Analyzing the print media coverage of professional football participants: British magazines and newspaper coverage of female participants and functionaries in the women’s ace conference and females in football. Introduction The undermentioned research analyses coverage of women’s football and adult females involved in football in both nationally and locally distributed magazines and newspapers. The focal point of the research looks at how the journalists refer and describe the women’s public presentation through interviews. writer’s columns and lucifer studies. it is a long term survey looking at informations from October 1995 until the present twenty-four hours.

With the recent debut of a women’s ace conference and the bing Prime Minister conference. most of the information revolves around these conferences. although there are besides interviews with functionaries involved in supervising the men’s game. The probe found an highly unequal balance in coverage between work forces and women’s athletics. peculiarly football. When it was featured in a more general audience magazine such as Four Four Two or You magazine. there was frequently mention to the women’s visual aspect. spouses and household life. every bit good as the man’s game.

Alternatively in lucifer studies featured in squad specific publications such as programmes and fanzines at that place was much fewer mentions to the male game and a greater focal point on accomplishment and public presentation. Methodology Data aggregation The magazines and newspaper articles collected came from widely circulated publications including the Liverpool football nine magazine. Four Four Two magazine and You magazine a supplement publication from the Mail on Sunday.

The audience for these magazines are generic and non aimed peculiarly at one gender. although that is non to state both genders are every bit likely to read it. The athletics specific magazines are chiefly focused on men’s football and representatively more work forces take an involvement in football and are likely to purchase the magazine. However it does feature articles about women’s athletics. With the recent debut of the women’s ace conference the focal point of much of the in the more modern-day articles has been on this. nevertheless there are articles from 1995 until the present twenty-four hours.

Sampling The information was chosen from a choice of publications that had been collected from 1995 until 2011. the articles that featured women’s football were found and the 1s that had sufficient information about the squad and the games they were involved in instead than merely mentioned or the fixtures were used. The articles preponderantly contained Liverpool ladies. although England. Everton and Chelsea squads were looked at along with an interview with a female functionary.

The restrictions of the sample are that most of the coverage comes from Liverpool’s lucifer twenty-four hours programme and given the late start of the women’s season at that place has merely been recent coverage of the current season. Besides there are merely comparatively few articles in the publications and the aggregation was non thorough so some articles may hold been losing from the archive. peculiarly off games and several months issues of Four Four Two. Datas analysis After the information was collected it was read over and a content analysis was carried out. looking at lexis picks. tone and attitude of the author towards the female jocks and functionaries.

Points of involvement and subjects were highlighted in the articles. peculiarly the reference of the female jocks. mention to the men’s game. and any sexual mentions. In articles incorporating interviews the inquiries put to the football players were looked at for interviewer prejudice looking at any docket the author may hold for showing the woman’s game. The articles are in the appendices. Analysis Looking at the names of the squads involved in women’s Prime Minister conference and ace conference is possibly the most obvious signifier of subjection within football.

Name callings such as ‘Millwall Lionesses’ . ‘Doncaster Rover Belles’ ( LFC programme 11th April ) and ‘Leeds City Vixens’ are portion of the women’s football conference even the national squad are known as the ‘three Lionesses’ ( You magazine 11th March ) or the Australian national squad ‘the Matildas’ ( Four Four Two Oct 07 ) . Other squads who merely have the names of male football squad names such as Everton are known ‘Everton ladies’ . the name of the squads. although some may merely be nicknames instead than official conference names. set adult females in a lower place than work forces.

Given that the game of football is non of course gendered. it is non a male game. the thought that there is a demand to distinguish they are female squads is rather surprising. In articles such as the Echo article from the 21st April. there is merely an initial mention to gender in the headline ‘Dowie rescues a point for dominant ladies’ to forestall any confusion with the male squad but throughout the remainder of the interview. it is indifferent and merely refers to the participants as members of the squad. with mentions such as ‘the Toffees’ or merely merely ‘Everton’ .

In other magazines such as LFC hebdomadally from the 12th April when speaking about the start of the new season in women’s football. the author refers to the squads gender 60 times. 24 mentions to ‘ladies’ and ‘women’ 33 times. If the gender had been stated at the beginning of the article so there would be small ground to go on citing the gender repeatedly throughout. The Everton programme from 11th December 2004 ( LFC VS EFC ) the women’s squad is referred to as ‘the Girls in Blue’ . the word misss is normally used to depict a immature female which conjures up thoughts of rawness and immatureness.

