Plan for essay

Points to include in introduction

. How long the sports been existant

. What in the past stopped the sport from progressing.

. Whats aided its development now

Programmes and texts to make particular reference to whilst writing up essay

. Soccer A.M.- Contemporary
. Match of the day- Historical primarily- but link to contemporary development
. Inside Sport- Contemporary


Programmes and texts to make particular reference to whilst writing up essay

. Soccer A.M.
. Match of the day
. Inside Sport


Compare how the 3 texts in particular have similar or different portrayals of women in the media, and their involvement in football.



Soccer A.M’S- portrayal

Soccer A.M.,discusses football news and events, but primarily aims to entertain due to its heavy emphasis on comedy.

The costumes used throughout soccer a.m. where women are shown make the women appear to be a subject of the male gaze where they are providing sexual pleasure, to a football audience, who are predominantly expected to be male. This connotes greatly that women are not expected to partake and be involved in football. Despite the presenter one of the presenters of the show being a woman “Helen Chamberlain”, the fact that she watches many women coming on the show mainly to provide visual pleasure as argue by Laura Mulvey connotes that she accepts. Also the institution of the programme which is Sky Sports suggests that Sky sports is a highly male dominated channel, and this is the case as the majority of people that watch the channels are men.

. There is also social reflection through many of Soccer A.M’S episodes. A patriarchal ideology is clearly apparent. A woman’s primary involvement in Soccer A/M/ is to provide visual pleasure, and as far as football goes she has no knowledge or involvement what so ever (Make special references to video on blog of the interview with FHM girls)

. The way that women are portrayed within soccer a.m, creates the impression that football in general is highly male dominated and that it is a topic that women do not know about, or are not expected to know about.

The audience, is likely to be males aged between 16-40, as the humour used within the show would appeal to men that are within this age gap.


Inside sport

Women are being greatly represented in inside sport, as Gabby Logan in the show interviews many football stars that top male interviewers even struggle to get a chance to talk to.

I think Inside Sport has been portrayed in such a way to encourage women to get more and more involved with sports. This hence also gives the impression that women are not being as under represented in sports and the media as often thought.

The Mise-en- Scene also emphasises on the importance of Gabby Logan particularly through the way she is seated in the middle of all those present, each time the show is aired. The professional studio setting also emphasises on Gabby Logan’s striking presence in the show. The close ups to her face and the low angled shots also emphasise upon Gabby Logan’s importance in the show.


The show usually opens in a way where Gabby Logan starts of briefly mentioning the key points to be discussed in the show e.g. the weeks key sports occurrences, who is going to be interviewed on the show e.t.c.


The text belongs to the sports genre. The stars of the show are usually clearly glamorised which of course are Gabby Logan and those interviewed on the show. The text does clearly conform to the conventions of normal sports chat shows such as soccer A.M., football focus e.t.c. The only way it will differentiate itself from Soccer A.M. is that inside sport also contains quite a serious tone whilst sports topics are discussed, Soccer A.M. is a sports show also used to create humour and solely entertain its audience.

The text's institution is the BBC, which is a public broadcaster. This means the text has to cater to all kinds of audiences and has to inform, educate as well as entertain. Inside sport hence has to have some appeal to all kinds of people.

The major values and Ideologies associated with Inside sport don't particularly include a patriarchal ideology as with Soccer A.M. and Football Focus. The fact that Gabby Logan presents the show and that men are included creates an ideology which promotes equality amongst genders, which many other sports show do not promote.

. Despite the presenter of the show being female, I think that males are most likely to view the show and be more attracted to it, as females don’t take as much of a keen interest in sports as males. However females interested in sports and football are more then likely to predominantly consist of being the secondary audience, as football has risen to be the most popular sport across England with females. The fact that the BBC is the institution makes Inside Sport accessible to everyone.


Match of the day- “ Historical text”- 1964

Match of the day first began in 1964, and today still is probably the most commonly known TV show associated with football within England. Though at first many did not get to see it as every household did not have BBC2 in 1964, match of the day did gradually become of greater popularity as the years progressed.

Match of the day would clearly be good to use as an historical text too include in my essay, as i can easily compare what it covered in the past to now. For example prior to recent times as in the late 1990's and early 2000's match of the day did not provide any coverage of women’s football at all and overall neither did BBC sport. In the past there was a much more emphasis on football being tightly associated with just a male audience, however today women are generally being more and more included as an audience.

