Sextyping of sports: The influence of gender, participation, and mediated sports consumption on responses to visual priming

Although men’s participation in sports that have traditionally been sex-typed as masculine, such as basketball, have received the lion’s share of media coverage, research shows that women’s interest and participation in these sports has steadily increased during the past decade. This study seeks to update research on the sex-typing of sports with an exploration of how visual priming, through sports images, may be influenced by participation, mediated sports consumption and gender of consumers. Further, because of the racial integration of sports (and sports media) in the U.S., race was also considered in the priming of viewers to accept stereotypical or non-stereotypical presentations of sport. Overall, sex-role stereotypes were found to be strong enough that factors such as gender of the subject, individual participation and sports media consumption had little overall impact on rejection of schemas when subjects were primed with stereotypical or counter-stereotypical images. Only one sport, soccer, was judged as truly neutral. These results reinforce the idea that traditional gender stereotypes persist in influencing the way individuals categorize sports, which in turn could impact the potential for participation in and mediated consumption of those activities.

Publisher: Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Marriott Downtown, Chicago, IL, Aug 06, 2008
Year of Publication: 2008