Games*

This paper provides an analysis of media portrayals of male and female athletes in the 1984 and the 1988 Summer Olympics Games as reflected in the Globe and Mail in Canada and the New York Times in the United States. Quantitative content analyses, supplemented by some qualitative analysises, are employed to test the general hypothesis that men receive more attention, and more favourable portrayals than women in sports news in the mass media. Among the quantitative results were the following: First, men are over-represented, compared with women, as subjects of news coverage. Second, men are highly represented in team sports and those individual sports that emphasize strength, endurance, and risk. Women are highly represented in certain individual sports that emphasize aesthetics, such as grace, form, and beauty. Furthermore, qualitative analyses indicate that men are more favourably portrayed in coverage. Women are more subject to discursive strategies in the construction of press reports and photographs. For women, there is