Are women still the ‘other sex’: gender and sport in the Polish mass media

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present and discuss the sports coverage in the Polish media from a gender perspective. Do women and men receive the same amount of coverage? It is assumed that the interest of the media depends, among other things, on the popularity of a sport and the fame of an athlete. However, it must be noted that the prestige of a sport depends on the gender of the participants. Furthermore, it can be assumed that male athletes have a greater chance of being in the focus of attention than women athletes. This paper has two main objectives: (1) to present the status of women's events in the Polish media by comparing men's and women's coverage and (2) to point out the main explanations of the different treatment of male and female athletes by the Polish media. Both quantitative and qualitative data are used in this paper. The first set of data is secondary data concerning media coverage, viewership and the media value of athletes and sports. The results of The International Sports Survey 2011 are quantitative in character and were conducted and coordinated by the author of this paper. The qualitative data – results of the author's own research: individual in-depth interviews and focus group interviews – are of complementary nature. They are used to complement and discuss the information concerning media coverage.