Turkish Media Coverage of the 2004 Olympics

Turkish Media Coverage of the 2004 Olympics

CANAN KOCA AND BENGU ARSLAN

TURKEY

GENDER RELATIONS IN TURKEY

The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the modern Turkish Republic in 1923 provided ideological and legal bases for the modernization process in Turkey. Within this modernization project, the new state replaced the Islamic civil code with a secular or republican code adopted from the Swiss code, which introduced gender equality in marriage, divorce and matters of inheritance. In 1930, Turkish women were granted the right to vote in local elections and, in 1934, the right to vote for and to be elected to public office in national elections. Republican gender ideology in general expected women to follow a particular form of education and act as visible ambassadors to challenge the backward image of Muslim women in the world as well as in Turkey (Kandiyoti, 1989). However, these reforms for recognizing women as individuals did not in reality bring equality to women. In the new state, the women continued to be described according to their traditional female roles and this prevented the development of a perception of women as being equal partners of men (Arat, 1994; Kandiyoti, 1987). As Arat (1994) argues, Turkish women are emancipated but unliberated. Keeping mind all these modernization movements and legal changes which are focused on women, it seems contradictory, as Muftuler-Bac (1999) has argued, that Turkish women are still oppressed by the patriarchal system.  However, a whole year of intensive lobbying and widespread campaigning by the women?s movement throughout 2001 has resulted in reforms which have drastically changed the legal status of women in the family and in the promulgation of the new Turkish Civil Code, which was passed by the Turkish Grand National Assembly on November 22, 2001 (WWHR, 2002). The new Code sets the equal division of the property acquired during marriage as a default property regime, assigning an economic value to women?s hitherto invisible labour for the well-being of the family household.

Nowadays, the primary engine of the Turkish modernization project has been Turkey?s ongoing attempt to gain entrance into the European Union (EU). Within this ongoing project, Turkey signed the United Nations Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979), and the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (1993). A 2007 European Parliament report notes that the political participation by women in Turkey is too low and that there is an absolute need for female role models in positions of power and decision-making. Regarding gender equality in access to education and the labour market, UNICEF estimates that each year between 600,000 and 800,000 girls are either prevented by their families from going to school or do not attend because of logistical difficulties. The female employment rate in Turkey is just under 25%, compared to the average women’s employment rate in the EU-25 of 55%¹.  Members of the European Parliament therefore called on the Turkish government to ensure gender equality in access to education and the labour market, especially in the south-eastern regions (European Parliament, 2007).

GENDER RELATIONS IN SPORT

Although gender issues in sport have been studied extensively worldwide since the 1980s, they have been studied in Turkey for only a few years. The increasing rates of women?s participation in both elite and recreational sport have led researchers to investigate the sport and exercise environment as an important arena of gendered cultural practices in Turkish society (Koca & Asci, 2005; Koca & Bulgu, 2005; Koca, Asci & Kirazci, 2005). In these studies it has been argued that although, like many other Western societies, patriarchy is still one of the most important characteristics of Turkish society and female athletes have been faced with various forms of patriarchal oppression, there have been some changes in the status of Turkish women in sport, particularly in urban areas. For example, Fasting and Pfister (1997) also concluded that at least some parts of Turkey were changing, and that not only was the younger generation more active in sport but parents also encouraged their children to enjoy sport, especially girls, because sport was considered as something positive. Relative to the situation of women in elite sport, although most of the elite female athletes are competing in volleyball and track and field, there have been increasing numbers of female athletes in martial sports such as taekwondo and judo and, recently, in weightlifting and wrestling. For recreational sport, increasing numbers of women have been participating in physical activity in their leisure time as a result of broader social transformations during recent years in Turkey. Factors such as continuing modernization movements, rapid urbanisation and the growing attention from the municipalities towards physical activity for women have all motivated women in Turkey to participate in physical activity in different types of sport and exercise clubs (Koca, Bulgu & Asci, 2007).

