Media Image of the Men's and Women's MMA in the Czech Republic

The diploma thesis presents a media image of one of the fastest growing sports in the world. Mixed Martial Arts, abbreviation MMA, has a history in the Czech Republic since the 1990s. The media portrayal of male and female Mixed Martial Arts represents one of the aspects that are not fully covered in the Czech Republic. With the help of qualitative and quantitative content analysis, articles from the four most read Czech printed periodicals are explored - Blesk, Mladá Fronta DNES, Právo and Sport and four Czech news websites - Blesk.cz, iDNES.cz, Sport.cz and iSport.cz. A total of 1331 articles are analyzed in the research. The main goal of the work was to map the media image of this sport and to point out possible differences in referring to female and male athletes. The results of the research showed that although the female MMA received significantly less media attention, there was no downplay on the abilities of the female athletes. The secondary goal of the work was to discover and analyze possible stereotypes that are associated with Mixed Martial Arts. Out of a total of 1331 articles, stereotypes were traced only in 34 cases. The analysis traced a stereotype associated with the characteristics and visage of female athletes and a stereotype called Bad Guys, which portrayed MMA as a brutal sport