Changes through the lens? US photographic newspaper coverage of female high school athletes

Abstract

The social constructs of race and gender are often diluted in their importance to the processes of human reality. However, understanding how each is shaped by social institutions, such as sports media, is necessary in order to explain individual perceptions of each. Using framing theory, and informed by feminist thought and critical race theory, this study critically examines the visual US newspaper coverage of interscholastic female athletes, thereby addressing the need for further research regarding the intersections of race and gender in sports media. Specifically, it thematically analyses the photographs and accompanying text of interscholastic female basketball players. Affirming prior research, this study found that newspapers upheld hegemonic masculinity through their under-representation of photographic images of high school female athletes. However, contrary to female collegiate and professional coverage, the instances of occurrences of female high school athletes and their accompanying texts did not serve to reduce, trivialize, or underestimate their athletic accomplishments. Rather, they seemed to affirm female athletics.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Dr. Catherine Luther, Dr. Erin Whiteside, and Dr. Rob Hardin for their insight and help with this paper.

Notes

^1.Duncan, ‘Sports Photographs and Sexual Difference’, 22–3.

^2.Sontag, On Photography, 154.

^3.Barthes, Image, Music, Text.

^4.Zimmerman, Kauffman, and Leifer, Photographing Sports.

^5.Barthes, Image, Music, Text, 21.

^6.Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 63.

^7.Crenshaw, ‘Mapping the Margins’.

^8.Brooks and Hébert, ‘Gender, Race, and Media Representation’.

^9.Brah and Phoenix, ‘Ain't I a Woman?’, 76.

^10.Pedersen, ‘Investigating Interscholastic Equity’, 429.

^11.Grainger, Newman, and Andrews, ‘Sport, the Media, and the Construction of Race’.

^12. See Billings, ‘In Search of Women Athletes’; and Wann et al., ‘Inequitable Newspaper Coverage’.

^13.Duncan, ‘Sports Photographs and Sexual Difference’.

^14. See Billings, ‘In Search of Women Athletes’; Billings, Halone, and Denham, ‘“Man, That Was a Pretty Shot”’, 295–314; Duncan, ‘Sports Photographs and Sexual Difference’; Hardin, Lynn, and Walsdorf, ‘Challenge and Conformity’; Hardin et al., ‘Framing of Sexual Difference’; and Kuhn, Power of the Image.

^15. See Douglas, ‘To Be Young, Gifted, Black and Female’.

^16. National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), ‘High School Sports Participation Increases for the 22^nd Straight Year’, NFHS, www.nfhs.org/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier = id&ItemID = 5751&libID = 5773.

^17. Ibid.

^18.Entman, ‘Framing’; Goffman, Frame Analysis; and Tuchman, Making News.

^19.Cole, ‘One Chromosome Too Many?’; Cooky, Dycus, and Dworkin, ‘“What Makes a Woman a Woman?”’; and Sykes, ‘Transsexual and Transgender Policies in Sport’.

^20.Delgado and Stefancic, Critical Race Theory.

^21.Entman, ‘Framing US Coverage of International News’.

^22.Tuchman, Making News.

^23.Goffman, Frame Analysis.

^24. Ibid., 21.

^25. Ibid.

^26.Entman, ‘Framing’, 52.

^27. Ibid.

^28.Lawrence, ‘Researching Political News Framing’.

^29.Gamson, ‘News as Framing’; and Gans, Deciding What's News.

^30.D'Angelo, ‘New Framing as Multiparadigmatic Research Program’; and Wicks, ‘Message Framing and Constructing Meaning’.

^31.Kuypers, ‘Framing Analysis From a Rhetorical Perspective’, 301.

^32. This study uses the term Black(s), rather than African-American(s), to describe Americans of African descent as most Blacks in today's society are several generations removed from their African heritage and White(s) to describe Americans of European descent.

^33.Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States; and Kawash, Dislocating the Colorline.

^34.Birrell and Cole, ‘Double Fault’.

^35.Duncan, ‘Sports Photographs and Sexual Difference’.

^36.Duncan, ‘Gender Warriors in Sport’, 231.

^37. See Alcoff, ‘Cultural Feminism’; Alexander, ‘Women, Class and Sexual Differences’; Eastman and Billings, ‘Gender Parity in the Olympics’; and Kane and Lenskyj, ‘Media Treatment of Female Athletes’.

^38.Connell, Gender & Power, 81 (emphasis present in original quote).

^39.Duncan, ‘Sports Photographs and Sexual Difference’ (italics used in source for emphasis).

^40.Connell, Gender & Power.

^41.Duncan, ‘Gender Warriors in Sport’.

^42. See Duncan, ‘Sports Photographs and Sexual Difference’.

^43. See Connell, Masculinities; and Vincent and Crossman, ‘Champions, a Celebrity Crossover’.

^44.Griffin, Strong Women, Deep Closets.

^45.Baker, Contesting Identities, 80.

^46. See Betterton, Looking On; and Kuhn, Power of the Image.

^47.Duncan, ‘Sports Photographs and Sexual Difference’, 40.

^48. See Duncan, ‘Sports Photographs and Sexual Difference’; and Kinnick, ‘Gender Bias in Newspaper Profiles’.

^49.Kane and Lenskyj, ‘Media Treatment of Female Athletes’, 188.

^50.Duncan, ‘Gender Warriors in Sport’.

^51.Fink and Kensicki, ‘Imperceptible Difference’.

^52.Kuhn, Power of the Image.

^53. See Duncan, ‘Sports Photographs and Sexual Difference’; and Kuhn, Power of the Image.

