Gender Equality, Biathlon and Media: An Analysis of Media Production

Women are significantly underrepresented in sports. This is primarily because for many centuries it was forbidden for women to participate in sports. Today, women are allowed to take part in numerous sports and in major events such as the Olympic Games. Nevertheless, a male hegemony prevails in sports, which is expressed especially in media production. Biathlon represents one of the sport disciplines in which women and men operate on an equal footing. The goal of this paper is to analyze the media production processes in biathlon, concerning the gender issues. The research was conducted with qualitative interviews with sports journalists and athletes and analyzed with grounded theory. Data analysis shows that journalists do not address the issue of gender equality in biathlon coverage. They primarily report on the sporting success of the athletes, regardless of gender. This also means that hardly any women-specific topics are addressed. The interviewed journalists are gender-blind in their work. There is rather a marginalized equality of men and women. Especially female athletes and female journalists point out that the sport of biathlon and the media production about it can further improve in terms of gender equality