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of women in sports and in female athletes? participation and achievements in international sports competitions (e.g., having medals in World and European Championships and Olympics). According to information from the General Directorate of Youth and Sport, while the number of elite female athletes (330,258) is less than elite male athletes (856,572), there has been a five-fold increase in women?s involvement in sport since 2002 (www.gsgm.gov.tr). Regarding the statistics, the number of female athletes was about 66,000 in 2002 and this number increased to about 350,000 in 2007. In addition, the highest participation of Turkish female athletes in the Olympics was at the 2004 Games, where Nurcan Taylan became the first Turkish female athlete to win a gold medal in the Olympics.

PREVIOUS RESEARCH ON GENDER DIFFERENCES IN MEDIA COVERAGE

The presentation of women in the media has gained a renewed interest by several scholars from different disciplines in Turkey and many researchers have pointed to the under-representation of women in Turkish media and the fact that, when women are represented, the coverage reinforces existing stereotypical norms such as housewives or mothers, and women as sexual objects (Gencel-Bek, 2001; Gencel-Bek & Binark, 2000; Hortacsu & Erturk, 2003). On the other hand, physical, sexual and psychological violence against women has been increasingly visible within the general community, including rape, sexual abuse and sexual harassment in family, work and educational institutions and, therefore, there are some other studies which investigated the media coverage of violence towards women. For example, Alat (2006) analysed the Turkish news coverage of violence against women. She found the following patterns in news stories: a victim blaming attitude, questioning perpetrators? mental status and women?s adherence to gender norms, scrutinising the victim?s intention for reporting the crime, and turning sexual assault into pornographic stories. These issues have been explored in a sport context by Bulgu and Koca (2006) who examined the presentation of a case of sexual harassment in the national women?s weightlifting team in Turkish daily newspapers and found that, in order to protect the national popularity of weightlifting, the print media presented the case in ways that suggested they did not really believe the sexual harassment took place.

Although there have been many international studies of media coverage of women?s sport in Western countries, there has been a limited number of studies about this subject in Turkey. One recent study (Öktem, 2004) analysed the media coverage of Süreyya Ayhan who is one of the most successful and famous Turkish track and field athletes and found that the achievements of women are disregarded and, further, that her success has been reflected as an extraordinary and unusual event in the media. In another recent study, Arslan and Koca (2007) examined gender stereotypes in both written and visual texts of female articles in Turkish newspapers. One of the findings of their study is that the number of female articles (6.05%, n=220) was significantly lower than male articles (87.02%, n=3,166) and, although the data revealed that there were gender stereotypes in media coverage of female athletes, particularly in visual texts of newspapers, the overall amount of these gender stereotypes remains low. For example, 13.9% of female athletes received photographic coverage as glamorous or sexy, and with reference to their heterosexual familial roles as wives, mothers and daughters.  Semra Aksu, a former Turkish track and field athlete, was pictured with her baby on the blocks in a position ready for the start. In this study, which included both Olympic and non-Olympic periods, most of the articles were about female weightlifters, who have previously had the highest athletic achievement (such as medals in several World and European Championships) of female athletes in Turkey and, therefore, were great expectations for medals in the 2004 Olympic Games (Arslan & Koca, 2007). Female weightlifters are visibly strong and muscular (attributes long viewed as being unfeminine) and they certainly do not conform to stereotypes of femininity. Thus, it should come as no surprise to realise that, in the Turkish media, female weightlifters were mostly represented by their athletic performance rather than in relation to normative stereotypes of femininity (Arslan & Koca, 2007).

METHODS

Three Turkish daily newspapers, appealing to different audiences, were chosen. Hürriyet, Cumhuriyet and Zaman are three of the mass-circulation newspapers in the country. Zaman is a conservative newspaper and has the highest circulation (over 500,000 copies per day). The Cumhuriyet (Republic) has the highest circulation (about 50,000 per day) of the newspapers with social democratic views, and the Hurriyet (Liberty) has a circulation about 490,000 per day and supports liberal economic views.

