From Diving Boards to Pole Vaults: Gendered Athlete Portrayals in the “Big Four” Sports at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics

Abstract

Analysis of 70 prime-time hours of host and reporter commentary in NBC's 2004 Athens Summer Olympic telecast was undertaken to determine if announcer commentary in the sports of gymnastics, track and field, swimming, and diving each contained gender biases. Results indicated that gymnastics was the most gender-marked of the four major Olympic sports, with men and women athletes being covered in starkly different ways. NBC's diving coverage also was found to contain differential treatment of men and women athletes, while track and field and swimming yielded far fewer gender differences within NBC announcer dialogue. As such, events with subjective assessment (judges) appear to contain more gender biases than sports with objective assessments (speed and distance). Given that gendered assessments occur within everyday interpersonal, organizational, and group interactions, this finding regarding media attributions of gendered performance suggests significant ramifications for gender and assessment within communication.

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