Is Paris 2024 Really Amplifying Women’s Voices in Media Equity? An Analyst Report

Author: Messan Mawugbe (PhD).

An Overview:

Media continues to be the lens through which society construct meanings and makes sense of the world around them. Those social meanings emanating from the media is primary associated with how the media selects and construct contents, issues, people, places, events as news values and realities for audience and consumption. The media’s socially constructed reality is therefore embedded not only in the subjective and perceived editorial meanings but also how it selects certain contents at the expense of other news values. Besides, the media wails the power in the distribution processes of cultural representations and voices. Thus, the media has the tendency to marginalize voices or presents a voice with saliency. It is against this backdrop that the media has been criticized for not upholding equitable cultural and gender pluralism within its news making spaces but seems to support the construction of social-Otherness where certain gender groups in society are presented with high media visibility than those the media’s editorial considered not to be part of a constructed-mainstream.
For instance, it is argued that women’s representation in the media remains drastically low to that of their male counterparts and makes up only 10% of news stories ( “Women Make the News 2018”. UNESCO. 14 February 2018). Similarly, existingstudies suggest that men are more likely to be quoted than women in the media (“The Problem”. Women’s Media Center. Archived from the original on 10 February 2012). Other studies also suggest that the media is frequently skewed towards men’s representation with women remaining underrepresented (Hentges and Case, 2013). It is against the backdrop of women underrepresentation in society and in the media that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Paris 2024 Olympics’ policy provides equal participation quota to female and male athletes. It further developed a media visibility policy guidelines – 2024 Portrayal Guidelines: with the aim not only ensuring the equal amplification of female and male voices but also to promote fair, gender-equal and inclusive representation of both female and male in sports during the Paris 2024 Olympic activities.
Notwithstanding IOC’s positive gender-equality intent, equity presentation of women in sports seems to be an up-hill task for many in the society as exhibited by Bob Ballard’s sexist-gaze remark about Australia’s women’s freestyle swimming team. The rhetoric remains: Is the media amplifying male athletes-voices than female athletes-voices under the Paris 2024? This current report on a content analysis of 300 news headlines relating to Paris 2024 from the 6th of August to the 8th of August, 2024 attempts to throw light on the extent of female voices’ media amplification and ascertain the impact of IOC’s 2024 Portrayal Guidelines on the media coverage of women.

News Auditing Outcomes

Fig A.

Fig B.

Fig C.

Out of the total 300 Paris 2024 News Headlines analyzed, 176 news headlines had
Paris 2024 athletes mentions. Female athletes recorded 112 (64%) and male
athletes had 64 (36%) visibility mentions as in [Fig A]. In terms of athletes’ media
visibility sentiments projections gained 95% positive sentiments and 5% negative
sentiments [Fig B] For the direct quoting of athletes’ voices, for amplification, 100%
quotes were attributed to female athlete [ Fig C]. Although this study is limited to
the news headlines, the results to some extent suggest that news headlinesrelating
to female athlete were not low nor were male athlete quoted more than the
female. In summary, female athletes’ voices were more amplified than visible than
their male athletes. Also, the results revealed that the IOC’s 2024 Portrayal
Guidelines for ensuring gender-equal, fair and inclusive representation in media
coverage of all athletes yielded a positive result. For instance, females’ athletes
were more visible and were also directly quoted. The IOC deserve a commendation
for such a gender-inclusive initiative and it is encouraged to promote such efforts in 2028. Subsequently, Paris 2024 Really Amplified Women’s Voices in Media Visibility Equity-coverage.

About The Author:
Messan Mawugbe (PhD)
The Managing Consultant
Institute of Brands Narrative Analysis (IBNA)
Email: mawugbe@ibnareports.org
Tel: +233 544 700 638

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