The sample was collected from 13 – 29 August 2004 and consists of 1132 sports-related articles. The data collection period starts from the date of the opening ceremony and ends with the date of the closing ceremony of Olympics. In the present study, media coverage refers to the number of articles reported in newspapers. Stories were analysed from the sport and news sections of each daily newspaper. Therefore, all articles related to both Olympics and non-Olympic sports in all sections of each newspaper were initially counted. The result sections were also counted. Then they were coded into categories with respect to gender; namely female articles, male articles and mixed. The researchers categorised articles as female articles that referred to events related only to females, and as male articles that referred to events related only to males. Articles that referred to events related to both females and males were coded as mixed articles. The articles that were related to general Olympics (e.g., philosophy and history) were not included in the content analysis: however, there were few such articles in each newspaper. The results from all three newspapers have been combined.

 

THE RESULTS OF THE CONTENT ANALYSIS

At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, 45 men and 20 women competed for Turkey. Turkish athletes won a total of 10 medals (in weightlifting, boxing, wrestling, taekwondo and track and field). Only one medal (gold) was won by a female ? weightlifter Nurcan Taylan.

 

Men Dominate Media Coverage

The analysis of this project included both Olympics and non-Olympic coverage of newspapers. Although the analysis included just the dates of Olympics, the overall proportion of newspaper coverage devoted to Olympics was low (30.1%, see Table 1).

Table 1. Total coverage dedicated to Olympics and non-Olympics articles

 

Measurement	Olympics	Non-Olympics	Total Articles
Number of stories	341	791	1,132
% of Total Coverage	30.1%	69.9%	100%

This high overall proportion of newspaper coverage devoted to non-Olympics is also likely to have influenced the total proportion of coverage for females which reached only 10.1% (see Table 2).

Table 2.  Total coverage by gender

 

Measurement	Male	Female	Mixed	Total
Number of stories	883	114	135	1,132
% of Total Coverage	78%	10.1%	11.9%	100%

 

Females Receive Little Non-Olympic Coverage

The findings of this study indicated that in non-Olympic coverage, female athletes received only 2% of the newspaper coverage whereas male athletes received 95.6% (Table 3). Thus, our results indicate that female athletes received much less newspaper coverage in non-Olympic coverage compared to male athletes. Football (93%) had the most coverage in non-Olympic sport for males. On the other hand, track and field (37.4%) had the highest coverage in non-Olympic sport for females. The other stories concerning female athletes in non-Olympic sport were tennis (18.8%), handball (18.8%), volleyball (12.5%) and basketball (12.5%).

Table 3. Non-Olympic coverage by number of stories in Turkey Newspapers during the 2004 Olympic Games

Measurement	Male	Female	Mixed	Total
Number of stories	756	16	19	791
Percentage (%)	95.6	2	2.4	100%

 

Females Receive Higher Levels of Olympic Coverage than Non-Olympic Coverage

This study found that female athletes received 28.74% of all Olympic coverage whereas male athletes received 37.24%. Although the percentage of female athletes in the Olympic coverage (28.74%) is much more than the percentage of female athletes in non-Olympic coverage (2%), female athletes still received less newspaper coverage than male athletes. The percentage of mixed coverage (34.02%) is higher than the percentage of female athletes in Olympic coverage (28.74%). The percentage of mixed coverage in Olympic sports is also higher than the percentage of mixed coverage in non-Olympic sports (2.4%). The reason for this difference can be explained by the mixed nature of the Olympics. There are both female and male sports in Olympics; therefore relatively more coverage was devoted to mixed stories in Olympic coverage than in non-Olympic coverage. Another reason for this difference could be the inclusion of the results sections that consisted of both male and female results. The content of the mixed articles was mostly male with a little female coverage. This finding should be attributed to the high number of male athletes in Turkish Olympic team. Thus, our results do not support the hypothesis thatfemale athletes will receive relatively equal newspaper coverage compared to male athletes. The frequencies and percentages are shown in Table 4.  Overall, most of the female coverage (86%; 98 of 114 articles) was from the Olympics, as was the majority of the mixed coverage (85.9%; 116 of 135 articles).  However, the opposite was true for males: only 14.4% of all male coverage was devoted to the Olympics with 756 of 883 articles (85.6%) being focused on non-Olympic events.