The fact that everyone being interviewed to talk about the first match of the day coverage in 1964 are men, reflects greatly how football was solely targeted at men and there was a great lack of appeal to women to take an interest in it. In addition the target audience back in the 1960's for match of the day appears to be a middle class audience, as BBC 2 was not easily obtainable by everyone. However now Match of the day can be viewed by everyone who has a TV, as in it is likely to be directed at a more working class audience as well as a middle class one. This may have had some influence over why women in England took a lack of interest in viewing football, or taking interest in being involved in the sport at all, as match of the day in England was a key cause of the development and popularity of football.




Comparison between Soccer AM Inside Sport and match of the day


Soccer AM’s portrayal of women is very different to that of Inside sports. In soccer AM the women are merely there to provide sexual pleasure to a male audience and are never shown to be taking any key involvement in sports.

. Difference in ideology between soccer am and inside sport- patriarchal ideology VS Equal rights/ feminist ideology.

Gabby Logan is a commonly known iconic sports presenter and is tightly associated particularly with football. The programme shows a lot of coverage on women’s sports as well as mens.

.Match of the day pirmarily in the past did no cover any female football, and as it was the primary use of covering football overall in the UK,this could be used as a key reason why womens football did not in the past have great popularity or participation.


Issues, debates and theorists

. Laura Mulvey- Male gaze
. Dyer- how in the past womens sports coverage was near to nothing
. Talk about the debate of women not being as good as men at sports

Books and Links to make reference to

Spender, Dale (1983): Feminist Theorists. Great Sutton Street, London: The womens Press LTD.- This book particularly focuses on providing viewpoints from many of the Key theorists around in the 1980's and even up to three hundred years prior to that. This will greatly fit in to the Social and Historical aspect of my study and furthermore will provide the viewpoint from a key group associated with the progression of female sports, the Feminists.

Curran, James & Gurevitch, Michael (2000):Mass Media and Society, Third edition. Euston Road, London: Hodder Headline group.- This book focuses on providing an over view on many key aspects relevant to my study, particuarly goes in to great detail on every element of SHEP that i can mention in my study. Section 3 (The mediation of Meaning) in particular focuses on representation and has a great amount of detail on the representation of women.

Kingston, Anne (2004): The meaning of wife: Toronto, Canada: HarperCollins Publishers LTD.- This book would heavily be focusing on the political aspect of SHEP, as it provides an explanation into the traditional conservative viewpoint of the family orientated wife. The book explains what is associated with being a wife and what is expected of a wife intodays society. It looks at many iconic figures within the media who defeat the stereotype of women being housewives e.t.c. and looks at many debates associated with the women and marriage. Hence this would be a very useful book to mention in my study as it is very relevant to the representation of women.

Sardar, Ziauddin & Loon,van,Borin (2000): Introducing Media Studies: Duxford, Cambridge: Icon Books LTD- The book particularly looks at and explores the relationship between the Media, ideology, knowledge and power. Much of the book looks at ideologies present within the media and gender represetnation within the media, and hence due to this would be useful to include in my independent study.

Branston, Gill & Stafford, Roy (2003): The Media Student's Book:Abindgdon, Oxon: Routledge- This book focuses on many key aspects of Ideologies, Representation, SHEP, Audience theories, theorists and key media debates that are of high relevenace to my debate. The book also focuses on and goes into detail about many case studies that i can mention and are useful for my independent study.

Arno, Madeleine (1985): Race & Gender:Headington Hill, Oxford: Pergamon Press Ltd- This book goes into great detail about many issues regarding gender particularly within society and also education. It would be of great use in my study to focus on the social and Historical aspect of SHEP, particularly as it provides information regarding the situation in the 1980's and prior to that.

Rayner, Phillip & Wall, Peter & Kruger, Stephen(2001): Media Studies: The Essential Introduction: New Fetter Lane, London: Routledge- This book particularly shows an indepth explanation and study into gender and representation, aswell as presents key debates and case studies, that would be off high relevance to my Independent study. It also goes into great detail regarding ideologies and links to modern day media texts that i could include and refer to in my study.

Stam, Robert(2000): Film theory: Britain: Blackwell Publishers- This book goes into great detail in exploring how females are representated within film. This would be useful in my study as often films reflect and pay an influential role in what is occuring within society. It also shows different audiences viewpoints on women E.G. a male dominated film showing women in a weak role, is likely to have an audience who believe in patriarchy.

