514416

research-article2014
JMQXXX10.1177/1077699013514416Journalism & Mass Communication QuarterlyBillings et al.

Agenda Setting and Sports

Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
2014, Vol. 91(1) 38­–58
(Re)Calling London: The © 2014 AEJMC
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DOI: 10.1177/1077699013514416
NBC’s Primetime Broadcast jmcq.sagepub.com

of the 2012 Olympiad

Andrew C. Billings1, James R. Angelini2,

Paul J. MacArthur3, Kimberly Bissell1,
and Lauren R. Smith4

Abstract
All sixty-nine hours of National Broadcasting Company’s (NBC) 2012 primetime
Summer Olympic telecast were analyzed, revealing significant gender trends. For the
first time in any scholarly study of NBC’s coverage of the games, women athletes
received the majority of the clock-time and on-air mentions. However, dialogues
surrounding the attributions of success and failure of athletes, as well as depictions of
physicality and personality, contained some divergences by gender.

Keywords
framing, communication theory, broadcast, content analysis, television, gender

In an age where most televised sports are still a “boy’s club,”1 the Olympics are a rela-
tive anomaly, featuring a plethora of women athletes competing in virtually all of the
same sports as men. While ESPN’s SportsCenter offers women’s sports just 1.4% of
the time,2 the 2012 London Olympic Games consisted of an overall athletic population
that was 44% women.3 Sixteen years after National Broadcasting Company (NBC)
dubbed the Atlanta Summer Games as the Olympics of the women,4 signs of women’s

1University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, USA

2University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA
3Utica College, Utica, NY, USA
4Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA

Corresponding Author:
Andrew C. Billings, University of Alabama, P.O. Box 870152, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487, USA.
Email: acbillings@ua.edu

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Billings et al. 39

progress continued to percolate surrounding the Olympic Games: every competing

national team had at least one woman member with the new inclusions of Saudi
Arabia, Qatar, and Brunei;5 both the United States and Canadian teams had slightly
more women athletes than men.6 Thus, a potential paradox exists as critics have found
gender differences in the production7 and description8 of women’s sporting events,
while signs of increased participation could be viewed as progress for women in
sports.
One decade after Bernstein queried whether it was “time for a victory lap,”9 the
Olympic telecast remains the pinnacle of analyses of gender treatment in mediated
sports.10 While part of the reason can be traced to the increased population of women
athletes and the relative notion that people will watch the games regardless of an ath-
lete’s gender as long as their home nation is competitive,11 another reason for the
intense focus on gender in the Olympics arises from the incredible magnitude of media
permeation. The 2012 London Summer Games had a global reach of approximately
3.6 billion unique viewers spread across 220 territories and countries.12 In the United
States, NBCUniversal offered 5,535 hours of Olympic coverage in a variety of media
formats.13 The London games set a U.S. viewership record, with 217 million Americans
watching some portion of NBCUniversal’s coverage.14 The most important compo-
nent of NBCUniversal’s Olympic coverage, the NBC broadcast network’s primetime
telecast, averaged 31.1 million viewers15 and generated more than 80% of the com-
pany’s Olympic ad revenue.16
Thus, the Olympics are an important media event for the analysis of mediated gen-
der issues17 because of the large viewership, the increased participation of both men
and women athletes, and the potential to influence wide swaths of populations. Such
influence should not be understated, as “history is not always written by the winners,
it is also written by those with the television rights.”18
This study will analyze the crown jewel of the largest sports media event in history:
the NBC broadcast network primetime telecast of the 2012 Olympic Games. Through
the examination of clock-time, overall salience, and attributed descriptors to and about
men and women athletes, insights can be offered regarding the role of gender in the
ultimate case of media saturation.

Related Literature
Whether women have reached participatory equality in the Olympic Games remains a
question for debate, but there is no question substantial progress has been made since
the Modern Olympic Games were introduced in 1896. Women were not allowed to
compete in the 1896 games, and though women participated in the 1900 Paris games,19
Pierre de Coubertin never embraced female participation in the Olympics. Decades
after women had gained entrance to the games, de Coubertin stated, “The only real
Olympic hero . . . is the individual adult male. Therefore, no women or team sports.”20
While fewer than two-dozen women competed in 1900,21 the 2012 games featured a
panoply of women athletes from a variety of backgrounds and nations.

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40 Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 91(1)

Social identity theory22 references how people associate or disassociate with vari-
ous groups, particularly how their presumed interests and degree of appropriateness
within and among various groups result in self-made partitions of social classification.
Activities with traditionally masculine participation, such as sports, often forge men as
a tacitly defined in-group, with women developing a cognitive set of cues that results
in seeing sports as an out-group activity. While sport remains a masculine domain,23
the Olympics remain the outlier, offering compelling avenues for the exploration of
social identity-based communicative investigations. Put succinctly, it may be the case
that while women continue to feel “outsider” status24 within broadly defined sport,
they may feel much more of an inclusive sense specifically within Olympic-based
sport,25 at least partially because of the personalized, episodic nature in which the
Olympics are rendered.
When combined with media content-oriented notions of framing,26 one must query
the degree to which men and women Olympians and Olympic sports are offered by
NBC’s broadcast in terms of selection, emphasis, and exclusion.27 Given the potential
gap between sport participation and sport media exposure,28 such gendered differences
will be reviewed in regard to (1) clock-time/exposure differences, (2) salience devia-
tions, and (3) athletic depictions (regarding success and failure as well as physicality
and personality).

Gendered Clock-Time in the Olympic Telecast

Considerable work has focused on the amount of coverage devoted to men and women
athletes in sports in general. These tend to result in findings in which women’s sports
are either diminished to single-digit media exposure percentages29 or relegated to
ancillary networks or websites, such as ESPNW.30 Within NBC’s Olympic broadcast,
however, results have been quite different. Without question, the Olympics feature the
greatest spotlight for women athletes of any American sports media product. Remaining
questions surround issues of equality and degree of coverage.
Two postulates consistent throughout prior research are that (1) the Summer
Olympic broadcast features women athletes and sports at a significantly higher rate
than the Winter Olympic correlate and (2) the Summer Olympic broadcast still consis-
tently shows a higher proportion of men athletes than women athletes. Winter Olympic
analyses31 found that men athletes were shown more than women by a nearly two-to-
one ratio when excluding pairs competitions. Meanwhile, the Summer Olympic analy-
ses have resulted in much closer margins, albeit still privileging men’s competitions
over women’s. In 1996, NBC promoted women athletes the majority of the time, yet
favored men’s athletics by a relatively slim 53% to 47% margin.32 Subsequent analy-
ses of the Summer Olympics33 have shown these same margins that appear small, yet
are nonetheless statistically significant when taken over the course of a seventeen-
night broadcast, still existed in the most recent Summer Olympic analyses34 as NBC’s
coverage consisted of 54.2% men’s athletics and 45.8% women’s athletics in the 2008
games. Clock-time disparities favoring men in the Summer Olympics have also been

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Billings et al. 41

detected in other studies.35 While London’s Olympic Games represent the highest rate
of women’s athletic participation to date, the consistent significant differences found
in prior studies result in the following clock-time hypothesis:

H1: Women athletes will receive less overall clock-time than men athletes in
NBC’s primetime broadcast of the 2012 London Olympics.

