Media Images of Elite Athletes: Perceptions of Male Athletes

Historically media representations of female athletes emphasize physical attractiveness and heterosexuality while representations of male athletes highlight athletic strength and competence (Daddario, 1997; Kane & Lenskyj, 1998). This trend may be changing as a recent edition of ESPN The Magazine, in which over 80% of the readership are men (Gibson, 2009), displayed both female and male athletes posing semi-nude or nude. This issue of ESPN The Magazine was titled The Body Issue and included six different covers and approximately thirty photographs of male and female elite athletes. In this issue, both females and males are shown in various degrees of nudity but the females were mostly photographed with the full length of their bodies showing while the men were typically displayed from the waist up. A few studies have examined female perceptions of female athletes posing nude (Johnson, Kamphoff, Armentrout, In Progress) but no studies to date have specifically focused on the male athletes’ perspectives of how the media portrays female and male elite athletes that are posing nude or semi-nude. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to better understand male college athletes’ perceptions of media images of female and male elite athletes. Twelve current college male athletes from the swimming, football, and basketball teams were interviewed in order to better understand male college athletes’ perceptions of media images of female and male elite athletes within The Body Issue. Full interview results will be provided