Cited Lopiano D A 2008 Media Coverage of Women s Sports Is Important Sports Management Resources Retrieved from http www sportsmanagementresources com library media coverage womens sports Maria Sharapova Has a New Man CNN Turner Broadcasting System Inc 2013 Web Messner M A Dunbar M Hunt D 2000 The Televised Sports Manhood Formula Journal of Sport and Social Issues 25 370 379