An analysis of Sports Illustrated feature articles, 1954-1987
Issue Date
1991Author
Lumpkin, Angela
Williams, Linda D.
Publisher
Human Kinetics
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
All Sports Illustrated feature articles between 1954-1987 were examined with reference to sport, gender, race, role of the person featured, length of article, author, number of pictures, individuals pictured, and descriptive characteristics. The sporting achievements and lives of males were acclaimed in 90.8 percent of these 3,723 articles. Males authored 91.8 percent of the articles. Baseball (21.6 percent), football (16.2 percent), and basketball (13.1 percent) appeared most frequently, followed by boxing (7.5 percent), track and field (6.5 percent), and golf (4.7 percent). Blacks were featured in only 22.4 percent of the feature articles. Athletes (83.9 percent) and their achievements, rather than coaches, owners, or administrators, were the focus of these articles. As expected, pictures of the featured individuals predominated (mean of 3.01) over those of others (mean of .677). Articles about males and whites were longer on average than those about females and blacks (66 to 55 and 67 to 58 column inches, respectively) , as were those for boxing (77), football (69), baseball (60), and men's basketball (58). Written descriptors characterized females in blatantly sexist terms.
Description
This is the publisher's version, also found at http://ehis.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&sid=733b8545-9e84-4b5e-933d-2e3f5ac3eed1%40sessionmgr12&hid=2&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=s3h&AN=SPH279391
Collections
Citation
Lumpkin, Angela; Williams, Linda D. (1991) An analysis of Sports Illustrated feature articles, 1954-1987. Sociology of Sport Journal, 8: 16-32.
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