17th Annual Student Research Conference
Human Potential and Performance
Gender Equality Among Collegiate Tennis Websites
Abby M. Souders
Dr. Jerry Mayhew, Faculty Mentor
The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not men’s and women’s collegiate tennis teams receive equitable coverage from institutional websites. Using rankings from the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, samples from NCAA Division I, II, and III schools with both a men’s and women’s teams ranked in the top 25 of the nation were selected. Each team’s news releases from the 2002-2003 school year were analyzed to find the number of releases per team and the average word count per release. No significant differences were found between genders. This suggests that institutions of higher education are providing gender equitable media coverage to less publicized sports like tennis. In addition, Division I institutions had significantly more releases and words per release than Division II and III schools. This opens another field of investigation to examine the exaggerated importance placed on Division I athletics.
Keywords: gender equity, collegiate tennis, websites, media coverage, news releases
Topic(s):Exercise Science
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 43-2
Location: VH 1000
Time: 4:00