Gendered Salience in the Olympic Telecast

Another measure of Olympic media gender equity pertains to the salience of NBC’s
coverage, traditionally unpacked as the number of times each athlete’s name is spoken
within the telecast and operationalized as a “mention.”36 Such analyses tended to hew
along similar gender proportional lines to that of clock-time, finding that the majority
of the mentions in the primetime Olympic broadcast are of men athletes, while an even
greater proportion of the most-mentioned athletes—typically around two-thirds—are
men.37 As such, two additional hypotheses were postulated based on the composite of
these findings:

H2: The majority of the top-twenty most-mentioned athletes in NBC’s primetime

broadcast will be men.
H3: The majority of athlete name mentions in NBC’s primetime broadcast will be
of men.

In addition, the mentions within the telecast will also include analysis of the men-
tions within pre-produced spots for both (1) athlete profiles (within the telecast) and
(2) network promotion of the Olympics (embedded within the commercial break). As
such, two research questions are formulated to examine those differences:

RQ1: Will the network promos aired during NBC’s primetime Olympic broadcasts
contain more mentions of men or women athletes?
RQ2: Will the athlete profiles aired during NBC’s primetime Olympic broadcasts
contain more mentions of men or women athletes?

Gender Descriptions in the Olympic Telecast

Perhaps the largest body of research related to gender and sport focuses on the lan-
guage frequently employed within mediated renderings.38 Scholars such as Blinde,
Greendorfer, and Shenker see media coverage of women as a broader reflection of
gender ideology,39 while others have regarded women’s mediated sports as being
opportunities to “add sex and stir.”40 Gendered linguistic differences within mediated
sport have been found in a multitude of nations41 and, indeed, throughout history.42
These linguistic differences in more recent Olympic telecasts have not been deemed
as blatant as many of the biased renderings outside the Olympics43 or of Olympics
from decades ago.44 Twenty-first-century studies of gender attributions in the Summer

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42 Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 91(1)

Olympics, however, have revealed linguistic differences between men and women
athletes.45 Markula may capture the sentiment within the aggregate of international
Olympic media, noting that “while women receive increased coverage during the
major events like the Olympic Games . . . women’s sport is ideologically controlled by
trivializing women’s performances.”46 NBC’s telecast, however, has been less likely
to trivialize performances by gender than describe them in demonstrably different
ways.47
Studies of depictions of men and women athletes48 within the Summer Games have
found that the majority of commentary focuses upon attributions of success and failure
of each athletic performance. Recent studies reveal that while attributions have signifi-
cantly differed by the gender of athlete, such differences have not proven to be consis-
tent over the course of a series of Olympic telecasts. For instance, the 2004 telecast
contained an increased tendency for male athletes to have their successes attributed to
courage, while women were more likely to have their successes credited to courage in
the 2006 and 2010 telecasts.49 Similarly, the last Summer Olympic investigation50
found men athletes were ascribed more comments about their strength resulting in
athletic success—a finding revealed in past analyses,51 yet not in others.52 Thus,
authors have concluded that such inconsistency of taxonomical findings are important
and should be subject to subsequent longitudinal research, yet “should be classified as
gender differences rather than stereotypes.”53 As such, the final two hypotheses for
this study have been constructed around the notion of difference more than the pres-
ence of bias or stereotyping:

H4: NBC employees will employ different performance taxonomies when describ-
ing the athletic successes and failures of female athletes than when describing male
athletes.
H5: NBC employees will employ different personality and physicality taxonomies
when describing the external factors surrounding female athletes than when sur-
rounding male athletes.

Method
The full sixty-nine broadcast hours of NBC’s Olympic primetime coverage were uti-
lized during the seventeen nights of the 2012 Summer Olympics (July 27-August 12),
representing 100% of NBC’s scheduled primetime coverage (which often aired until
12 a.m. EDT). Only comments spoken by network-employed individuals were ana-
lyzed for descriptors and mentions of athlete names because this dialogue can be
largely scripted and supervised by NBC editors and producers, a process consistent
with studies of sports media framing, as producers impact what is shown while
announcers shape the dialogue arising from these airtime decisions.54 Those network
employees included host commentators (Bob Costas), on-site reporters (e.g., Andrea
Kremer, Heather Cox), special assignment reporters (e.g., Mary Carillo, Ryan
Seacrest), color commentators (e.g., Ato Boldon, Cynthia Potter), and all play-by-play
announcers for both individual and team sports (e.g., Dan Hicks, Elfi Schlegel).

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Billings et al. 43

Three methods of coding were applied to each hour of Olympic coverage. The first
method of coding pertained to the amount of time devoted to men’s and women’s
sports. To calculate this, a single researcher (incorporating DVD recorder timers) mea-
sured and entered (to the millisecond) the total amount of time devoted to each event,
making distinctions between men, women, and mixed gender sports. Any time spent
at the actual athletic site, on a profile about an athlete of that sport, or host commentary
about a specific sport was recorded (including two NBC specials, one on swimmer
Michael Phelps, the other on the twentieth anniversary of men’s basketball’s Dream
Team).
The second type of coding looked at the commentator’s actual use of the athletes’
names. Twelve coders watched each evening’s broadcast and logged/counted every
mention of every athlete by any employee of NBC.
For the third method related to athletic descriptors, the unit of analysis was the
descriptor (defined as any adjective, adjectival phrase, adverb, or adverbial phrase)
used by a network-employed individual, and all hours were coded for (1) the athlete’s
sport (2) the gender of the athlete (man or woman), (3) the ethnicity of the athlete
(Asian, black, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, white, or other), (4) the nationality of the
athlete (American or non-American), (5) the gender of the announcer (man or woman),
and (6) the specific word-for-word descriptive phrase. Then, the descriptors were clas-
sified using the Billings and Eastman taxonomy,55 which divides commentary into
three recognizable categories: (1) attributions of success/failure (i.e., descriptions of
the immediately viewable athletic performance), (2) depictions of personality/physi-
cality (i.e., descriptions of external variables of athletes not directly attributable to the
viewed athletic performance), and (3) neutral (i.e., comments that do not describe the
athletic performance or depict the personality and/or physicality of the athlete—
largely factual play-by-play dialogue). In all, sixteen classification categories were
implemented for the analysis, encompassing comments pertaining to (1) concentration
(i.e., “she has been the portrait of concentration the past few moments”), (2) strength-
based athletic skill (i.e., “nowhere near enough power”), (3) talent/ability-based ath-
letic skills (i.e., “she nailed her turn”), (4) composure (i.e., “feeling the pressure”), (5)
commitment (i.e., “one of the hardest working gymnasts out there”), (6) courage (i.e.,
“showed a bit of guts there”), (7) experience (i.e., “didn’t medal in Beijing”), (8) intel-
ligence (i.e., “very crafty”), (9) athletic consonance (i.e., “tough break”), (10) outgo-
ing/extroverted (i.e., “effervescent”), (11) modest/introverted (i.e., “quiet young
lady”), (12) emotional (i.e., “so amped”), (13) attractiveness (i.e., “comes in with a
more mature look”), (14) size/parts of body (i.e., “the tallest blocker in the competi-
tion”), (15) background (i.e., “is a big Justin Beiber fan”), and (16) other. Using
Cohen’s formula,56 a second researcher coded 20% of the database and reliabilities
were determined for the following variables: (1) the gender of the athlete (κ = 1.00),
(2) the ethnicity of the athlete (κ = .98), (3) the nationality of the athlete (κ = 1.00), (4)
the gender of the announcer (κ = 1.00), (5) the word-for-word descriptor or descriptive
phrase (κ = .83), and (6) the name of the sport being discussed (κ = 1.00). Overall
inter-coder reliability using Cohen’s kappa exceeded 96% when combining all
categories.

