Representation of Women Athletes in

Malaysian Online Newspaper: The Star

Online
ANIS NABILAH BINTI MOHD ZAINUL ARIFIEN
P85447

Introduction

Media is a form of language which plays an influential role

in creating images of women and men.

It plays a very important role in spreading information and

thus has the power to influence peoples beliefs, attitudes
and perceptions.

Objective of the study

To investigate the representation of female athletes in a local online newspaper in

terms of language used

How often are women featured in The Star sports article compared to men.

Significance of the study

Gap always exists in the degree of social disparity of the representation of female
athletes in media and as such.

Hopefully create awareness among people about the manner in which language can be
used by people in positions of power to encode gender inequality and biasness.

Methodology

10 newspapers articles that appeared in The Star were taken from 2014 to 2016.

The framework of this research will be based on discourse analysis as the overall
framework for the study.

At the word level of analysis terms used by reporters to describe and refer to athletes
will be first investigated by focusing on the use of adjectives and nouns as terms of
references.

Problem Statement

Sport has always been associated with males and masculinity.

According to Schell and Rodriguez (2000), sport remains a mostly
male domain despite an increasing number of women participating
in it throughout the world.

Sports are seen as a masculine topic, that is out of reach of the

feminine, and because of inherent womanness, women are seen
as inferior.

Limitation

Results can not be applied to a wider & general population.

Gender of sportswriter was not taken into account in this study.

Author

Title

Overview

King (2007)

Media Portrayals of Male and Female

Athletes:
A Text and Picture Analysis of British
National Newspaper Coverage of the
Olympic Games since 1948

Examined British national newspaper coverage of

male and female athletes competing at the Olympic
Games since 1948. A content analysis was utilized to
compare all articles and photographs of male and
female track and field athletes in two British national
newspapers. The results showed that, the newspaper
provided considerably less coverage to female
athletes than to male athletes until the 2004 Athens
Games.

Shaller (2013)

Female Athletes in the Media: Under

Representation and Inadequacy

A content analysis of Sports Illustrated covers

determined there is an under representation of female
athletes in print media. Also, because of the
sexualized manner in which female athletes are
portrayed, they suffer from inadequate depiction. The
analysis showed that 266 out of the 281 issues' covers
featured male athletes.

Marlina Jamal
(2015)

The Inspection of Gendered

Examined the language used by The Star newspaper
Language in the Reporting of Olympic in the representation of women athletes in the
Games in The Star
coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The purpose
of this study is to decode the projection of women
athletes through the analysis of specific linguistic
features. Results showed woman athletes are
portrayed in a way that promotes gender
discrimination and under-represented.

Results

Lexical items connoting Weakness

News Reports

Sentence

A1

Her score, fortunately, was good enough for her to be considered..

A5

But, revealing a fragility few had anticipated, she fell short there and
did so again
Does Williams, who turns 35 in September, have enough left in the
tank to give chase?

A6

Muguruza also learnt to control her emotions, which overwhelmed her

Lexical items connoting Failures

News Reports

Sentence

A1

She blew a chance to seal the ticket to her maiden Olympic

Games

A7

In contrast to her listless quarter and semi-final performances

The real Serena finally shows up but it's all in vain

Lexical items connoting Physical Attributes

News Reports

Sentence

A2

The pint-sized rhythmic gymnast wants to emulate her idol

A3

Malaysia's hottest athletes: Vote for your favourite sexy

sportswoman
were confident that their collective sexiness will up the
temperature to heatwave magnitude
we look at some of Malaysias sexiest female sports
personalities whose strength and beauty have inspired more
than their fair share of pin-up crushes, hero worship and
adoring googly-eyed stares of wonderment.
Add to that a killer smile and a magical wink in her eyes, shes
one woman we wouldnt mind inviting to a pool party.

A4

claimed the attire for some events was too sexy and could
lead to promiscuity
In June, a social media storm erupted over the allegedly
revealing attire worn by national gymnast

How often are women featured in The

Star sports article compared to men?

Football male-dominated (5th page for first women article)

Badminton equal

Tennis equal

Motorsport male-dominated

Gymnast female-dominated

Conclusion

Women are highly sexualized in the sports field.

Female athletes are still under-represented in the sports field. The

newspaper has used the features of lexical structures to address their
ideological stand, i.e. women are unable play sports. By large, the readers
minds are shaped to believe that women fail in sports.

References

Marlina Jamal, (2015). The Inspection of Gendered Language in the Reporting

of Olympic Games in The Star. 3:6291.

King, C. (2007). Media Portrayals of Male and Female Athletes A Text and
Picture Analysis of British National Newspaper Coverage of the Olympic
Games since 1948.International Review for the Sociology of Sport,42(2),
187-199.

Schell, L.A., & Rodriguez, S. (2000). Our sporting sisters: How male hegemony
stratifies women in sport. Women in Sport & Physical Activity Journal, 9,
15 24.

Shaller, J. (2013). Female athletes in the media: Under representation and

inadequacy.Undergraduate Review: a Journal of Undergraduate Student
Research,8(1), 50-55.