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Given the popularity of beach volleyball when it was introduced as an Olympic sport in 1992 and given the heightened media attention the USA women's team received during the 2004 Olympics, we felt it was important and relevant to replicate earlier studies of broadcast coverage of the sport in order to determine how or if coverageâ??both verbal and visualâ??had changed. Thus, this study represents a content analysis of 10 beach volleyball games for the men's and women's Team USA during the 2008 Summer Games. Play-by-play commentary and between-play commentary was analyzed for all 10 games and all court shots and camera angles were coded. Using earlier work examining the existence or presence of gender inequities in mediated coverage of sport in general, the goal was to identify if or how coverage of beach volleyball might still reinforce gender inequities or sexual difference. Findings from an analysis of more than five and one-half hours of playing time suggest that if any sexual difference was evident, it was on the part of the men's team. Bissell and Duke's (2007) analysis of the women's beach volleyball games during the 2004 Olympics suggested that visual coverage of the games tended to emphasize the athletes' sexuality via camera shots that focused on specific body parts or via court shots that showed the players from behind. Findings from just under 2,700 court shots coded suggest, again, that sexual difference was not evident in the visual coverage of the 2008 Olympic Games. These and other findings are discussed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This content analysis focuses on the gender role portrayals of Olympic athletes on the front pages of 50 U.S. newspapers and one national paper during the 2006 Winter Olympics. The purpose of this study was to determine whether depictions of athletes mirrored the reality of the games or reinforced misconceptions of sexual difference. This study explored the cultural values embedded in sports as seen through the media lens. It revealed the ongoing struggle between media representations of men and women and reality. This was accomplished by investigating how women and men are visually portrayed in newspaper coverage of the Olympics. Characterizations of female athletes supported previous studies that found sexual differences were emphasized through stereotypical gender representations of participation and activity level. The findings showed no bias in quantitative representation or prominence of photographs. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]