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44 Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 91(1)

Once all data were analyzed and tables created, chi-square analysis was employed
to determine significant differences between groups by using the percentage of overall
comments as expected frequencies. For example, because 44.7% of all attributions for
success were about men athletes, it was expected that roughly the same proportion
(44.7%) of comments about concentration, skill, composure, commitment, attractive-
ness, and so on should be established as expected frequencies for men athletes, and
that significant deviations would be substantially more meaningful than employing .50
as an expected frequency for each individual category. For the clock-time table, how-
ever, .50 was inserted as the expected frequency as clock-time measures raw exposure,
whereas the descriptor differences are contingent on how much exposure each athlete
and sport receives.

Results
Content analysis of NBC’s 2012 London Olympic telecast resulted in just less
than forty-five total hours of coverage. H1 predicted that women athletes would
receive less overall clock-time than men athletes in the primetime telecast of the
London Games. Table 1 reports how this coverage was divided by both sport and
gender.
As outlined in Table 1, thirty-two total sports were included in NBC’s seventeen
days of coverage of the Games; however, only seven received an hour or more of total
coverage within the total composite. As Table 1 shows, women received 54.8% of the
primetime coverage compared with 45.2% of the coverage devoted to men, a signifi-
cant difference (χ2 = 1453.87, df = 1, p < .001). Within the seven sports that received
more than one hour of airtime, collectively accounting for more than 96.9% of NBC’s
airtime, women received more primetime airtime in beach volleyball (χ2 = 9663.74,
df = 1, p < .001), diving (χ2= 5.32, df =1, p < .05), gymnastics (χ2 = 3634.11, df = 1,
p < .001), and volleyball (χ2 = 1371.15, df = 1, p < .001). Conversely, men’s sports
received greater airtime in cycling (χ2 = 891.09, df = 1, p < .001), swimming (χ2 =
895.67, df = 1, p < .001), and track and field (χ2 = 504.33 df = 1, p < .001). Consequently,
H1 was not supported.
H2 predicted that the majority of the top-twenty most-mentioned athletes in the
primetime broadcast would be men. Table 2 reports the names of the top-twenty most-
mentioned athletes in the London Games.
As shown in Table 2, while H2 predicted that there would be more male athletes on
the most-mentioned list, the opposite occurred. Fourteen of the top-twenty most-
mentioned athletes were female, with beach volleyballer Misty May-Treanor receiv-
ing the most mentions (591) as compared with the male athlete receiving the highest
number of mentions, Michael Phelps (559). Kerri Walsh Jennings received the third-
highest number of mentions (539) and then the number of mentions for any athlete
dropped by 241 (Ryan Lochte, 298). Thus, H2 was also not supported, as women
athletes represented the majority of athletes on the most-mentioned list.
H3 predicted that the majority of the athlete name mentions in the primetime broad-
cast would be of men. Table 3 reports the mentions by gender and NBC source.

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Billings et al. 45

Table 1.  Clock-Time by Gender in the 2012 London Summer Olympics.

Eventa,b Men Women Mixed/pairs Total χ2 df p

Archery 0:0:12 0:00:00 — 0:00:12 12.00 1 .001

Badminton 0:0:02 0:00:00 0:00:00 0:00:02  
Basketball 0:25:15 0:01:31 — 0:26:46 1262.63 1 .001
Beach volleyball 0:22:11 3:39:28 — 4:01:39 9663.74 1 .001
Boxing 0:00:04 0:00:05 — 0:00:09  
Canoe/kayak 0:00:00 0:00:00 — 0:00:00  
Cycling 0:46:52 0:16:15 — 1:03:07 891.09 1 .001
Diving 2:38:38 2:43:59 — 5:22:37 5.32 1 .02
Equestrian — — 0:01:31 0:01:31  
Fencing 0:00:01 0:00:03 — 0:00:04  
Field hockey 0:00:00 0:00:06 — 0:00:06  
Gymnastics 3:40:44 6:57:20 — 10:38:04 3634.11 1 .001
Handball 0:00:05 0:00:00 — 0:00:05  
Judo 0:00:00 0:00:00 — 0:00:00  
Modern pentathlon 0:00:00 0:00:00 — 0:00:00  
Rhythmic gymnastics 0:00:00 0:00:06 — 0:00:06  
Rowing 0:00:07 0:15:08 — 0:15:15 887.21 1 .001
Sailing 0:00:00 0:00:00 — 0:00:00  
Shooting 0:00:00 0:01:15 — 0:01:15 75.00 1 .001
Soccer 0:01:06 0:15:36 — 0:16:42 755.39 1 .001
Swimming 5:37:19 4:04:09 — 9:41:28 895.67 1 .001
Synchronized swimming 0:00:00 0:00:05 — 0:00:05  
Table tennis 0:00:00 0:00:00 — 0:00:00  
Taekwondo 0:00:00 0:00:00 — 0:00:00  
Tennis 0:03:39 0:02:15 0:00:00 0:05:54 19.93 1 .001
Track and field 5:35:13 4:24:14 — 9:59:27 504.33 1 .001
Trampoline 0:06:50 0:00:02 — 0:06:52 404.04 1 .001
Triathlon 0:00:09 0:00:59 — 0:01:08 36.76 1 .001
Volleyball 0:25:48 1:13:25 — 1:39:13 1371.15 1 .001
Water polo 0:00:13 0:02:05 — 0:02:18 90.90 1 .001
Weightlifting 0:00:45 0:00:06 — 0:00:51 29.82 1 .001
Wrestling 0:00:49 0:00:00 — 0:00:49 49.00 1 .001
Total 19:46:02 23:58:12 0:01:31 43:45:45 1453.87 1 .001
Overall percentage 45.2 54.8 0.06  
When excluding mixed 45.2 54.8  

aAt the time of the 2012 London Summer Olympics, there are no men’s events in the disciplines of Rhythmic

Gymnastics and Synchronized Swimming.

bMixed doubles events were held for the disciplines of Badminton and Tennis, though no primetime coverage was

devoted to these events. Equestrian is competed as a mixed gender discipline.

As shown in Table 3, male athletes received 5,793 total mentions (340 per prime-
time broadcast), whereas female athletes received 6,659 total mentions (392 per pri-
metime broadcast), a significant difference (χ2 = 60.23, df = 1, p < .05). Significant
differences, however, were offered by source with the host (Bob Costas) more likely
to mention male athletes (χ2 = 4.64, df = 1, p < .05) and female reporters more likely
to mention female athletes (χ2 = 11.61, df = 1, p < .001). Thus, H3 was also not sup-
ported, as women athletes were highlighted significantly more than men athletes
within the seventeen days of coverage.

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46 Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 91(1)

Table 2.  Top-Twenty Most-Mentioned Athletes in the 2012 Olympics.

