Research On Media Presentation Of Female Athletes Based On Microblog Platform

Through sport coverage,the media reflects the political,economic,and cultural characteristics of society,not only promoting the development and dissemination of sports,but also influencing public gender perceptions and cognition through gender construction.The purpose of this paper is to investigate the characteristics of media presentation and construction through microblogging reports of female athletes in the Beijing Winter Olympics,and then to consider the problems and reasons for media’s role in shaping female athletes.This paper uses all of the microblog reports about female athletes published by People’s Daily,The Paper,and Sina Sports during the Beijing Winter Olympic Games as research objects,and 616 microblog reports published by the media are chosen as samples for analysis.Based on news framing theory,gender theory,content analysis and text analysis,the current situation of media microblogging reports and the way female athletes are portrayed are studied and analyzed.The study found that:(1)media coverage of female athletes is less than that of male athletes in terms of number of reports,but the overall number is comparable;(2)In terms of topics and news graphics,the media primarily covers female athletes in sports situations,with a focus on their athletic performance and achievements on the field,and less on non-sports situations such as their personal and family lives;(3)In terms of coverage of sports,the media covered Freestyle Skiing the most,followed by Figure Skating,with the media tending to cover sports with traditional strengths and aesthetic intent in China;(4)In terms of coverage targets,the media mainly focused on female athletes from their own countries,and less on female athletes from other countries;(5)In terms of coverage forms,graphic microblogs were the most common form of media coverage,forming a diversified coverage form with short messages,graphic,short video and live broadcast;(6)In terms of reporting tendency,media reports on female athletes are mainly positive,and tend to express the media’s affirmation and support for female athletes.The study also summarized the characteristics of the media’s microblogging coverage of female athletes:(1)nationalistic tendencies,and the construction of a localized news framework dominated by national athletes and their superior sports;(2)emphasis on appropriate femininity,more use of gendered terms,focus on “femalefriendly” sports,and(2)emphasizing appropriate femininity,focusing on “femalefriendly” sports,and treating female athletes as the “weaker sex” psychologically and emotionally through emotional portrayals;(3)highlighting the image of star athletes,and using less gendered narratives in microblogging coverage of female star athletes represented by Gu Ailing,challenging the traditional rules of gender frameworks.In the author’s opinion,the media has taken a more positive and positive stance on the microblogging coverage of female athletes,giving a relatively fair amount of coverage,focusing on shaping the image of the field and showing athletic achievements,and the gender role of female athletes as mothers and wives has been weakened and gender stereotypes have been dissolved.However,there are still problems of more image shaping,unbalanced coverage of targets and sports,and in emphasizing femininity,new media platforms still retain the gender bias of traditional media,forming gender discrimination in a more insidious way.