Key Findings

Regarding the first research question of whether male or female sports journalists post more about personal or professional content on their Instagram accounts, each picture or video was coded. Table 1 represented 200 posts and which ones were related to sports. Dividing it by male and female showed that 50% (n=50) of the female posts were sports-related while the male journalists had a slightly higher percentage of 57% (n=57). These findings further understand how male dominance in the sports industry but only with a slight differential.

In contrast, Table 2 compares sports journalists’ gender and the personal content published to their audience. Comparing these two tables will reveal which gender represents the sports industry more and how it influences the media coverage. Simultaneously, both males and females didn’t include any family in their posts, males having 85% (n=85) and females having 82% (n=82). They both only represented 3% (n=3) of their family posts that included sports. Female sports journalists did post more with their family of 15 % (n=15), not including sports, while males only posted 12% (n=12). In conclusion, most male and female sports journalists didn’t include family members in their posts overall.

The highest number of male sports journalists was 3 million followers that affected the average amount of followers for males significantly. Compared to females, the top female had the most followers with 1.2 million. The lowest followers for males, the results showed that males had only 203 followers while females had 37,500, a significant difference. While finding each post from different sports journalists, it was harder to find content for the men over the women.

A cross-tabulation analysis between the gender of sports journalists and the gender of the sports posted allows a deeper look at how each sports journalist represents sports gender in their posts. Male sports journalists had higher percentages representing male sports at 48% (n=48) and the same percentage for no sport in the post. On the other hand, female sports journalists had a high percentage of 62% (n=62) with no sports in their posts and then 31% (n=31), including men’s sports. Women sports were both below 5% (n=5) for all the 200 posts.