Table 4. Olympics-only coverage by number of stories in Turkish newspapers during the 2004 Olympic Games

Measurement	Male	Female	Mixed	Total
Number of stories	127	98	116	341
Percentage (%)	37.24	28.74	34.02	100%

Differences in coverage relative to proportion on the Olympic team

 

The findings of this study did not fully support the hypothesis which argued that female and male athletes will receive coverage relative to their proportions on the Olympic team (see Table 5). Male athletes received less coverage (37.24%) than their participation rate (69.7%), whereas female athletes? coverage was clearly much closer to their participation proportion (only 1.6% less). Thus, the coverage of female athletes (28.74%) was relative to their proportion (30.3%) on the Turkish Olympic team, while the male coverage was not.

Table 5. Olympic coverage of Turkish female and male athletes and their proportions on the Turkish Olympic team

 

Measurement	Male		Female
	n	%	n	%
Olympic stories	127	37.24	98	28.74
Olympic team	46	69.7	20	30.3
Medal winners	9	90	1	10

The results also did not support the hypothesis that female and male athletes will receive coverage relative to the proportion of Olympic medals they win(see Table 5).  Our findingsshowed thatmale athletes received less coverage than the proportion of Olympic medals they won, whereas female athletes received more coverage than their proportion of medals.  Women athletes won only 10% of Turkey?s medals but received 28.74% of the coverage; while males won 90% of medals and received 37.24% of coverage. It should be noted, however, that almost one-third of the coverage was mixed stories, which focused on both male and female athletes (see Table 5). Almost half of the mixed stories consisted of winners in the Olympics.

 

Females who were expected to win medals in Olympics had the highest coverage

Nurcan Taylan, a weightlifter, was the only Turkish female medal winner in the 2004 Olympic Games. Weightlifting is one of the sports that are historically linked to Turkish national identity and the highest achievement of Turkish athletes during the 2004 Olympics was in weightlifting (two gold medals and one bronze for males and one gold medal for females). Regarding the fifth hypothesis that female athletes who win in sports historically linked to national identity will receive more coverage than female winners in other sports, the 27.6% of articles related to Nurcan Taylan and other female weightlifters in the Turkish Olympic team is only the second highest percentage in the female articles and less than half the percentage for the most covered sport of track and field (see Table 6). Therefore, this study disproves the fifth hypothesis.

Table 6. Olympic coverage of Turkish female and male athletes and their proportions on the Turkish Olympic team

 

Sport in order of total articles	Male				Female
	Articles		Athletes on Olympic team		Articles		Athletes on Olympic team
	n	% of male coverage	n	% of males on Turkish team	n	% of female coverage	n	% of females on Turkish team
Track and Field	14	11	5	10.9	56	57.2	8	40
Weightlift İng	25	19.7	6	13	27	27.6	4	20
Wrestling	30	23.6	12	26	–		–	–
Boxing	23	18.1	8	17.4	–		–	–
Taekwondo	8	6.3	1	2.2	–		–	–
Swimming	3	2.4	5	10.9	5	5.1	4	20
Judo	2	1.6	2	4.3	1	1	1	5
Shooting	2	1.6	1	2.2	–		–	–
Sailing	4	3.1	5	10.9	–		–	–
Archery	–		1	2.2	2	2	3	15
Other Countries	16	12.6	–	–	7	7.1	–	–
Total	127	100	46	100	98	100	20	100

However, our findings support the hypothesis in another way. For example, the biggest expectation for female medals in the 2004 Olympic Games was from two well-known track and field athletes, Süreyya Ayhan and Elvan Abeylegesse.  Ayhan was the 2002 European 1500m champion and had won the silver medal in the 2003 world championships. Abeygelesse held the world record in 5000m (14.24.68). Therefore, the high level of coverage is not unexpected, although they did not win any medals.  Although track and field is not historically linked to national identity in Turkey, medal expectations are related to national identity and, therefore, these athletes received relatively more coverage than female medal winners in other sports.

