Media, Sport and Stakeholding - exploring the sport media ecosystems and gender equity in Canada and the UK

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ESRC : Hannah Thompson : ES/P000711/1Investing in girls' and women's sport participation has been shown to support long-term achievement (Ickovics et al., 2014), and leads to higher earnings and job quality (Cabane & Clark, 2015). Research has found that a 10% increase in girls' sport participation led to a 1% increase in university applications and a 1-2% increase in participation in the workforce, particularly in male-dominated industries and high skill occupations (Stevenson, 2010). Thus, sport participation plays a role in the development of human capital for girls and women. Research has also shown that girls who have active women athletes as role models were significantly more physically active than girls whose chosen role models were outside sport (Young et al., 2015). But media coverage for women's sport ranges from 1.8% to 4% (Cooky et al., 2013) making it incredibly hard for girls to see their role models. In addition, we know that girls drop out of sport at a much higher rate than boys making the visibility of role models even more important. Conversations about women's sport coverage remains rife despite decades-worth of scholarship calling for more and fairer quality and quantity within the sports pages and minutes on the screen. Musto et al., (2017) found, coverage of sportswomen remains to be 'bland' and 'wishy-washy' marginalizing sportswomen as uninspiring performers reaffirming patriarchal beliefs. This differential coverage in both qualitative and quantitative ways is said to be harmful "as [it] generate[s] and reinforce[s] stereotypical gender roles and negatively impacts perceptions of women's capabilities" (Fink, 2015 p.322). Most of this has been explained by a lack of diversity within newsrooms, for example Laucella et al., (2016) recognize sport editors often believe interest of women's sports to be low and don't feel like coverage needs to be improved. However, they also found a shift that hinted towards an increase in women being hired relating to improvements of female athletes and women's sport. Although, it's important to note that hiring more women doesn't necessarily equate to more coverage, when there are other potential and unknown factors at play. Hence, our application of stakeholder theory will prove useful to understand who the actors are and what influence do they have on the quantity and quality of women's sports coverage. In summary, there is a lack of gender-balance coverage perceived to be the case in both Canada and UK. Therefore, by creating a score report card, we seek to evaluate the make-up of who the people are in positions of power to create and shape narratives of women's sport. Addressing gender, race, class, and sexuality markers, we aim to uncover whether the more diversity of the newsroom may equal increasing numbers of women's sport coverage. And, by profiling sports news organisations, we can hold accountable the calls and pledges for fairer and gender equitable coverage. Our proposal is truly innovative in its approach to debates on gender, sport and media and will provide novel insights that can have a broad industry impact as there is a real gap in knowledge of how to measure and hold account these pledges for equitable sports media practices. Plus, while it is widely accepted that sport media remains to be predominantly served by white men there are few studies that investigate gatekeeping processes in sports media.