Name Sport Gender Mentions

 1. Misty May-Treanor Beach volleyball F 591
 2. Michael Phelps Swimming M 559
 3. Kerri Walsh Jennings Beach volleyball F 539
 4. Ryan Lochte Swimming M 298
 5. Usain Bolt Track and field M 244
 6. Missy Franklin Swimming F 234
 7. Gabby Douglas Gymnastics F 193
 8. Aly Raisman Gymnastics F 169
 9. Allyson Felix Track and field F 131
10. Tom Daley Diving M 128
11. Jordyn Wieber Gymnastics F 125
12. Allison Schmitt Swimming F 123
13. Yohan Blake Track and field M 108
14. Rebecca Soni Swimming F 102
15. Sanya Richards-Ross Track and field F 101
16. Jen Kessy Beach volleyball F 100
17. Carmelita Jeter Track and field F 99
18. Xue Chen Beach volleyball F 95
19. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Track and field F 89
20. Danell Leyva Gymnastics M 88

Table 3.  Sources and Distribution of Mentions of Athletes by Name in the 2012 Olympics.

Reporters
n per % per
Source n night night Host M F Profiles Promos
Gender/ethnicity/nationality
 Male 5,793 340.8 46.5 335a 4,863 163b 394c 38
 Female 6,659 391.7 53.5 326a 5,753 291b 250c 39
 Total 12,452 732.5 100.0 661 10,616 454 644 77
aχ2 = 4.64, df = 1, p < .05.
bχ2 = 11.61, df = 1, p < .001.
cχ2 = 78.55, df = 1, p < .001.

RQ1 queried whether differences with mentions would be found in pre-produced

profiles. Significant differences favoring male athletes were found within profiles
(χ2 = 78.55, df = 1, p < .001).
RQ2 queried whether these differences would be found in promotional spots.
The largest degree of gender equivalency existed in this area, as female athletes had
one more single promotional spot mention than male athletes, a non-significant
difference.

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Billings et al. 47

Table 4.  Descriptive Analysis of Success/Failure by Gender.

Gender
Ratio of success to
  Success Failure failure
  Men Women Men Women Men Women
Concentration 13 18 4 11 3.3 1.6
Athletic strength 45 70 3 9 15.0 7.8
Athletic skill 1,650 2,097 487 630 3.4 3.3
Composure 48 77 23a 47a 2.1 1.6
Commitment 24 24 7 5 3.4 4.8
Courage 18 31 2 6 9.0 5.2
Experience 821b 849b 79 78 10.4 10.9
Intelligence 33 55 6 4 5.5 13.8
Consonance 149c 230c 43 35 3.5 6.6
Total 2,801 3,451 654 825 4.3 4.2
aχ2 = 3.97, df = 1, p < .05.
bχ2 = 13.51, df = 1, p < .001.
cχ2 = 4.43, df = 1, p < .05.

H4 predicted that NBC employees would employ different performance taxono-

mies when describing the athletic successes and failures of male and female athletes.
Table 4 highlights the frequencies in each taxonomical category, with significant dif-
ferences noted.
Before delving into the findings of Table 4, it is important to note that these find-
ings should be considered in the context of proportionality, which influences expected
frequencies. Thus, women had more total mentions (likely the result of 9.6% more
airtime) and expected frequencies were adjusted to reflect the balance of the overall
descriptor database. Once that was accounted for, men were more likely to be depicted
as succeeding because of experience (χ2 = 3.97, df = 1, p < .05), while women were
more like to have their successes attributed to consonance (χ2 = 4.43, df = 1, p < .05).
Regarding athletic failures, the one statistically significant difference resided in the
women’s category, as they were more likely to have their failures attributed to lack of
composure (χ2 = 3.97, df = 1, p < .05). In sum, the majority of the categories did not
yield significant differences, yet these three significant attributions provide some sup-
port for H4.
H5 predicted that NBC employees would use different personality/physicality tax-
onomies when describing the external factors surrounding male and female athletes.
As Table 5 highlights, men and women were described in demonstrably different
manners in three main external characteristics. Women athletes received increased
frequencies of comments about their emotions (χ2 = 17.76, df = 1, p < .001) and appear-
ance (χ2 = 6.41, df = 1, p = .02) than men. Conversely, the one area in which men
received proportionally more comments than women was in the area of the

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48 Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 91(1)

Table 5.  Descriptive Analysis of Personality/Physicality Descriptors by Gender.

Gender
  Men Women
Outgoing/extroverted 27 24
Modest/introverted 4 11
Emotional 82a 156a
Attractiveness 2b 12b
Size/parts of body 68 87
Background 2,164 2,417
Other/neutral 1,395c 1,330c
Total 3,742 4,037
aχ2 = 17.76, df = 1, p < .001.
bχ2 = 6.41, df = 1, p = .02.
cχ2 = 10.41, df = 1, p = .005.

unclassifiable, labeled “other/neutral” (χ2 = 10.41, df = 1, p = .005). Given that 44.4%

of the categories yielded differences by gender, H5 was partially supported.

Discussion
Forty years after the passage of Title IX—the 1972 education amendment that prohib-
its educational institutions that receive federal financial assistance from discriminating
based on gender—the seventeen-night NBC network primetime Olympic broadcast
proved to be an historic chapter in televised sports. As scholars began compiling com-
plete content analysis data of U.S.-based broadcast network primetime Olympic tele-
casts with the 1994 games, NBC’s 2012 Olympic telecast marks (1) the first time
women received more overall clock-time than men, (2) the first time women tallied
more appearances than men in the most-mentioned athletes category, and (3) the first
time women athletes received more overall mentions than male athletes.57 When
viewed through Gitlin’s observation that media frames are “persistent patterns of cog-
nition, interpretation, and presentation of selection, emphasis, and exclusion,”58 it is
clear that NBC’s persistent emphasis on male athletes within its primetime Olympic
broadcast was broken in 2012.
NBC’s increased focus on women’s sports may be partly credited to the success of
the U.S. Women’s Olympic team, which was a dominant force at the 2012 games.
Team USA women won more medals than American men (63% of the U.S. gold and
55.7% of all U.S. medals). In fact, with the exceptions of the People’s Republic of
China, Great Britain, and the Russian Federation—U.S. women Olympians claimed
more medals than any country’s combined male and female total.59 Indeed, if, as
Tuchman suggests, “The news frame organizes everyday reality and the news frame is
part and parcel of everyday reality . . .”60 NBC’s primetime broadcast could be seen as
both presenting and reflecting Team USA women’s dominance. That, however, would
oversimplify NBC’s primetime broadcast presentation.