^54.Kuhn, Power of the Image, 38.

^55.Duncan, ‘Sports Photographs and Sexual Difference’.

^56.Duncan, ‘Gender Warriors in Sport’.

^57. See Hardin, Lynn, and Walsdorf, ‘Challenge and Conformity’.

^58.Duncan and Hasbrook, ‘Denial of Power’.

^59. Ibid.

^60.Butler, Bodies That Matter; and Fausto-Sterling, Sexing the Body.

^61.Cahn, Coming on Strong.

^62.Kane, ‘Resistance/Transformation of the Oppositional Binary’, 204.

^63. For examples, see Bernstein and Blain, ‘Sport and the Media’; Duncan, ‘Sports Photographs and Sexual Difference’; Duncan, ‘Gender Warriors in Sport’; Eastman and Billings, ‘Sportscasting and Sports Reporting’; and Messner, Taking the Field.

^64.Duncan, ‘Gender Warriors in Sport’.

^65.Duncan and Sayaovong, ‘Photographic Images and Gender’.

^66.Nakayama and Martin, Whiteness.

^67.Van Sterkenburg and Knoppers, ‘Dominant Discourses’.

^68.Primm, DuBois, and Regoli, ‘Exercise in Subtleties’.

^69.Hartman, ‘What Can We Learn From Sports?’.

^70.Primm, DuBois, and Regoli, ‘Exercise in Subtleties’.

^71.Billings, ‘Depicting the Quarterback’.

^72.Carlston, ‘Environmental Explanation’.

^73.Delgado and Stefancic, Critical Race Theory, 7–10.

^74. Opinion of Federal Judge Leon Higginbothan in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania et al. v. Local Union 542, International Union of Operating Engineers, 552 F.2d 498 (1977).

^75. NewsBank Inc., ‘America's Historical Newspapers’, NewsBank, http://www.newsbank.com/colleges/index.cfm?content = 220.

^76. NFHS, ‘High School Sports Participation Increases for the 22^nd Straight Year’, www.nfhs.org/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier = id&ItemID = 5751&libID = 5773.

^77. The East North Central region includes Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

^78. The East South Central region includes Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

^79. See Billings, Halone, and Denham, ‘“Man, That Was a Pretty Shot”’; Cuneen and Sidwell, ‘Gender Portrayals’; Duncan, ‘Sports Photographs and Sexual Difference’; Duncan and Sayaovong, ‘Photographic Images and Gender’; Hardin, Lynn, and Walsdorf, ‘Challenge and Conformity’; Kian and Clavio, ‘Comparison of Online Media’; Kian, Mondello, and Vincent, ‘ESPN: The Women's Sports Network?’; and Kian, Vincent, and Mondello, ‘Masculine Hegemonic Hoops’.

^80.Holsti, Content Analysis.

^81.Patton, Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods.

^82. See Billings, ‘In Search of Women Athletes’; Connell, Masculinities; Duncan and Hasbrook, ‘Denial of Power’; Eastman and Billings, ‘Gender Parity in the Olympics’; Tuchman, Daniels, and Benet, Hearth and Home; Vincent and Crossman, ‘Champions, a Celebrity Crossover’; and Wann et al., ‘Inequitable Newspaper Coverage’.

^83. See Billings, ‘In Search of Women Athletes’; Duncan, ‘Sports Photographs and Sexual Difference’; Kane and Lenskyj, ‘Media Treatment of Female Athletes’; Kinnick, ‘Gender Bias in Newspaper Profiles’; and Wann et al., ‘Inequitable Newspaper Coverage’.

^84.Fink and Kensicki, ‘Imperceptible Difference’.

^85.Duncan, ‘Sports Photographs and Sexual Difference’.

^86.Kuhn, Power of the Image.

^87.Duncan, ‘Sports Photographs and Sexual Difference’.

^88.Connell, Gender & Power.

^89.Griffin, Strong Women, Deep Closets.

^90.Baker, Contesting Identities.

^91.Collins, Black Feminist Thought; Walker, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens; Weathers, ‘Argument for Black Women's Liberation’; and Williams, ‘Colored Girl’.

^92.Collins, Black Feminist Thought.

^93.Williams, ‘Colored Girl’, 150.

^94.Higginbotham, ‘African-American Women's History’.

^95.Miller et al., Globalization and Sport; and Nelson, Stronger Women Get, the More Men Love Football.

^96.Cahn, Coming on Strong; Douglas, ‘To Be Young, Gifted, Black and Female’.

^97.Primm, DuBois, and Regoli, ‘Exercise in Subtleties’.

^98.Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 123.

^99.Douglas, ‘To Be Young, Gifted, Black and Female’.

^100.Hall, ‘Race, Articulation, and Societies Structured in Dominance’, 338.

^101.Duncan, ‘Sports Photographs and Sexual Difference’.

^102.Coventry, ‘On the Sidelines’.

^103. Richard Lapchick, Jennifer Brenden, and Brian Wright, ‘The 2006 Racial and Gender Report Card of the Associated Press Sports Editors: Executive Summary’, College of Business Administration, University of Central Florida, http://www.bus.ucf.edu.

^104.Duncan, ‘Gender Warriors in Sport’.

^105. See Duncan and Hasbrook, ‘Denial of Power’; and Hardin, Lynn, and Walsdorf, ‘Challenge and Conformity’.

^106.Pedersen, ‘Investigating Interscholastic Equity’.

^107.Grainger, Newman, and Andrews, ‘Sport, the Media, and the Construction of Race’.