Dr. Vincent's paper discussed the difference between sports coverage of men and women's sports. He discusses how the media is important in framing what society believes in general, and this is true in sports as well. He outlined ways to determine equal coverage, such as the quantity and quality of coverage and photographs. He defined the quantity as not only the amount of stories, but the number of words, paragraphs, headlines, photographs, and square inches in a story. He also described the page placement, and how stories should be distributed evenly on the front page, the front page of the sports section, the sports section as a whole, and other sections, as well as the top, middle, and bottom of an individual page.
When looking at female sports coverage currently, Dr. Vincent discussed how most female coverage is given to attractive athletes, citing Anna Kournikova as an example. He also mentioned how more coverage is given to women in more "gender-appropriate" sports, such as swimming, tennis, and gymnastics, rather than sports like field hockey, softball, and rugby. Dr. Vincent brought up other studies that have showed that most coverage of women's sports focuses on the women stereotypically, and heavily referencing their role as a daughter, mother, or wife. He implied that male athletes are seen as powerful, talented people, and most famous women athletes are seen primarily as an attractive women, and are seen in their stereotypical gender role.
While I agree that women's sports are not seen equally in all of the places Dr. Vincent describes, I don't see a need for that much equality. While most sports have leagues for men and women, the amount of games, and competitive games, is not equal. Maybe I am a result of the media coverage Dr. Vincent describes, but I think it is unrealistic to think that coverage will be equal over night, and that people will want to read, listen to, and watch this equal coverage. While the media does have some control over the way society thinks, newspapers and media corporations are also businesses, and have to give people what they want to read so they are able to sell their product.