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Billings et al. 49

NBC’s increased attention to women athletes was not the result of the network
devoting significant primetime coverage to a variety of sports in which U.S. women
were successful. Rather, the imbalance between women’s and men’s airtime appears
to be largely because of the network’s focus on women’s gymnastics and women’s
beach volleyball. In both sports, women received more than three hours of additional
coverage when compared with their male counterparts. For instance, in the case of
beach volleyball, the U.S. team of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings
received a combined 1,130 mentions, representing more than the overall gender gap of
866 mentions favoring women athletes in the composite analysis.
Gymnastics and beach volleyball, however, carry their own gender baggage.
Gymnastics has been dubbed a sex-appropriate sport for women,61 and some studies of
college students have revealed they perceived it to be a feminine sport.62 The sexual-
ized nature of beach volleyball, where women are often wearing tight-fitting bikinis,
has been criticized by some,63 and praised by others, with the mayor of London, Boris
Johnson, commenting, “there are semi-naked women playing beach volleyball . . .
glistening like wet otters . . .”64
NBC’s increased attention to these two women’s sports would seemingly comport
with Davis and Tuggle’s finding that “for female athletes to receive media coverage,
they must be involved in socially acceptable individual sports and/or sports that high-
light body type.”65 Certainly this theory would apply to gymnastics and beach volley-
ball. Yet, it is also worth noting that American men earned only one medal in
gymnastics and did not even qualify to compete in three of the six individual event
finals in gymnastics. American men earned zero beach volleyball medals. Meanwhile,
American women collected five medals in gymnastics (including a Team USA medal)
and the gold and silver in beach volleyball, where Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh
Jennings won their third consecutive gold medal and remained undefeated in Olympic
competition. Thus, the heavy emphasis on women in these two sports may not be the
result of one single gender-based factor, but rather a collection of factors that include
the sport’s overall appeal to viewers, the gender appropriateness of the sport, the gen-
der-based predicted success of U.S. athletes in the sport, pre-Olympic Games public-
ity, celebrity, and overall Team USA performance.66 Collectively these factors may
provide insight into both television programmers’ decisions and the audience’s desires
to consume the television product.
The end game for NBCUniversal is, of course, ratings. The company’s attempt to
recoup its $1.18 billion spent on 2012 Olympic rights fees results in the network’s
cherry-picking the most desirable sports for its primetime network broadcast. As
Angelini and Billings observed, NBC devoted more than 90% of its primetime air to
five summer sports in 2008: beach volleyball, diving, gymnastics, swimming, and
track and field. This was replicated by the network in 2012.67 When agenda-setting
theory,68 which builds on Cohen’s assertion that the media “may not be successful
much of the time in telling people what to think, but (they are) stunningly successful
in telling their (audience) what to think about,”69 is employed, NBC’s emphasis on
these sports sets a primetime agenda focused on five sports at the expense of dozens
of others.

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50 Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 91(1)

McCombs and Reynolds state that “the New York Times frequently plays an intra-
media agenda-setting role because appearance on the front page of the Times can
legitimize a topic as newsworthy.”70 Likewise, the power of NBC’s primetime broad-
cast as an intermedia agenda setter seems beyond question. With average audiences
that outstrip the other three major broadcast networks combined, NBC’s primetime
Olympic broadcast has taken competitors in non-mainstream sports and made them
into household names. While Michael Phelps’s record setting feats during the past two
Summer Games would have garnered significant attention in other media without
NBC pushing the gas pedal, the stars of May-Treanor, Walsh Jennings, and Gabby
Douglas would likely have been significantly dimmer had their performances been
relegated to NBC’s ancillary networks outside of primetime.
Outside of the five major sports, NBC’s programming decisions when viewed
through a gendered lens provide some interesting, if sometimes cloudy, insights into the
network’s strategy. Women’s soccer received significantly more airtime than men’s
soccer, but this can be attributed to USA Women’s Soccer winning gold and the celeb-
rity of the team, which had just lost the World Cup Final to Japan in 2011. Meanwhile,
USA men’s soccer failed to medal. News value was likely the main factor in the net-
work’s decision to favor men’s basketball over women’s. While both Team USA men
and women won gold, the men’s team received more coverage as it was a more salient
story. The National Basketball Association (NBA) players competing for Team USA
are international celebrities and the 2012 games marked the twentieth anniversary of
the legendary original Dream Team that transformed international basketball.
In these contexts, such news judgments seem reasonable. Yet, the explanations for
gender-based airtime differences in other sports do not seem as self-evident. Men’s
cycling received triple the airtime of women’s cycling, yet American men failed to
medal, while American women bagged four cycling medals. Meanwhile, in the first
time boxing has featured an Olympic women’s division, American women clinched
two medals, while American men secured four medals in wrestling. Yet, combined,
these two sports received less than one-minute of primetime coverage. Another curios-
ity would the case of Kim Rhode, an American shooter who earned a medal in her fifth
Olympiad in a row. Rhode’s gold-medal skeet shooting performance saw her become
the first woman to win three gold medals in shooting while tying a world record when
she hit 99 out of 100 clays. Such an historic performance by an athlete who has been
competing in the Olympics since 1998 would seem worthy of more than passing pri-
metime attention. Women’s shooting, however, received just seventy-five seconds of
primetime air, compared with zero for men. Though that time was exclusively devoted
to Rhode, the relatively meager primetime coverage relegated her to a tie for 412th on
the most-mentioned athletes list. Other sports where Americans medaled, such as judo
and taekwondo received no primetime coverage.
Durham notes that

decoding frames as historical records with an understanding of their ideological premises

is necessary to understand whose particular meanings are included in a generalized
version of history, whose are not, and on whose terms they are either included or
excluded.71

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Billings et al. 51

To that end, in the United States, the primetime Olympic broadcast is controlled by
a multi-billion dollar media organization that has historically aimed its telecast toward
a female audience. The network has determined that combat sports, such as boxing, do
not appeal to female audiences.72 This gender-based programming agenda, however,
results in minimizing the accomplishments of many successful athletes on the most-
watched Olympic broadcast in favor of the competitors in five major sports. The
exclusion frame employed by the network creates true haves and have-nots among
Olympic competitors, regardless if they are male or female, American or
non-American.
In terms of salience, the importance of Michael Phelps in the 2012 broadcast should
not be overlooked. While Phelps received the second most mentions, behind Misty
May-Treanor, he was a central figure in the Olympic broadcast. His quest to break the
record for most medals ever won by an Olympian was highlighted extensively by
NBC over the course of several evenings. After he set the new record at twenty-two
medals, NBC made Phelps the subject of an hour-long primetime profile. The volume
of mentions May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings received was largely the result of the
back and forth nature of beach volleyball games that typically causes the athletes’
names to be mentioned more often during competition than swimmers. Thus, it would
be an error to interpret the exaggerated mentions for May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings
as meaning they were a more important story for the network than Phelps, who was,
by far, the most emphasized athlete in the telecast.
Noting the differences between framing and bias, Tankard observed that framing
“is a more sophisticated concept. It goes beyond notions of pro or con, favorable or
unfavorable, negative or positive. Framing adds the possibilities of additional, more
complex emotional responses and also adds a cognitive dimension . . .”73 When viewed
through this theoretical lens, the network’s gender-based descriptions require a
nuanced historical analysis. Of the twenty-five categories examined for attributions of
success, failure and personality/physicality descriptors, significant gender-based dif-
ferences appeared in only six (24%). Going back to 1994, this study marks the fourth
time that men have been more likely to have their success credited more to experience.
It marks the first time that women have been more likely to have their success credited
to consonance, which previously had been more likely credited to men in the 2004 and
2008 games. This also marks the first time women have been more likely to have their
failure attributed to a lack of composure. Thus, the attributions of failure and success
continue not to be divided cleanly by gender.
In the area of personality/physicality descriptors, the increased comments for men
in the other/neutral category is also a first, but the meaning behind this finding is dif-
ficult to determine, as, by their very nature, the comments are not easily categorized.
Two stereotypes, however, seemed to emerge, as female athletes were more likely to
be described as emotional and received significantly more comments about their
attractiveness. In the former area, there is not enough data to suggest the increased
comments toward women’s emotions are a network trend. From 1994 to 2010,
Olympic women were only more likely to receive comments about their emotions

