This study seeks to identify, understand, and compare the themes created, by the print media, utilized to ascribe identity to college quarterbacks as they are entering the NFL Draft. The study will compare the four first-round quarterbacks from the 2020 NFL Draft and four first-round quarterbacks from the 2012 NFL Draft; which because of its historic nature of being the first draft to include a white and Black quarterback of drafted number one and two, respectively, is used as a baseline. The study uses framing theory and previous research to understand the themes present in the media coverage of these quarterbacks from the 2020 NFL Draft and the 2012 NFL Draft. A total of 112 newspaper articles from the Newsbank database were analyzed using qualitative research methods to compare the differences in frames that exist due to the racial background of each quarterback. Additionally, the difference in narratives and expressed frames, depicted by the print media over an eight-year time span were compared and examined using framing theory. The findings reveal that in both 2012 and 2020 there was racial framing utilized, in the sports media, when describing college quarterbacks and these racial frames functioned as a reflection of the existing racial views within society. The findings also displayed a clear difference between the frames present in 2012 and 2020. This difference, however, did not point toward a lessening of racial framing, but rather to a shift in the formation of the themes utilized, by the sports media, to create the racial frames. / Master of Arts / This study examines the sports media and its coverage of eight college quarterbacks as they enter the NFL Draft. The study utilizes the four quarterbacks drafted in both the 2012 and 2020 NFL Draft in order to understand the racial themes that are present throughout 112 newspaper articles. The unique history of the 2012 NFL Draft which featured a white and Black quarterback drafted one and two, respectively, serves as a baseline for the comparison of racially driven themes used by the media. Racially driven themes are used throughout sports media to produce narratives about sports topics for the public's consumption. This study seeks to understand the presence of racial themes throughout the sports media's coverage of college quarterbacks as well as the difference in these themes during the eight-year gap between 2012 and 2020. Previous research has shown the sports media to create narratives about athletes that attempt to mirror society. The changing racial landscape present in today's society serves as a backdrop to understand how the sports media alters its narrative choices in order to mimic society. The findings reveal a presence of racially driven themes throughout the 112 articles for both the 2012 and 2020 NFL Drafts and display a clear difference between the formation and utilization of the themes used to create these narratives within the eight-year gap. Although the findings communicate a clear shift in the racial themes, they do not demonstrate a less racially driven form of theme development.

This study looks at how professional male athletes—particularly undersized athletes—are represented throughout televised sport. Based on the assumption that televised sport is a gendered and predominantly masculine genre, the focus of this analysis is to demonstrate whether or not professional male athletes are evaluated differently based on physical stature, and whether or not such representations reinforce a dominant—mythic—male ideology. Grounded mainly in Gramscian hegemony and Peircean semiotics, the subsequent analysis compares broadcast commentary and visuals taken from the 2010 men’s Olympic ice hockey tournament and the 2010 men’s FIFA World Cup. In both events, it was generally found that taller athletes were praised more positively than smaller athletes. These findings appear to support common sports-related stereotypes, such as, the apparent media-reinforced expectation that professional male athletes be almost inhuman, mythical representations of ordinary men, i.e., the best athletes should be large, intimidating, aggressive, and hyper-masculine symbols.

This study looks at how professional male athletes—particularly undersized athletes—are represented throughout televised sport. Based on the assumption that televised sport is a gendered and predominantly masculine genre, the focus of this analysis is to demonstrate whether or not professional male athletes are evaluated differently based on physical stature, and whether or not such representations reinforce a dominant—mythic—male ideology. Grounded mainly in Gramscian hegemony and Peircean semiotics, the subsequent analysis compares broadcast commentary and visuals taken from the 2010 men’s Olympic ice hockey tournament and the 2010 men’s FIFA World Cup. In both events, it was generally found that taller athletes were praised more positively than smaller athletes. These findings appear to support common sports-related stereotypes, such as, the apparent media-reinforced expectation that professional male athletes be almost inhuman, mythical representations of ordinary men, i.e., the best athletes should be large, intimidating, aggressive, and hyper-masculine symbols.

This report is an analysis of the gender representation in Swedish sports media, a comparison between sport in public service television for adults and children. The study explores the differences between the number of male and female sports in the matter of air time and also the number of male and female appearances in the TV shows. The programs studied in this report are the Swedish SVT’s Sportspegeln and Lilla sportspegeln.  When we began this analysis we were under the impression that men would be over-represented, but that representation in sports television for children would be more gender equal than the adult counterpart. The result of the analysis confirmed previous studies stating that men dominate the sports programs in Swedish public service television. However, we found that the differences in gender representation in Sportspegeln and Lilla sportspegeln was smaller than we thought.

Women's athletics regularly receives less media coverage than men's athletics, and female athletes are often portrayed in ways that de-emphasize their athletic abilities. Previous researchers have suggested that increasing the number of women who work in sports media might improve coverage for female athletes. Ten women sportswriters who work at daily newspapers were interviewed to explore how they perceived covering women's sports. Most of the sportswriters said that they did not feel any preference toward covering women's athletics. They said they were more interested in finding good stories to write than pursuing stories based on gender. The sportswriters also suggested that men's sports received more coverage because sports fans were more interested in men's sports. Most of the women said that their bosses do not expect women to cover womenâ s sports because of their gender, but that newspapers' use of the beat system encourages sportswriters of both sexes to cover the top men's professional sports and college football. The widespread use of beats to cover sports and the acknowledgement of what sports constitute the top beats suggests that the profession and the larger field of sports journalism can influence what sports sportswriters want to cover. Organizational culture, new institutionalism, and Bourdieu's field theory can help explain how the sportswriting profession and sports media practices influence sportswriters' decisions on what sports are desirable to cover.

