USA Today's Coverage of the Top Women Golfers, 1998–2001

Abstract

Women's sports not only receive less media coverage than male sports but also when women athletes are covered, gender-role stereotypes are often reinforced. This study examines USA Today's coverage of the top 3 professional women golfers, Se Ri Pak (South Korea), Annika Sorenstam (Sweden), and Karrie Webb (Australia), during the 1998–2001 LPGA seasons. The intent of this study is to gain an understanding of how the media covers a top female Asian athlete compared with athletes from Europe and Australia. A multi-method approach, using both content and textual analyses, was used to assess the amount and type of coverage accorded to the athletes. A content analysis of 649 articles indicates that Pak received less coverage proportionate to her wins than Sorenstam or Webb. Further, textual analyses revealed that three themes emerged regarding both positive and negative characteristics of the golfers: caliber, personality/appearance, and achievement. More negative characteristics were used to describe Pak than either Webb or Sorenstam.

KEYTERMS:

• gate-keeping
• gender
• golf
• LPGA
• sports

Notes

1. Another issue of race, Whiteness, and sports media coverage that deserves analysis is the comparison of Kornikova's coverage as a mediocre (at best) White foreign tennis star compared with Williams sisters who dominate tennis but are Black Americans. However, it is beyond our scope in this essay to fully analyze the complexity (including the pseudo-supermodel element for Kornikova where it is more about sex, but they can count it as tennis coverage), as well as providing full analysis of the standpoint(s) of Black Americans in a traditionally White sport.

2. We did not add a White American female golfer to our analysis for the following reasons: First, the non-Asian foreigners were treated as White female golfers. Second, we considered adding a White male golfer also, but then one could get into the level of PGA coverage versus LPGA, etc. Third, finding a comparably successful, similarly covered White American female was a challenge. Instead, we selected to focus on the notion of a baseline of comparison by noting the Whiteness in coverage of the foreigners. Thus, we have White foreigners in comparison to Asian foreigners. This way, the “foreign-ness” of those being analyzed was somewhat equalized, so we did not get the noise of simply “non-American” in the Asian golfer analysis. This allowed us to focus on the Asian identity in the coverage. We feel we have a good comparison of Asian and White foreigners to highlight the Asian element of identity in the golfer coverage.

3. An important issue we do not fully address is the commercial value of players as a possible “motive” for less coverage. We do point to the LPGA efforts to maintain image and build the value of the LPGA. Based on our data, we are focused on the media coverage and identity representation of Asian versus White foreign women golfers. We do articulate the image presented and the differences with the White foreigners, but we do not have evidence for motives of different coverage, which would need to include data analyzing contracts, sponsorship, and other data. Such an article would be a great continuation of the conversation about identity and sports coverage.