Therefore, the reason the hypothesis is not supported is that winning is the most important thing, rather than an association with sports that have historical links to national identity.  Indeed, almost 85% of female coverage was of women who won, or who were expected to win. Although weightlifting, swimming and archery have similar numbers of athletes competing, weightlifting got so much more coverage (27.6%) than swimming (5.1%) and archery (2%). The reason for this is highly related to the big expectation for medals in the 2004 Olympic Games from Nurcan Taylan who won the gold medal. She received 20.5% of the 27.6% weightlifting coverage.

Similarly, Elvan Abeylegesse and Süreyya Ayhan received 50.1% of the 57.2% track and field coverage. Because of an injury, Süreyya Ayhan did not compete in 2004 Olympics, withdrawing shortly before the Games began.  Therefore, Abeylegesse had more coverage (40.9%) than Ayhan (9.2%) of the 57.2% track and field coverage. The most of the coverage about Ayhan was related to her injury. In addition to this, the rest of the track and field coverage was devoted to female athletes from other countries.

Our findings also disproved the hypothesis that female athletes competing in sports more strongly linked to femininity or dressed in ways that highlight gender difference will receive relatively more coverage than those competing in sports more strongly linked to masculinity or dressed in ways that do not highlight gender difference.  Female athletes competing in track and field (57.2%) and weightlifting (27.6%) received more coverage than female athletes who competed in other sports (Table 6). Thus, this finding did not support this hypothesis since track and field is accepted as a gender-neutral sport and weightlifting as male-appropriate sport. On the other hand, these two sports are not stereotypically feminine sports. The uniforms worn by Abeylegesse and Ayhan, who had the most coverage, were not revealing and did not highlight femininity.

Males Receive Higher Levels of Olympic Photographic Coverage than Females

 

The analysis of this project included Olympic photographic coverage in the newspapers. This study found that male athletes received 39.8% of all Olympic photographic coverage whereas female athletes received 33% (Table 7). Consistent with the percentage of male athletes (37.24%) in Olympic coverage, male athletes had similar percentage in Olympic photographic coverage (39.8%). Female athletes? Olympic photographic coverage was clearly closer to their Olympic coverage proportion (only 4.26% less), whereas mixed coverage had fewer photographs (27.2%) than their proportion in Olympic coverage (34.02%).

 

Table 7.  Total Olympics photographic coverage by gender

 

Measurement	Male	Female	Mixed	Total
Number of photographs	88	73	60	221
Percentage (%)	39.8%	33%	27.2%	100%

 

Female track and field athletes had the highest photographic coverage (54.8% of female coverage) since they were expected to win medals in the Olympic Games (Table 8). The highest photographic coverage went to the three athletes most expected to win medals:  Abeylegesse (39.7%), Taylan (15.9%) and Ayhan (5.7%). The Olympic photographic coverage for these three Turkish female athletes was close to their percentage of female Olympic articles: Abeylegesse (40.9%), Taylan (20.5%) and Ayhan (9.2%).

For males, weightlifting (25%), boxing (20.5%) and wrestling (19.4%) had the highest Olympics photographic coverage. Male athletes? Olympic photographic coverage also showed a similar percentage to their Olympic articles: weightlifting (19.7%), boxing (18.1%) and wrestling (23.6%).

 

Table 8. Olympic photographic coverage of Turkish female and male athletes

 

Sport in order of total articles	Female		Male
	n	% of female coverage	n	% of male coverage
Track and Field	40	54.8	10	11.4
Weightlift İng	20	27.4	22	25
Boxing	–	–	18	20.5
Wrestling	–	–	17	19.4
Taekwondo	–	–	8	9.1
Swimming	1	1.4	1	1.1
Judo	–	–	1	1.1
Shooting	–	–		–
Sailing	–	–	1	1.1
Archery	–	–		–
Other Countries	12	16.4	10	11.3
Total	73	100	88	100

 

Females Receive Photographic Coverage Relative to Their Performance in 2004 Olympics

Olympics photographs in each newspaper were also analysed based on two main categories: (a) relevance of performance and (b) gender stereotypes. Photographs that depicted female athletes actively participating in their own sports or shown in sports-related settings were coded as relevant performance, and photographs that depicted female athletes in non-sport settings were coded as non-relevant performance. Additionally, photographs that depicted female athletes with stereotypical female characteristics such as beauty, sexuality, physical appearance or femininity were coded as gender stereotyped.