This study looks at how professional male athletes—particularly undersized athletes—are represented throughout televised sport. Based on the assumption that televised sport is a gendered and predominantly masculine genre, the focus of this analysis is to demonstrate whether or not professional male athletes are evaluated differently based on physical stature, and whether or not such representations reinforce a dominant—mythic—male ideology. Grounded mainly in Gramscian hegemony and Peircean semiotics, the subsequent analysis compares broadcast commentary and visuals taken from the 2010 men’s Olympic ice hockey tournament and the 2010 men’s FIFA World Cup. In both events, it was generally found that taller athletes were praised more positively than smaller athletes. These findings appear to support common sports-related stereotypes, such as, the apparent media-reinforced expectation that professional male athletes be almost inhuman, mythical representations of ordinary men, i.e., the best athletes should be large, intimidating, aggressive, and hyper-masculine symbols.

This study looks at how professional male athletes—particularly undersized athletes—are represented throughout televised sport. Based on the assumption that televised sport is a gendered and predominantly masculine genre, the focus of this analysis is to demonstrate whether or not professional male athletes are evaluated differently based on physical stature, and whether or not such representations reinforce a dominant—mythic—male ideology. Grounded mainly in Gramscian hegemony and Peircean semiotics, the subsequent analysis compares broadcast commentary and visuals taken from the 2010 men’s Olympic ice hockey tournament and the 2010 men’s FIFA World Cup. In both events, it was generally found that taller athletes were praised more positively than smaller athletes. These findings appear to support common sports-related stereotypes, such as, the apparent media-reinforced expectation that professional male athletes be almost inhuman, mythical representations of ordinary men, i.e., the best athletes should be large, intimidating, aggressive, and hyper-masculine symbols.

With the exposure of mass media, sports fans are able to enjoy games in real time in their homes (Beck & Bosshart, 2003; Phua, 2010). While just watching sports broadcasts, fans are likely to share the game experience with family, friends, and other fans who are following the same team (Gantz & Wenner, 1995). Besides, a significant number of people use social media when they are watching live sports broadcasts (Horn, 2012; Phua, 2012; Tang & Cooper, 2011). In particular, sports is one of the most common topics for Twitter users (Kwak, Lee, Park & Moon, 2010). Thus, this thesis explores 1) sports media audiences' motivations to watch live NFL game broadcasts with others, 2) their gratifications as a consequence of the group watching, 3) their motivations to use sports Twitter while watching live NFL game broadcasts, 4) their gratifications as a consequence of sports Twitter use while watching the game broadcasts, and 5) the level of gratifications as a consequence of the group watching and sports Twitter use. The factor analysis indicates that interactivity, fan identity, diversion/entertainment, and personal utility are the factors for the uses and gratifications of the group watching, while interactivity, information seeking, fan identity, and diversion/entertainment are the factors for sports Twitter use. All motivational factors are gratified as a consequence of sports group watching and Twitter use while watching the game broadcasts. This is the meaningful implication of the study that sports media allow the audience to have an opportunity to fulfill their desire for social interaction, and indeed, it is gratified as a consequence of sports media use. / Mass Media and Communication

abstract: The term “female sportscaster” elicits a broad range of feelings among the sports media consumer base. Many of the women who fall into the category of “female sportscaster” appear to be greatly admired while many others evoke considerable scorn, making the electronic sports media industry a seemingly dangerous and often vitriolic environment for women. The gendered mistreatment of women sportscasters is not unfamiliar to sports media scholars. Indeed, phenomena such as sex biases, double standards, and harassment have been documented, primarily through positivistic or quantitative research. What has not been investigated, however, is how these phenomena persist and evolve despite the extant research. This dissertation employs Michel Foucault’s power/knowledge paradigm to take a discursive analytic approach to understand how the “female sportscaster” subjectivity, or imagined idea, is constructed through statements, images, and practices. That is, this dissertation investigates the way society “talks about” the “female sportscaster” and how those discussions affect the experiences of women sportscasters. Using one-on-one interviews with 10 women sportscasters, focus groups with sports media consumers, netnography, and textual analysis under the umbrella of a feminist methodological approach, this dissertation finds that the American female subjectivity is constructed through postfeminist and neoliberal discourses. These discourses “empower” women sportscasters to be responsible for their own success but, in doing so, normalize the obstacles women in sportscasting endure. As a result of this normalization, the electronic sports media industry is seemingly justified in taking little to no meaningful action toward improving conditions for women sportscasters. Specific manifestations of these discourses are traced across phenomena such as double standards, bias in hiring and development, harassment, and the expectation of affective labor. Suggestions are made for improving conditions for women sportscasters. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Journalism and Mass Communication 2018

The following is a study on the effects of framing the topic of concussions in the sports media. The study examined the differences between “perceptions of seriousness” of concussions based on two article conditions and how men and women, athletes and non-athletes, sports fans and non-sports fans all viewed the seriousness of concussions. Other variables of analysis included testing participants for their emotional empathy and aggressiveness in relation to their views on concussions. The findings of the study did not confirm most of the hypotheses, but the major hypothesis was supported. For participants who read the “serious” article condition, they reported taking concussions more seriously. Those that were exposed to the “less serious” article condition reported taking concussions less seriously. Therefore, the study shows that the framing of concussions in the sports media could have real consequences for both how the issue is discussed and perceived on the national landscape.