A gender role, or sex role, is a set of socially accepted behaviors and attitudes deemed appropriate or desirable for individuals based on their sex. Gender roles are usually centered on conceptions of masculinity and femininity, although there are exceptions and variations.
The 1996 Paralympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, were held from August 16 to 25. It was the first Paralympics to get mass media sponsorship, and had a budget of USD $81 million.
Sociology of sport, alternately referred to as sports sociology, is a sub-discipline of sociology which focuses on sports as social phenomena. It is an area of study concerned with the relationship between sociology and sports, and also various socio-cultural structures, patterns, and organizations or groups involved with sport. This area of study discusses the positive impact sports have on individual people and society as a whole economically, financially, and socially. Sociology of sport attempts to view the actions and behavior of sports teams and their players through the eyes of a sociologist.
The participation of women and girls in sports, physical fitness, and exercise has been recorded to have existed throughout history. However, participation rates and activities vary in accordance with nation, era, geography, and stage of economic development. While initially occurring informally, the modern era of organized sports did not begin to emerge either for women or men until the late industrial age.
Loughborough University is a public research university in the market town of Loughborough, Leicestershire, England. It has been a university since 1966, but it dates back to 1909, when Loughborough Technical Institute began with a focus on skills directly applicable in the wider world. In March 2013, the university announced it had bought the former broadcast centre at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park as a second campus. The annual income of the institution for 2022–23 was £369.1 million, of which £48.3 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £339.1 million.
Sex verification in sports occurs because eligibility of athletes to compete is restricted whenever sporting events are limited to a single sex, which is generally the case, as well as when events are limited to mixed-sex teams of defined composition. Practice has varied tremendously over time, across borders and by competitive level. Issues have arisen multiple times in the Olympic games and other high-profile sporting competitions, for example allegations that certain male athletes attempted to compete as women or that certain female athletes had intersex conditions perceived to give unfair advantage. The topic of sex verification is related to the more recent question of how to treat transgender people in sports. Sex verification is not typically conducted on athletes competing in the male category because there is generally no perceived competitive advantage for a female or intersex athlete to compete in male categories.
Michael Alan Messner is an American sociologist. His main areas of research are gender and the sociology of sports. He is the author of several books, he gives public speeches and teaches on issues of gender-based violence, the lives of men and boys, and gender and sports.
Jackson T. Katz is an American educator, filmmaker, and author. He has created a gender violence prevention and education program entitled 'Mentors in Violence Prevention', which is used by U.S. military and various sporting organizations.
The Olympic Games have been televised in the United States since 1960. It has become one of the most popular programs on USA television every four and then two years. The Olympics has been exclusively broadcast on NBC and NBCUniversal's TV networks in the United States since 1988 for the Summer Olympics and 2002 for the Winter Olympics. American television companies are one of the major sources of revenue for the IOC.
Sport pertains to any form of physical activity or game, often competitive and organized, that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, through casual or organized participation, improve participants' physical health. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as racing, many contestants may compete, simultaneously or consecutively, with one winner; in others, the contest is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a "tie" or "draw", in which there is no single winner; others provide tie-breaking methods to ensure one winner. A number of contests may be arranged in a tournament producing a champion. Many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a regular sports season, followed in some cases by playoffs.
Sonia Livingstone is a leading British scholar on the subjects of children, media and the Internet. She is Professor of Social Psychology and former head of the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science. While Livingstone’s research has evolved since the start of her career in the 1980s, her recent work explores media and communication in relation to society, children and technology. Livingstone has authored or edited twenty-four books and hundreds of academic articles and chapters. She is known for her continued public engagement about her research areas and has advised the UK government, European Commission, European Parliament, UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, OECD, ITU and UNICEF, among others, on children’s internet safety and rights in the digital environment. In 2014, Livingstone was awarded the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) "for services to children and child Internet safety".
Andrea Lee Press is an American sociologist and media studies scholar. She is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Media Studies and Sociology, and Chair of the Media Studies Department, at the University of Virginia.
Sports communication is a specialized field of communication studies that specializes in the elements and examination of communication in a sports setting. The management of communication in sports organizations has evolved towards greater professionalization and incorporating technological innovations.
Adam Christopher Earnheardt is an American academic and author, sports and communication researcher, and social media critic. He is professor and former chair of the Department of Communication at Youngstown State University, located in Youngstown, Ohio. He researches the effects of communication devices and social media on society, and studies the media uses and psychology of sports fans and families. Earnheardt was a columnist with Mahoning Matters, a news outlet with the Google-McClatchy Compass Project where he wrote about family and parenting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Earnheardt was a weekly columnist for The Vindicator and Tribune Chronicle newspapers from 2014 to 2021, where he focused on the impact of technology and media on relationships and society.
International Olympic Committee Athletes' Commission is a majority elected body that serves as a link between athletes and the IOC. The mission of the IOC AC is to ensure that athletes' viewpoint remains at the heart of the Olympic Movement decisions, representing future, current and recently retired Olympic athletes. The IOC AC aims to provide athletes with a platform to share their voice and experiences, and be part of change and decisions shaping the future of sport.
Gender plays a role in mass media and is represented within media platforms. These platforms are not limited to film, radio, television, advertisement, social media, and video games. Initiatives and resources exist to promote gender equality and reinforce women's empowerment in the media industry and representations. For example, UNESCO, in cooperation with the International Federation of Journalists, elaborated the Gender-sensitive Indicators for Media contributing to gender equality and women's empowerment in all forms of media.
The participation of transgender people in competitive sports, a traditionally sex-segregated institution, is a controversial issue, particularly the inclusion of transgender women and girls in women's sports.
Dafna Lemish is an Israeli media researcher in the fields of children, youth and leisure culture; as well as construction of gender identity in the media.
Toni Bruce is a New Zealand sociology academic, specialising in the sociology of sport. She is currently a full professor at the University of Auckland. She gained her Masters and PhD degrees at the University of Illinois in the USA. She previously worked at the University of New Hampshire (USA) University of Canberra (Australia) and University of Waikato. While teaching at the University of Auckland Bruce participated in many fields of research. Her main topics involve sports media, gender issues, nationalism, race/ethnicity and disability. Bruce is an expert in many different topics including journalism, media analysis and theory, and the impacts of sociological aspects of identity on people's experiences. She supervises students throughout the Masters and the Doctorate programs that include her main topics of research.
Gender pay gap in sports is the persistence of unequal pay in sports, particularly for female athletes who do not receive equal revenue compared to their counterparts, which differs depending on the sport. According to the research conducted by BBC, "a total of 83% of sports now reward men and women equally". However, it does not mean that the wage gap in sports has narrowed or disappeared. In 2018, Forbes released the list of the top 100 highest-paid athletes, all of them being male athletes. A similar situation also occurred in 2017, where there was only one female athlete – tennis player Serena Williams — who joined the list and ranked No.56. Billie Jean King brought awareness to the issue of unequal pay in the early 1970s, when she was awarded $2,900 less than her male counterpart at the Italian Open. The timeline of the gender pay gap in sports displays the significant events that have occurred since the 1970s.