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52 Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 91(1)

once, during the 2010 games.74 Whether this recent increased attention to women’s
emotions is a short-term aberration or the beginning of a long-term trend is something
that will require further study. It is certainly possible that female competitors were
more likely to wear their emotions on their sleeve in the 2012 games, and thus their
emotions may have been more apparent on the surface than men’s. At the same time,
emotional displays by male and female athletes as well as spectators was a point of
discussion in media outlets as the 2012 Olympics were dubbed “the crying games.”75
The increased comments about women’s attractiveness during the 2012 games also
require closer examination. Women were more likely to receive comments about their
attractiveness during the 1994, 1996, and 1998 games.76 This finding, however, was
not replicated during the six Olympic telecasts from 2000 to 2010. While this tendency
on the part of network announcers has reemerged, its importance should not be over-
stated. The small overall number of comments about athlete attractiveness—fourteen
overall, which accounts for less than 0.09% of the descriptor database—indicates this
descriptor was not an important point of emphasis by network announcers. There was,
on average, less than one comment about athlete attractiveness per night. Compared
with three Olympiads from 1994 to 1998, where athlete attractiveness descriptors, on
average, accounted for 5.03% of the descriptor database,77 NBC’s comments about
this attribute were infinitesimal in 2012. Thus, this may not be a reemergence of ste-
reotypical descriptions of women by network announcers but, perhaps, a statistical
anomaly.
When the network commentary from the 2012 games is put into a longitudinal
context, it becomes evident that if there are clear consistent dialogic gender biases on
the part of the network announcers, they have not been detected in the studies that have
been conducted dating back to the 1994 games. No specific dialogic gendered differ-
ence appears in more than four of the ten games studied, and the most recent appear-
ance of one of the most prevalent differences (comments about women’s attractiveness)
is too minute to conclude it has much importance.
Tankard notes that “framing recognizes the ability of a text—or a media presenta-
tion—to define a situation, define the issues, and to set the terms of debate.”78 How
NBC defines the Olympic experience and the athletes who participate in the Games
remains an area that requires continued investigation. Future studies should be con-
ducted to determine if any gender-based dialogic trends develop, if women’s domi-
nance in clock-time and mentions is the beginning of trend or an aberration, and
whether NBC expands its coverage to a broader range of sports that could impact
overall trendlines.

Conclusion
The first woman to record an Olympic victory was Kyniska of Sparta, who did so in
396 and 392 BC. At the time, owners, not riders, were declared the victors in chariot
races and the team Kyniska funded won. She did not physically compete nor attend the
Games, as women were barred from the festivities. As Kyle notes,

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Billings et al. 53

She had no major impact on the regulations and operation of the Ancient Olympics. Her
anomalous success did not alter the enduring ban on women at the games . . . Kyniska’s
chariot racing was not intended to liberate the games, empower female athletes, or force
discourse about gender roles in sport . . . (King) Agesilaus used his sister to show that
Olympic chariot victories were won by wealth and not by manly excellence.

In essence, her role was political: a way for her brother to shame his enemies by
“emasculating the Olympic chariot race.”79
Conversely, Olympic Swimming Gold Medalist, Donna de Varona, has asserted
that “(Title IX) not only transformed sport but our culture.”80 It could be argued that
Title IX has not only transformed women’s sport, but also “the biggest show on televi-
sion.”81 Over the past forty years, women’s sports participation has grown exponen-
tially in the United States. Popular women’s sports like the Federation Internationale
de Football Association (FIFA) Women’s World Cup made athletes like Brandi
Chastain mainstream celebrities, while increased focus on women’s college sports
such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) March Madness did
the same for players like Baylor’s Brittney Griner. Such women’s megasporting events
have proven to draw high ratings; the 2011 Women’s World Cup final between the
United States and Japan more than tripled the viewership of hockey’s Stanley Cup
final, while rivaling other major events such as the Daytona 500 and NBA Finals.82
Such a transformation would have been unforeseeable in 1972, when women’s athlet-
ics was relegated to individual/paired sports such as tennis or figure skating.
For years, NBC employees have claimed that the primetime broadcast focuses on
the best stories, regardless of gender.83 Opining that if women continued to make up a
large portion of the Olympic television audience and women won a large portion of
Team USA’s medals, NBC’s Tom Hammond said that the primetime network cover-
age would reflect those facts. “Television is a reactive medium,” he said. “We give the
people more of what they want to see than what they ought to see.”84 In 2012, NBC
reacted by presenting a network primetime Olympic broadcast that, for the first time,
favored women over men in three significant areas: clock-time, overall mentions, and
Top-Twenty mentions.
During the 2012 games, NBC believed women provided the most compelling sto-
ries for the primetime broadcast and followed through its programming. This was in
no small part because of the success of Team USA women. NBC has a long history of
highlighting successful American athletes in its primetime Olympic broadcasts and
the 2012 telecast appears to be no exception. As noted earlier, however, the success of
American athletes is one of many components impacting NBC Olympic programming
decisions. This did not result in gender parity, but rather a significant tilt in coverage
toward female athletes. Indeed, true gender parity on the NBC primetime broadcast
may be something that can only happen by accident. The unpredictable nature of the
games, and the ratings-based need to tell the stories that are most salient to the general
public, will always result in early and last-minute programming decisions that may
favor a particular gender. Nonetheless, at least for the moment, NBC cannot be criti-
cized for presenting a primetime Olympic broadcast that marginalizes women athletes
in favor of men.

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54 Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 91(1)

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Alexis March for her assistance with coding and Sal Tuzzeo at
Nielsen for his assistance clarifying some Nielsen data.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.

Notes
 1. Terry Adams and C. A. Tuggle, “ESPN’s SportsCenter and Coverage of Women’s
Athletics: It’s a Boy’s Club,” Mass Communication and Society 7 (2, 2004): 237-48.
  2. Michael Messner and Cheryl Cooky, Gender in Televised Sports: News and Highlight Shows
(Los Angeles: University of Southern California, Center for Feminist Research, 2010).
  3. David Segal, “Britain Takes a Final Bow,” New York Times, August 12, 2012, http://www.
nytimes.com/2012/08/13/sports/olympics/a-memorable-and-musical-olympic-closing-
ceremony.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.
 4. Andrew C. Billings, Olympic Media: Inside the Biggest Show on Television (London:
Routledge, 2008).
  5. R. Scott-Elliott, “Every Olympic Nation Will Field Women as Saudi Arabia Caves,” in The
London-Independent, July 13, 2012, p. 10.
  6. The Associated Press, “More Women than Men on U.S. Team,” New York Times, July
12, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/11/sports/olympics/more-women-than-men-
on-us-team.html?_r=0.
  7. Kimberly L. Bissell and Andrea M. Duke, “Bump, Set, Spike: An Analysis of Commentary
and Camera Angles of Women’s Beach Volleyball during the 2004 Summer Olympics,”
Journal of Promotion Management 13 (1-2, 2007): 35-53; Jennifer D. Greer, Marie
Hardin, and Casey Homan, “‘Naturally’ Less Exciting? Visual Production of Men’s and
Women’s Track and Field Coverage during the 2004 Olympics,” Journal of Broadcasting
& Electronic Media 53 (2, 2009): 173-89.
 8. Edward Ted M. Kian, Michael Mondello, and John Vincent, “ESPN? The Women’s
Sports Network? A Content Analysis of Internet Coverage of March Madness,” Journal of
Broadcasting & Electronic Media 53 (3, 2009): 477-95.
  9. Alina Bernstein, “Is It Time for a Victory Lap? Changes in the Media Coverage of Women
in Sport,” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 37 (3-4, 2002): 415-28.
10. Greer, Hardin, and Homan, “‘Naturally’ Less Exciting?”; Kelly K. Davis and Charles
A. Tuggle, “A Gender Analysis of NBC’s Coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics,”
Electronic News 6 (2, 2012): 51-66.
11. James R. Angelini, Andrew C. Billings, and Paul J. MacArthur, “The Nationalistic
Revolution Will Be Televised: The 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games on NBC,”
International Journal of Sport Communication 5 (2, 2012): 193-209.
12. International Olympic Committee, “Marketing Report London 2012,” 2012, http://www.
olympic.org/Documents/IOC_Marketing/London_2012/LR_IOC_MarketingReport_
medium_res1.pdf.