Hong,Fan and Mangan,J.A.(2003)Soccer, Women and Sexual liberation: USA: Routledge-This book exemplifies the progression of womens football over the years and is the first in depth study of womens football in particular. All aspects of this book covered will be extremely useful for my study and this is a vital book for me to research into, to find out more about womens football worldwide aswell as in the U.K.


A game for Rough girls: A history of women's football in Britain-Jean Williams - Jean Williams provides a clear insight into the history of women's football in the UK aswell as shows an insight into the stereotype of women who play football being of manly nature or having masculine characteristics. She provides an in depth view of the problems women face and have faced whilst trying to play football.

Links

http://www.footiechick.com/history/history/- This Website briefly summarises womens football and talks of where and when it started. Much of the information can be used in my independent study whilst discussing SHEP

http://virtual.clemson.edu/groups/womenstudies/flc436/mulvey.html- This website provides a detailed description of Laura Mulvey's male "Gaze" theory, a key theory and theorist that i will make references to in my independent study.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/osm/story/0,,708320,00.html- This is the website of the guardian, which includes a story stating that Gabby Logan is the best sports trivia presenter , that has been around for a long time. Gabby Logan is a key example of acceptance of females in the sports media, who i can mention in my indepdent study.

http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2007/10/did_you_watch_a- This website is writing about how football has failed women. It argues that media coverage of the womens world cup was appaling, and how people are only interested in watching football if it is men that are playing.

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Womens%20Page/christian_women_and_sports.htm-This is a link showing christian's views on sports. It shows that despite in the past women playing sports were frowned, upon christians today encourage their girls to play sports. This again would be linked to SHEP in my essay as it shows the changing social views towards women playing sports.

Historical Text First ever Match of the day

Match of the day first began in 1964, and today still is probably the most commonly known TV show associated with football within England. Though at first many did not get to see it as every household did not have BBC2 in 1964, match of the day did gradually become of greater popularity as the years progressed.

Match of the day would clearly be good to use as an historical text too include in my essay, as i can easily compare what it covered in the past to now. For example prior to recent times as in the late 1990's and early 2000's match of the day did not provide any coverage of women’s football at all and overall neither did BBC sport. In the past there was a much more emphasis on football being tightly associated with just a male audience, however today women are generally being more and more included as an audience.

The fact that everyone being interviewed to talk about the first match of the day coverage in 1964 are men, reflects greatly how football was solely targeted at men and there was a great lack of appeal to women to take an interest in it. In addition the target audience back in the 1960's for match of the day appears to be a middle class audience, as BBC 2 was not easily obtainable by everyone. However now Match of the day can be viewed by everyone who has a TV, as in it is likely to be directed at a more working class audience as well as a middle class one. This may have had some influence over why women in England took a lack of interest in viewing football, or taking interest in being involved in the sport at all, as match of the day in England was a key cause of the development and popularity of football.

Introduction to essay

How Far are women represented in football and the media?

There is clear evidence to prove that women have been playing football almost since its ancient existence in the Han dynasty (25-220 AD), when it was anciently known as “Tsu Chu” [1]. But despite women’s involvement in the sport dating so far back, the sport clearly receive much less media coverage and generally much less acceptance by the public then there is for men’s football. There are arguably a number of reasons for this the most commonly perceptible being that women simply do not play the sport as good as men. There are a number of causes that have prevented and till date hinder the progression of women’s football. Under a century ago “Despite being more popular than some men's football events” [1] within the U.K. the most notable historical ban in women’s football the "1921 Football association ban on women playing football" [1] was introduced. Despite such preventions to the women’s football it has gradually in recent times has began to be much more socially acceptable. For example the china world cup 2007, had so much viewer ship and was so popular worldwide, it to an extent caused outrage and was the key cause for debate amongst many people who did not expect the event to be so widely enjoyed and entertain [2]. However despite there being many historical limitations and limitations existing till date, women’s football has now progressed to become "one of the worlds fastest growing sports [3].


Links used
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_football_(soccer)
[2]http://www.fifa.com/womenworldcup/news/newsid=610976.html
[3]http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=u9YGVblAc1oC&dq=soccer+women+and+sexual+liberation&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=a6OfGcxY8j&sig=NuWnnckd8LORgkbwg3-UObeQl4w

Books used

Hong,F.A.,Mangang,J.A.(2004): Soccer, women and sexual liberation. USA,CA:Routledge