Men and Women Football in the Ghanaian Print Media: A Case Study of Graphic and Ghana Sports Newspapers

Abstract

Sports media are seen as the medium which has a large influence on sports. According to research on sports media, reporters have gender biases. Women are marginalised in the media (Billings, Halone, & Denham, 2002). This is the motivation behind this study which is intended to analyse the prominence that the print media give to both male and female football news. Content analysis was used to collect data for this study. Six (6) months publications of Graphic Sports and Ghana Sports newspapers were purposively sampled and critically analysed. Five hundred and twelve (512) stories of both newspapers were used to collect the data. The findings showed that coverage is not equal. More articles are written about male football and athletes than that of the females, as well as males receiving more photographs and coloured photographs than females. Females received less coverage in the newspapers. Over all, the findings revealed that the print media, both the state-owned newspapers and privately-owned newspapers, give more prominence to male football news than female football news. The consequence is that the people of Ghana will not get well informed about women's football, but get to know all about male football which does not augur well for the total development of football in Ghana. This indicates that the print media sets the agenda for male football activities and leave female football behind which is not good for the total development of football as the functionalist theory says.