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Billings et al. 55

13. Richard Deitsch, “The Olympic Television Guide,” The Olympic Television Guide, July
26, 2012.
14. Amy Chozick, “NBC Unpacks Trove of Data from Olympics,” New York Times, September
26, 2012, p. B3.
15. International Olympic Committee, “Factsheet: Women in the Olympic Movement,” 2012,
http://www.olympic.org/Documents/Reference_documents_Factsheets/Women_in_
Olympic_Movement.pdf.
16. Michael Hiestand, “NBC: ‘We Took a Big Bold Swing’ with Digital Coverage,” USA
Today, August 12, 2012, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/
story/2012-08-12/NBC-London-Olympics/57015258/1.
17. See, for example, Maurice Roche, “Mega-events and Media Culture: Sport and the
Olympics,” in Critical Readings: Sport Culture and the Media, ed. David Rowe
(Maidenhead, Berkshire, UK: Open University Press, 2004), 165-81.
18. Andrew C. Billings, Chelsea L. Brown, James H. Crout, Kristen E. McKenna, Bethany
A. Rice, Mary E. Timanus, and Jonathan Zeigler, “The Games through the NBC Lens:
Gender, Ethnic, and National Equity in the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics,” Journal of
Broadcasting & Electronic Media 52 (2, 2008): 215-30.
19. International Olympic Committee, “Factsheet: Women in the Olympic Movement.”
20. Yves-Pierre Boulonge, “Pierre De Coubertin and Women’s Sport,” Olympic Review 26
(31, 2003): 23-24.
21. International Olympic Committee, “Factsheet: Women in the Olympic Movement.”
22. Henri Tajfel and John C. Turner, “The Social Identity Theory of Inter-group Behavior,” in
Psychology of Intergroup Relations, 2nd ed., ed. Stephen Worchel and William G. Austin
(Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1985), 7-24.
23. Pamela J. Creedon, Women, Media and Sport: Challenging Gender Values (Thousand
Oaks, CA: SAGE, 1994); Marie Hardin and Jennifer D. Greer, “The Influence of Gender-
Role Socialization, Media Use and Sports Participation on Perceptions of Sex-appropriate
Sports,” The Journal of Sport Behavior 32 (2, 2009): 207-226.
24. See, for example, Todd W. Crosset, Outsiders in the Clubhouse: The World of Women’s
Professional Golf (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995).
25. See, for example, Marie Hardin, Scott Simpson, Erin Whiteside, and Kim Garris, “The
‘Gender War’ in U Sport: Winners and Losers in News Coverage of Title IX,” Mass
Communication and Society 9 (4, 2007): 429-46.
26. Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (NY:
Harper & Row, 1974).
27. Todd Gitlin, The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making & Unmaking of the
New Left (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).
28. See, for example, Ronald Bishop, “Missing in Action: Feature Coverage of Women’s
Sports in Sports Illustrated,” Journal of Sport & Social Issues 27 (2, 2003): 184-94.
29. See, for example, Messner and Cooky, Gender in Televised Sports; Jean O’Reilly and
Susan K. Cahn, Women and Sports in the United States (Boston: Northeastern University
Press, 2007).
30. Thomas P. Oates, “Representing the Audience: The Gendered Politics of Sport Media,”
Feminist Media Studies 12 (4, 2012): 603-607.
31. James R. Angelini, Paul J. MacArthur, and Andrew C. Billings, “What’s the Gendered
Story?” Vancouver’s Primetime Olympic Glory on NBC 56 (2, 2012): 261-79; Andrew C.
Billings and Susan T. Eastman, “Framing Identities: Gender, Ethnic, and National Parity

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56 Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 91(1)

in Network Announcing of the 2002 Winter Olympics,” Journal of Communication 53 (4,

2003): 369-86.
32. See, for example, Billings, Olympic Media.
33. Andrew C. Billings and James R. Angelini, “Packaging the Games for Viewer Consumption:
Gender, Ethnicity, and Nationality in NBC’s Coverage of the 2004 Summer Olympics,”
Communication Quarterly 55 (1, 2007): 95-111.
34. Andrew C. Billings, James R. Angelini, and Andrea H. Duke, “Gendered Profiles of
Olympic History: Sportscaster Dialogue in the 2008 Beijing Olympics,” Journal of
Broadcasting & Electronic Media 54 (1, 2010): 9-23.
35. See, for example, Charles A. Tuggle, Suzanne Huffman, and Dana S. Rosengard,
“A Descriptive Analysis of NBC’s Coverage of the 2000 Summer Olympics,” Mass
Communication and Society 5 (3, 2002): 361-75; Charles A. Tuggle, Suzanne Huffman,
and Dana S. Rosengard, “A Descriptive Analysis of NBC’s Coverage of the 2004 Summer
Olympics,” Journal of Sports Media 2 (1, 2007): 53-75; Charles A. Tuggle and Anne
Owen, “A Descriptive Analysis of NBC’s Coverage of the Centennial Olympics: The
‘Games of the Woman’?” Journal of Sport & Social Issues 23 (2, 1999): 171-83.
36. Angelini, MacArthur, and Billings, “What’s the Gendered Story?”
37. Billings, Olympic Media.
38. Lindsey Meân, “Identity and Discursive Practice: Doing Gender on the Football Pitch,”
Discourse & Society 12 (6, 2001): 789-815.
39. Elaine M. Blinde, Susan L. Greendorfer, and Rebecca J. Shenker, “Differential Media
Coverage of Men’s and Women’s Intercollegiate Basketball: Reflection of Gender
Ideology,” Journal of Sport & Social Issues 15 (2, 1991): 98-114.
40. Angela Burroughs, Liz Ashburn, and Leonie Seebohm, “‘Add Sex and Stir’: Homophobic
Coverage of Women’s Cricket in Australia,” Journal of Sport & Social Issues 19 (3, 1995):
266-84.
41. See, for example, Gerd Von der Lippe, “Media Image Sport, Gender and National Identities
in Five European Countries,” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 37 (3-4,
2002): 371-95.
42. Jennifer Hargreaves, Sporting Females: Critical Issues in the History and Sociology of
Women’s Sports (London: Routledge, 1994).
43. Christy Halbert and Melissa Latimer, “‘Battling’ Gendered Language: An Analysis of
the Language Used by Sports Commentators in a Televised Coed Tennis Competition,”
Sociology of Sport Journal 11 (3, 1994): 298-308.
44. Catriona T. Higgs, Karen H. Weiller, and Scott B. Martin, “Gender Bias in the 1996
Olympic Games: A Comparative Analysis,” Journal of Sport & Social Issues 27 (1, 2003):
52-64.
45. Billings and Angelini, “Packaging the Games for Viewer Consumption.”
46. Pirkko Markula, Olympic Women and the Media: International Perspectives (NY: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2009), 6.
47. Angelini, MacArthur, and Billings, “What’s the Gendered Story?”
48. Billings and Eastman, “Framing Identities.”
49. Billings, Olympic Media; Angelini, MacArthur, and Billings, “What’s the Gendered
Story?”
50. Billings, Angelini, and Duke, “Gendered Profiles of Olympic History.”
51. Billings, Olympic Media.
52. Angelini, MacArthur, and Billings, “What’s the Gendered Story?”

