“Successful female Olympic athletes contribute to closing the gender gap in media coverage” (Hovden et al., 2008, p.1). According to Hovden et al. (2008), female and male athletes had almost the same media coverage in China. However, female athletes got fewer percentage of media coverage compared to their greater achievements. In 2004 Athens Olympics, Chinese female athletes received 63% of Olympic medals, but only had 52% of media coverage. This situation was even worse in Belgium which female athletes received 67% of medals compared to 43% of media coverage and in Germany which received 57% of medals compared to 39% of media coverage (Hovden et al., 2008, p. 8, table 7).
Overall, Chinese women sports receive more achievements than men sports. In 2008 Beijing Olympics, female athletes and teams won 57 Olympic medals, while male athletes and teams only won 42 Olympic medals. Especially, for “big balls” (soccer, basketball and volleyball), Chinese women teams won many world champions. However, most people in China will choose to watch men’s games instead of women’s games if these two games played at the same time. People think that male athletes are stronger, faster and more skillful than female athletes. When Chinese men soccer team entered the World Cup 2002 for the first time, the whole country was crazy! I was an eighth grade student in 2002. I still remember that one of the strictest teachers in our school cancelled her class, and she bought a big radio to the classroom. All students sat around that radio to listen the game---China vs. Brazil. Actually, the whole country did the same thing, from schools to companies, from government officers to taxi drivers.
The media coverage of Olympics in China based on who has greater chance to win gold medal rather than gender difference. Particularly, media and audiences all focus on top athletes who are former world champions. Therefore, the only hero is gold medal winner; the silver and third winners will be forgotten quickly.
Your last paragraph reminds me of the culture in the United States regarding the silver and bronze medal winners. I think it is sad when an Olympic win is only considered a gold medal win. To be able to compete in the Olympics is an accomplishment but to stand on the podium as a medalist should not be seen as failure if it's not your flag climbing the pole.
ReplyDeleteAt first I thought you were going to say that in China people were as interested in girls' and women's sports as in men's sports. However, I remembered when several grad students from China came to BGSU shortly after the 1999 Women's World Cup between China and the U.S. I thought they would be as excited about the final game as people in the U.S. were since it was so close. It seemed like neither of the students really knew or cared much about that game. That seems to agree with what you said in this post. Is soccer more popular than basketball?
ReplyDeleteYu, thank you for your insight into Chinese media coverage of male and female athletes. I am not sure if we have talked about this before, but are female sports as common in China as they are in the US? I vaguely remember you saying possibly that they weren't, do you think that is a reason that the coverage is not as popular with female sports? Like Courtney, I think your last paragraph is interesting about second and third being quickly forgotten. It is an unfortunate circumstance seeing as though those athletes have also achieved something incredibly special, finishing on the podium at the Olympics.
ReplyDeleteI also like your picture of the Chinese gymnastic team! I can't believe how tiny some of those girls are and how young they look!
Yu, I really liked your post coming from a different perspective. The inequality in gender coverage is something I have noticed in my viewing of the olympics as well. But, I read this article the other day and realized that the inequality is not only in the amount of coverage time. It is also in the coverage type. The article showed that men's sports have more slow motion, instant replay, close ups, and athlete biographies than women. I never really realized this until the article. So women are being treated unfairly in the amount of coverage as well as the type. Pretty terrible huh?
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