Media is exerting an increasing influence on children's development. This is especially important when it comes to gender stereotypes and the social perceptions of how girls and boys should dress, talk and behave. Another factor why media coverage could have an affect on female participation rates is sexism. We can tell this because the sport sections in a variety of newspapers were looked through and there was hardly anything on female sport-only a few articles. (The only pictures of women in the papers were nothing to do with sport. When the female athlete is portrayed, her gender role rather than her athletic abilities are the focus of the media coverage.)
Male sport dominated. Why? There are a number of possible reasons for this and here are some of the following:
- People think that females are not as good as the men.
- There is a wider range of sports for men.
- Men tend to play the more popular spectator sports.
Because of this lack of media coverage, women and girls may think that it isn’t worth playing sport because you wouldn’t get the attention that you are deserved and there wouldn’t be many people who are interested in the sport that they are playing in.
Another factor why media coverage has an affect on female participation rates is that the media could have an enormous impact in the re-definition of gender roles by presenting different images of both women and men. However, they have not done this and have presented us with images of violent male and female action heroes. This is very wrong and could lead to the following:
‘‘Research has taken place and has shown that among girls and women who are overweight, or even only a little overweight, reading of the sports section in newspapers with pictures of 'sexy looking' women is linked to the dislike of their own body and therefore, don't want to be seen playing sport in case they might be bullied due to their body weight or looks. This can once again decrease female sports participation.’’
Successfulness and popularity of a sport is partly due to media coverage and because the media does not cover female sport very well, it causes a lack of sponsorship for the teams. This causes very few role models, so therefore, there is no one to idolise. Therefore, fewer people become interested which causes a lower participation rate.
