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Study Limitations
Given that the sample size only looked at 20 sports journalists, this study can be hard to generalize because it only represents 10 females and 10 male journalists in the whole industry. In this case, external validity can be hard to reach the population of interest because social media can only represent a small amount of data; explicitly investigating only Instagram in this study reveals a tiny percentage of the sports industry.
Photo from YouTube
Examining internal validity and making sure the research measured that was needed to struggle when it came to using the codebook. Looking at specific questions that were more difficult to code, this included questions about who was in the post’s picture, like family and friends. Considering only screenshots were sent to the second coder, they had no way of figuring out who was tagged. This made the second coder guess more on each picture.
Another slight issue with internal validity was that two of the research questions had much more content and results than one of the questions. There needed to be more questions in the codebook that represented which gender posted more content in general on their Instagram platforms. Collecting the number of posts on their profile would have helped significantly in finding the answer of which gender used their profile much more.
Photo from Google Images
Conclusion
The data from this study shows that women are still vastly underrepresented in the sports industry yet slight changes have been made. The underrepresentation of women in sports creates more obstacles for women to showcase their own platforms without being judged by society. With the use of social media, it’s hard for female sports journalists to post any content without being watched closely by the audience. Female sports journalists posted more with personal content rather than sports-related content like the male sports journalists. Yet the biggest issue throughout this data is how little women's sports was showcased by either male or female sports journalists.
Overall, female sports are highly underrepresented, and change can start with female sports journalists representing their own gender positively. Utilizing their platforms and supporting female athletes can influence young girls and other women to do the same. Additionally, this begins with reaching out to a younger generation in college and researching specific institutions that include sports journalists programs. If the numbers are low in participation in these programs, this reaches the starting point of where change can happen. Yet this also relies on professionals to educate the younger generation as well.
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