However in this case it does non look that is the authors purpose to connote the adult females are any less than the best. after all Everton are one of the systematically best executing women’s squad and it is in fact the lone mention in the article about gender. It is more likely in this instance. merely a drama on words accommodating the slang mention to patrol as the male childs in bluish. McLoughlin ( 2000 ) looked at how magazines the authors outlooks of adult females come through the text about what is accepted behaviors for adult females to make. football is still reasonably off bounds to adult females.

Ultimately this will hold some power over the reader who may experience force per unit area to conform to norms in the media. Throughout about all of the articles the female participants are referred to as ladies. although the competitions are the women’s ace conference and women’s Prime Minister conference when the specific squads are mentioned they are called the ‘ladies’ for illustration ‘Liverpool ladies’ ( LFC programme 10th Jan 98 ) .

This is an illustration of dissymmetry non strictly because of the usage of bantam ladies but besides the demand to distinguish from the male game. It would look that it is normalizing football as a male game as Liverpool work forces or any other squad would non be referred to as Liverpool gentlemen. Janet Holmes besides looked at the laden significances of the word ladies in her 2000 survey. Gentlemen is the opposite word of ladies which conjures up the images of heroism and traditional thoughts of gender. male ootball participants would ne’er be referred to as this as these are non the images that are desired for playing football. there will be grounds of regard and sportsmanship but it is a competition and a contact athletics that has some degree of controlled aggression and ferocious fight. Yet the adult females are referred to as ladies. this conjures up images of a reserved. soft fairer sex. nevertheless they are merely as capable of playing a difficult tactile game.

Therefore the programme from October 1995 ‘ladies fight back’ . rubric is about an oxymoron as ladies and contending are non compatible images. While a women’s rightist may take offense at the mention to women’s football as ladies. given the context it would look that authors are non seeking to take down adult females by utilizing it and it would look the adult females they are mentioning to are happy to be known as that. or certainly by now the strong adult females in the game would hold done something to hold this changed.

Subsequently in the same programme the divide is farther noted when the journalist writes ‘first-ever women’s derby lucifer to be played at our celebrated stadium’ . it is a common characteristic that young person squads play large games at Anfield even testimonies with male famous persons. yet it is made to be an honor at the idea of a women’s game happening at that place. what is made worse is the description of the land ‘our celebrated stadium’ . this gives the feeling it is entirely for the men’s squad. the fan’s. the author. about everyone except the women’s squad. who should experience privileged to play at the land.

Messner and Duncan ( 1993 ) believe that athletics media are wary of altering the coverage of women’s athletics as it would dispute the male hegemony. this is besides supported by Hardin. Lynn and Walsdorf ( 2005 ) and Curry. Arriagada and Cornwell ( 2002 ) . With the acknowledgment of women’s football by FIFA merely go oning in 1991 harmonizing to the October 2007 Four Four Two interview with the England squad. the female game is still really much emerging. However adult females have been playing football and taking portion in athletics for centuries.

By foregrounding this is merely ‘the 2nd universe cup England have qualified for’ . He is raising the issue that the athletics was merely late recognised yet taking off from the women’s accomplishments by conveying up the point that they hadn’t qualified many times earlier. As it is stated farther in the magazine they have to equilibrate ‘having full clip occupations and fixing for the biggest tourney of your lives’ . it is barely surprising that they do non measure up every bit frequently as the work forces do as most of the participants must stay recreational and the two games annot realistically be compared. The outgrowth of athleticss such as football has derived from local games that took portion in small towns as looked at in work by Reiley ( 2005 ) and Gerhadt ( 1993 ) ; mob games where two neighbouring small towns would vie to acquire an object over the boundary into their small town in order to win the game.

These were really violent and idea of as no topographic point for ladies to be. as the regulating organic structures developed from the public school systems like Rugby and Eton where the male childs would take the small town games and polish them. it was still really much a boys universe as at that clip girls schools would non hold encouraged these type of games. It was one time thought that if adult females took portion in athletics it would impact on their kid baring abilities. Finally adult females were introduced to non contact athleticss such as tennis but it took many more old ages before they began to play more aggressive athleticss.

