Research & Projects

Here you will find links to research & projects affiliated with or sponsored by the Center for Feminist Research and USC Gender Studies Program.

It's Dude Time! A Quarter Century of Excluding Women's Sports in Televised News and Highlight Shows

The last quarter century has seen a dramatic movement of girls and women into sports, but, according to this study, this social change is not reflected in televised sports news and highlights shows. This is a five-year update to a 25-year longitudinal study, conducted by Cheryl Cooky (Purdue University), Michael Messner, and Michela Musto (University of Southern California).  The research, sponsored by the University of Michigan's Sport, Health, and Activity Research and Policy (SHARP) Center, indicates that the quantity of coverage of women’s sports in televised sports news and highlights shows remains dismally low. Network affiliate sports news programs devoted only 3.2% of broadcast time to women’s sports. ESPN’sSportsCenter devoted a scant 2% of broadcast time to women’s sports.  The study also includes a qualitative analysis of coverage of women's and men's sports. View the entire report at the above link. See below for the 2010 report.

Gender in Televised Sports: News and Highlights Shows, 1989 - 2009

Girls' and women's participation rates in organized sports have soared in recent decades, but according to the CFR Gender in Televised Sports report, media coverage of women's sports continues to lag.  Every five years since 1989, USC professor of sociology and gender studies Michael Messner and his colleagues examine the quality and quantify of coverage of men's and women's sports on three network affiliate news shows, and on ESPN's SportsCenter.  The 2010 study revealed that sports news and highlights shows continue largely to ignore or trivialize women's sports, as well as many men's sports, in effect supporting a continued cultural valuation of the central men's sports of basketball, football, and baseball.