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Billings et al. 57

53. Angelini, MacArthur, and Billings, “What’s the Gendered Story?” 274.
54. See, for example, Andrew C. Billings, “From Diving Boards to Pole Vaults: Gendered
Athlete Portrayals in the ‘Big Four’ Sports at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics,”
Southern Communication Journal 72 (4, 2007): 329-44.
55. Billings and Eastman, “Framing Identities.”
56. Jacob Cohen, “A Coefficient for Agreement of Nominal Scales,” Educational and
Psychological Measurement 20 (1, 1960): 37-46.
57. For 1994-2010 data, see Angelini, MacArthur, and Billings, “What’s the Gendered Story?”;
Billings and Angelini, “Packaging the Games for Viewer Consumption”; Billings, Angelini,
and Duke, “Gendered Profiles of Olympic History”; Billings et al., “The Games through
the NBC Lens”; Billings and Eastman, “Framing Identities,” 200; Susan T. Eastman and
Andrew C. Billings, “Gender Parity in the Olympics: Hyping Women Athletes, Favoring
Men Athletes,” Journal of Sport & Social Issues 23 (2, 1999): 140-70.
58. Gitlin, The Whole World Is Watching.
59. Rodger Sherman, “Team USA Medal Count: Women Lead the Way in London,” SBNation.com,
August 13, 2012, http://www.sbnation.com/london-olympics-2012/2012/8/13/3239276/medal-
count-olympics-women-team-usa; “London 2012,” Medal Count—Olympic Medal Standings—
Official Results, http://www.sbnation.com/london-olympics-2012/2012/8/13/3239276/
medal-count-olympics-women-team-usa.
60. Gaye Tuchman, Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality (NY: The Free Press,
1980).
61. Mary J. Kane, “Media Coverage of the Female Athlete before, during, and after Title IX:
Sports Illustrated Revisited,” Journal of Sport Management 2 (2, 1988): 87-99.
62. Kathleen A. Csizma, Arno F. Wittig, and Terry K. Schurr, “Sport Stereotypes and Gender,”
Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology 10 (1, 1988): 62-74; Nathalie Koivula, “Perceived
Characteristics of Sports Categorized as Gender-Neutral, Feminine and Masculine,”
Journal of Sport Behavior 24 (4, 2001): 377-93.
63. See, for example, Bissell and Duke, “Bump, Set, Spike”; John Clarke, “Despite Protests
and New Bikini Rules, Olympic Beach Volleyball Gets Full Exposure,” Forbes, July 29,
2012, : http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnclarke/2012/07/29/despite-protests-and-new-
bikini-rules-olympic-beach-volleyball-gets-full-exposure/; Laura Williamson, “Beach
Volleyball? It’s Fun and Flesh (and There’s Lots of It!),” MailOnline, July 29, 2012, http://
www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-2180705/London-2012-Olympics-Beach-
volleyball.html#axzz2KRziG2IC.
64. Lyle Brennan, “‘There Are Semi-naked Women Playing Beach Volleyball Glistening Like
Wet Otters’: Boris Johnson (Who Else?) Enthuses about Olympic Event at Horse Guards
Parade,” MailOnline, July 30, 2012, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2181124/
Boris-Johnson-Olympics-There-semi-naked-women-playing-beach-volleyball-glistening-
like-wet-otters.html#ixzz2KX6tXDMG.
65. Davis and Tuggle, “A Gender Analysis of NBC’s Coverage.”
66. See, for example, Angelini, MacArthur, and Billings, “What’s the Gendered Story?”
67. James R. Angelini and Andrew C. Billings, “An Agenda That Sets the Frames: Gender,
Language, and NBC’s Americanized Olympic Telecast,” Journal of Language and Social
Psychology 29 (3, 2010): 363-85.
68. Maxwell E. McCombs and Donald L. Shaw, “The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass
Media,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 36 (2, 1972): 176-87.
69. Bernard C. Cohen, The Press and Foreign Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1963).

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58 Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 91(1)

70. Maxwell McCombs and Amy Reynolds, “How the News Shapes Our Civic Agenda,” in
Media Effects, 3rd ed., ed. Jennings Bryant and Mary B. Oliver (NY: Routledge, 2008),
1-16, 12.
71. Frank D. Durham, “Breaching Powerful Boundaries: A Postmodern Critique of Framing,”
in Framing Public Life, ed. Stephen D. Reese, Oscar H. Gandy, and August E. Grant
(Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001), 123-35.
72. See, for example, Billings, Olympic Media.
73. James W. Tankard, “The Empirical Approach to the Study of Media Framing,” in Framing
Public Life, ed. Stephen D. Reese, Oscar H. Gandy, and August E. Grant (Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001), 95-106, 96.
74. See, for example, Angelini, MacArthur, and Billings, “What’s the Gendered Story?”
75. Peter McKay, “Hankies Ready, It’s the Crying Games . . . and Emotions Are Being
Manipulated in the Name of Entertainment,” MailOnline, August 6, 2012, http://www.
dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2184127/Olympics-2012-Hankies-ready-Crying-Games-.
html#axzz2KPp3aiOq.
76. Eastman and Billings, “Gender Parity in the Olympics.”
77. Eastman and Billings, “Gender Parity in the Olympics.”
78. Tankard, “The Empirical Approach to the Study of Media Framing,” 97.
79. Donald G. Kyle, “‘The Only Woman in All Greece’: Kyniska, Agesilaus, Alcibiades and
Olympia,” Journal of Sport History 30 (2, 2003): 183-204.
80. Alexander Wolff (2012, Aug. 13). Run the world, girls. Sports Illustrated, 40-45, http://
sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1204381/index.htm.
81. Billings, Olympic Media.
82. Nielsen Research, “Women’s World Cup Final Draws 13.5 Million Viewers in U.S.”
Nielsen, http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2011/womens-world-cup-final-draws-
13-5-million-viewers-in-us.html.
83. Billings, Olympic Media.
84. Billings, Olympic Media, 72.

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