Our findings indicated that 78.1% of female athletes? photographs were related to performance (Table 9). For instance, Elvan Abeylegesse and Nurcan Taylan were presented during their actual athletic performance in the 2004 Olympic Games. The vast majority of female athletes? photographs (91.8%) were not gender stereotyped. However, 8.2% of female athletes received glamorous, sexy and still shots. Turkish female athletes? photographic coverage was focused on performance rather than gender as defining their representation. Gender stereotyped coverage appeared only for female athletes from other countries. For example, the Cumhuriyet for August 18 included several inside photographs of tennis player, Venus Williams, showing her posing seductively for the camera in the her off-court wear.

Table 9. Content of female athletes? Olympic photographic coverage

 

Number and percentages of photographs	Relevance of  performance			Gender stereotypes
	Yes	No	Total	Yes	No	Total
N	57	16	73	6	67	73
% of female photographs	78.1	21.9	100	8.2	91.8	100

CONCLUSIONS

Based on 1,132 sports-related articles from three different Turkish daily newspapers, this study indicates that male athletes received higher coverage than female athletes in both Olympic and non-Olympic articles.  However, female athletes had relatively higher coverage in Olympic articles than non-Olympic articles. The findings show that females who compete in the Olympics appear to be of more interest to the media (28.74% of coverage) than those who do not (only 2% of non-Olympic coverage).  The coverage of female Olympic athletes was also much closer to their proportion on the Turkish Olympic team than the coverage of male athletes.  Females also received much more coverage than their percentage of medals won. Overall, most of the female coverage was from the Olympics, whereas most of the male coverage was devoted to non-Olympic events.

The increased coverage of female athletes in Olympic coverage might be attributed to the increasing number of Turkish female athletes who are participating and achieving in international competitions and, therefore, their increasing popularity in recent years. Besides, it should be also noted that Olympic Games seem to be important in publicizing female athletes? sport achievements. Therefore, we can argue that the higher coverage of female athletes might relate to the strong nationalistic fervour ignited by the Olympics in Turkey. National identity can be fostered by reports from the media by representing national athletes? achievements in Olympics rather than athletes from other countries. Certainly our study shows that the Turkish media were most interested in Turkish athletes.  For example, only 10.2% of all male and female Olympic stories (23 out of 225) were about athletes from other countries (see Table 6). This means that 89.8% of this coverage focused on athletes from Turkey.

The findings of this project indicate that winning is more important than an association with sports that have historical links to national identity. Almost 85% of female coverage was of women who won or who were expected to win.  The athletes who win Olympic medals are celebrated as heroes/heroines in Turkey. In addition to this, winning was the most important since it did not matter how female athletes were dressed (feminine or not, revealing or not); it was the winners or expected winners who got coverage.

Overall, our study demonstrates thatalthough males had relatively more coverage in both Olympic and non-Olympic events, most of the male coverage was devoted to non-Olympic events.  Olympic coverage was only 30.1% of all the sports media coverage during this period; and males received 95.6% of the non-Olympic coverage.  This study also found that male athletes received more Olympic photographic coverage than female athletes.

Female track and field athletes had the highest photographic coverage since they were expected to win medals. Our findings also indicated that most of the female athletes? photographs were related to their actual performance and most did not receive any gender stereotypes. Not only were female athletes who received gender stereotyped coverage (in glamorous, sexy and still shots) from other countries but almost all the female athletes from other countries received this kind of coverage. It seems important to note that because most of the female Olympic coverage focused on female athletes from Turkey, the media overall highlighted the athletic achievements of females. This finding might also support the view that the nationalistic fervour ignited by the Olympics leads the Turkish media to present Turkish female athletes in terms of their athletic achievements rather than emphasising gender stereotypes.

ENDNOTES

1. EU-25 is the 25 Member States of the European Union.

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AFFILIATIONS

Canan Koca                                        Bengu Arslan

The University of Edinburgh           Baskent University

UK                                                         Turkey