Part 1: Is digital media the answer for women's sports?
We saw it last year with the Rio Olympics: female athletes are not treated in the same way that the men are. Media focuses on what they wear, mistakes they make, whose daughter or wife they are. In 2017 - a year deep within the digital age - women are still fighting against men for the media attention they deserve. Not just attention, but the right attention that focuses on their achievements and accolades rather than their outfits and their relation to other men.
So what is happening now? Well, women still stand below men in terms of how much attention they get from the media. Women's sports are still struggling to compete against men's in terms of broadcasting simply because people care more about men's sports, despite the massive growth in women's sports.
Jane Schonberger wrote an article after a conference in the US that discussed the state of women's basketball in the media and why traditional media largely ignores women's sports, and mentioned that "while there’s more coverage of women’s sports than in the past, primarily because of the Internet, traditional media outlets are under pressure to deliver large audiences and women’s sports don’t move the needle as much as LeBron James or Tom Brady." On top of this is the issue of fewer writers being assigned to the women's sport beat and is usually the first beat to suffer when there are budget cuts or other restrictions.
YouGov conducted a survey amongst their audience to find answers as to why women's sports receive less attention and media coverage. These are their results. Source: yougov.com
In terms of the convergence between digital media and women's sport, the relationship needs to be beefed up a bit. More platforms need to be made available for female athletes to interact with the public, and to be able to have an influence on others. For example, young girls and women that share a love of sport and aspire to pursue it need to have positive role models "and female athletes fit the bill.
Negative images in the media have a powerful impact, and positive ones can be equally influential. If girls see women as athletes and active females they're much more likely to pursue these activities. If they see women competing on the professional level, they can aspire to similar goals." Schonberger is right in saying this because female athletes deserve to be put on a pedestal for those to admire just as much as male athletes. They deserve to be looked up to, too.
Serena Williams has been named the most influential women in sport by the Bleacher Report. Source: thesource.com
The Bleacher Report makes a valuable statement, however, in that "The fact that sports are still such a male-dominated world makes highlighting the influential women in the industry all the more worthwhile." We are so used to seeing male athletes dominate the headlines, so when we see a female athlete doing great things our reactions are far more supportive and excited. Hopefully, one day, there will be an equal mixture of both men and women doing awesome things in the sporting world.
This (very poor quality but very valuable) video explains how the media has changed the way that we view female athletes, and that we are now able to view them as equal to men. However, it still discusses the under-representation of women in the media.
The only possible downside of upping the presence of female athletes in the media is that they will be vulnerable to misogyny and abuse from those that are still stuck in a backward mindset. Some think that sport is a male birthright and shining the spotlight on women in the field will most likely spark some debate. But I think this is the change that the sporting world needs: women need to fight back and give up that back seat they have been sitting on.
