MEDIA PORTRAYALS OF MALE AND FEMALE ATHLETES: A TEXT AND PICTURE ANALYSIS OF BENGALI AND ENGLISH NEWSPAPER COVERAGE OF THE 14^TH WORLD ATHLETIC CHAMPIONSHIP, MOSCOW, 2013

 Dr. Pintu Sil 

Abstract

The purpose of the research was to analyse the content of the sports section of leading Newspapers from the angle of gender disparity in sports news publication. Analysis was done in the light of the stunning results in the field of Athletics occurred in the 14^th World Athletic Championship, Moscow, 2013 in the events of 100m, 200m and 4x100m Relay. Usein Bolt of Jamaica won the three Gold medals in these events for Men and Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce from Jamaica also won the three Gold medals in the same events for female in this championship. Though they summit the same peaks but media gave more coverage for Bolt in sports content in the form of news and photograph than Fraser-Pryce. This has been proved statistically in this study. Variables considered for this study were area covered for news writing, area covered for photograph, size and area of heading of the news, and total area of news coverage. Measurement was done by calculating the area in Sq. Cm. of the paper using simple geometric scale. Mean and standard deviation were calculated and comparison was done between male coverage with female coverage by t-test. Only 0.05 level of significance was considered for this study. Result showed that there was significantly gender disparity in sports news and pictorial coverage in leading newspapers in Bengal.

 Keywords: Sports coverage, Print media, Gender disparity