Graduation Year

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.A.

Degree Granting Department

Mass Communications

Major Professor

Roxanne Watson, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Kenneth Killebrew, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Kim Golombisky, Ph.D.

Keywords

Gender, Intercollegiate, Publicity, Sports, Title IX

Abstract

This study examines the coverage of women’s athletics at USF provided through photographic representations on the university’s Athletics Internet home web page during the 2009–2010 academic year. Findings from this census of five areas that comprise the USF Athletics Internet home web page revealed that, consistent with recent research on coverage of female athletes and women’s athletics on university web pages, women, compared to men, were underrepresented in the majority of the five areas of the home page analyzed. The difference in the number of overall total photographs of women and men was not that large—48% and 52%, respectively, not including totals for football. Likewise, the total number of active photographs of women and men was 22% and 26%, respectively. Again, that does not include football. However, in the overall ―big picture‖ gleaned from accessing the Athletics home page for a period of 151 days, the researcher found significant absences of female athletes or representations of women’s athletics within four areas that make up a large portion of the home page. Within areas labeled for this study as Areas 2, 3, 4, and 5 combined, there were nine representations of women’s athletics compared to 514 representations of men’s athletics in a span of 151 days. Studies such as this can be beneficial because, if gender coverage inequities are brought to the attention of university administrators and Athletics personnel, actions could be take to reduce the inequities, thereby setting the tone for how we see and think about female athletes.

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