Many of the male squads that are in being today such as Everton and Arsenal were developed from churches and mills for societal grounds around the clip of the industrial revolution. there is grounds of women’s squads developing somewhat later during the times of war as the work forces went to contend and adult females were left behind to run industries. at the same clip they started up their ain squads. nevertheless it is merely within the last 20 old ages that FIFA recognised the adult females in the athletics.

With the debut of many modern women’s football conferences and competitions and the usage of female functionaries in the male game. it would look that women’s squads are having a much greater coverage in the media. In mainstream football magazines such as Four Four Two and LFC magazine women’s football has featured over the last 16 old ages. nevertheless it appears merely now that it has become slightly of a regular characteristic.

While the men’s squad. the modesty and young person squads have ever had a hebdomadal topographic point in the Liverpool programme. with its ain subdivision women’s athletics seemed confined to the occasional characteristic in the ‘community’ subdivision. Narratives from 1995 until more late have covered the occasional fiddling narrative such as the women’s squad working with a school tourney shown in the October 1995 ‘girls shoot it out’ extract. Small accent was put on the team’s public presentation. instead the feeling that by covering this narrative Liverpool are demoing what a caring nine they are.

Other characteristics within the community subdivision have been the clubs charity work internationally and with kids with disablements. by cloping the women’s squad in with these narratives it suggests that they are non on the same degree as the men’s game and it is about a privilege to be featured along with the ‘main team’ . that the coverage of the women’s game is about charitable. While some may reason that the programme is describing on the events of the men’s first squad and this may be why the adult females do non have often. so certainly the characteristics of the militias and young person squad games should be merely covered on occasion.

Slowly this does look to be altering. although the women’s leagues merely get down the season after the male opposite numbers. in the hope that the male game does non over shadow the women’s game. women’s football has featured in the recent Liverpool programme every place game late and it has besides moved from being covered in the community subdivision to the ‘news’ ( see Liverpool vs. Manchester metropolis April 2011 ) . However when it does characteristic in the publications nevertheless it is seldom a full page. frequently less than a one-fourth of a page as in the Liverpool programme ( October 2008 LFC V.

Portsmouth ) within a 82 page magazine. although the LFC hebdomadally featured a 4 page article in a 50 page magazine. It would look female football players are eventually deriving more credence in the media. Sexualisation of females within men’s magazines such as nuts and menagerie is a common characteristic. the chief reader of football specific magazines are work forces. so it may be expected that adult females are besides portrayed as sexual objects in them.

However this does non look to be the instance for much of the characteristics found in the media. although there are still some illustrations of it. The interview with the England squad in Four Four Two from 2007 negotiations to the adult females about their opportunities in the universe cup. the interview asks inquiries such as ‘the Australian women’s squad ‘the matildas’ posed nude for a calendar. Would you of all time see making similarly? . another illustration of this is the interview in you magazine when the author refers to the squad as ‘the group of leggy and enviably toned immature women’ . adult females may be viewed as sexual objects in some of the male dominated readership magazines as a manner of gender commodifcation an thought supported by work by Whannel ( 2000 ) . a manner of conforming to male ideals that in purchasing the magazine about football and sexualised adult females they are going more manfully. that it ok to see adult females as objects work forces are the dominant gender. magazines and the media have some portion to play in the socialization of today’s young person harmonizing to Wilemsen ( 1998 ) . he even believes magazines widen the spread and differences between the genders. It is good so that the female jocks and functionaries are being covered about their functions in the mass media. but there is still some manner to travel to wholly take the gender stereotypes and prejudice.

Although stating that. there are many interviews featured in magazines with male athleticss stars that objectify images of them and go through opinion on their build. for some this may look a positive move that adult females have the same powers over work forces but it may be better to have adult females in the female magazines that other adult females can look up to and draw a bead on to be like.

It would besides look that coverage in a magazine that is aimed more at adult females but a more generic audience. You a addendum with The Mail. late did a characteristic of the England squad besides discoursing their opportunities at the universe cup. Throughout the interview with the person participants they were given a little character description such as ‘the captain’ or ‘the veteran’ which are acceptable as they describe their function and dedication to the athletics. nevertheless others were described as the ‘young mum’ or ‘the Beyonce fan’ . while this manner of coverage may be to normalize the misss and make a bond between the participant and the reader who may hold similar properties. it besides implies that they are making something out of the ordinary and taking off from the misss featuring accomplishments by feminizing and trivializing them.