Welcome!

Welcome!  We are four Virginia Tech communication majors.  We are writing this blog for our New Communication Technology class, where our group is focusing on men's and women's sports in today's media.  We will focus on college basketball and the differences in coverage over mediums such as social media, news outlets, mobile applications and television.  We will compile research from the past and present documenting the current state of college basketball in today's world of instant information thirst.

Some of our findings which will go into detail in later blog posts, will help advertising and marketing companies to focus their efforts to a specific target audience.  It is our hope that gender bias gap will be reduced not only in men's and women's basketball but, for all collegiate sports. 

We will examine past and current research to form our own content analysis based on gender bias.  The information we have found is coming through scholarly research articles, major world publications, other blogs, social media such as Facebook and Twitter.  A supplemental newsletter will be posted for your future reference about this topic. 

"Be positive and work hard.  I think it's possible to overcome anything, if you're willing to work at it" - Sheryl Swoopes, three-time WNBA MVP

"Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be" - John Wooden. 

What are you Tweeting about?

What’s with the Twitter buzz?

Social Media is one of the fastest growing phenomena’s on the Internet.  Through web sites such as Facebook and Twitter, people have access to breaking news more quickly then ever.  Twitter has grown exponentially since its inception five years ago. 

Sports fans in particular have the opportunity to follow not only their favorite players and writers but, they have a chance to get involved in the process as well.  Through twitter, sports fans can tweet to their followers about anything they want.  The average fan has the chance to get involved, criticizing the way a player is playing or how a coach is coaching.  Through twitter, the fans can perhaps express something they wouldn’t normally say in person in an online community.  

How was social media used in the NCAA tournament?

In Early April, the men’s and women’s college basketball championships were played.  Before the championship tournaments started, a study was released by the IMRE Sports conducted by the Harris Interactive about how the American public would utilize Twitter during the men’s tournament.  The study revealed that nearly “one in four online American adults (23%) will be using some form of social media to follow the tournament.” (PR News Wire, 2010).  It was also revealed that those with higher incomes, which the study defined as $75K+ and college graduates would be more likely to use mobile applications and Twitter.

The study then broke down how people would use the social media site.  (PR News Wire, 2010)

• 62% will use social media channels specifically to check the scores
• 44% will use them to watch the games
• 44% will use them to follow their favorite team/college
• 40% will use them to follow their own bracket/other gaming purposes
• 19% will utilize social media channels to follow their favorite player/coach

What did we find out?

A week after the women’s championship game, we went on Twitter and searched specific topics catered to the championships.  The terms we searched were #MarchMadness, #NCAA, #NCAAM and #NCAAW.  Before starting the inventory of the terms we believed that there would be more tweets related to #MarchMadness and #NCAAM. 

When we searched for the subject #MarchMadness none of the tweets dealt with college basketball.  All of the tweets that mentioned #MarchMadness dealt with the NCAA hockey tournament that just wrapped up earlier.  So therefore, this topic does not apply to what we were looking at. When we searched #NCAA we had a very similar problem.  We had a sample of 100 tweets, the first 100 on the page and most were regarding football or the hockey championship.  Out of the 100 tweets only 13 were related to men’s or women’s college basketball.  From those 13, only 2 were related to women’s basketball. 

The only two terms left to search were #NCAAM and #NCAAW.  We specifically narrowed these two topics down because they usually relate to college basketball.  After completing the searches, the results were way different then what we were expecting.  One week after the conclusion of the college basketball season there were only 22 tweets that came up when searching for #NCAAM.  All of the tweets were from a broadcaster with the username of @WishFeeder.  When searching #NCAAW however, we found many more tweets.  There were 59 tweets about women’s college basketball. Like with the men’s search, most of the tweets came from a broadcaster with the user name of @hoopsfeed. 

So what does this mean?

Although we were surprised that the women were much more dominant with the social networking scene, we really shouldn’t have been.  As mentioned above, the two dominant tweets from both the #NCAAM and #NCAAW feeds were from broadcasters.  Through broadcasting, the writers can get their stories out and appeal to a mass audience that is interested in a particular topic.  Also, in an industry that is “dying” like the newspaper industry, most of the stuff that would normally have been in newspapers has moved online.  Through Twitter, writers can now “microblog” what they believe is important to his or her followers.  The trick is making sure the tweet stays under 140 characters. 

“Communication does not always occur naturally, even among a tight-knit group of individuals. Communication must be taught and practiced in order to bring everyone together as one.” - Mike Krzyzewski

"If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?" - John Wooden 

We're not the only ones talking about it

What Others are Saying

It has become evident to us, with even more research, that the men’s and women’s college basketball scene are those of two different worlds that receive two totally different rates of coverage and support.  We aren’t the only ones that noticed it either, because the topic was a popular blog post trend and letter-to-the-editor type response during the NCAA 2011 tournament.

Many other bloggers have noticed the difference between men’s and women’s college basketball, whether it’s the fan base, the media coverage, or the overall popularity of the sport.

Most of the blogs and responses we found for today’s post were about women’s college basketball, and how a select group of bloggers are seeing what we see as far as media and overall support.  Here’s what the people are saying:

The first blog we came across during research was written by a female blogger on her page “Not a Barbie Girl.” The title of her article was “I Don’t Watch Women’s College Basketball,” which gave her opinion about the sport.  Just as we’ve found in our research, this blogger noted, “the audience disparity for men’s and women’s college basketball is disappointing,” but then went on to say that she unfortunately contributed to this statistic because she didn’t watch women’s college basketball.  She mentions that the men’s league gets more attention, but makes a call for action at the end of her post for everyone to start supporting the women’s league.

Another post we found was again written by a female blogger on her page “Youth Noise,” in her post, “Women’s College Basketball, For the birds?” This blogger takes a stance supporting women’s college basketball, defending against those that complain about the sport.  She makes a few points, including if the viewer doesn’t like women’s basketball, they can change the channel, and to remember that the women’s teams generally play for the love of the game in their hearts, and not to impress a large audience.  She also took a stab at the “haters” (mostly males) and said they should stop complaining because they probably couldn’t even match skill levels with these young female ball players.  In the end, she also makes a call for action to recognize the trials and tribulations female athletes have endured, and for society to lessen the gap between support for men’s and women’s sports.

We then found a post written by a male blogger in “Jack’s Blog” post titled “The Good and Bad of Women’s College Basketball.” We noticed many of the blogs were written by females and the public feedback began looking skewed, until we found the men supporting women’s sports.  This blog post was in full support of women having the right to play and the need for more equality in college basketball.  He wrote that equality is the main thing that these women’s teams are looking for, and they deserve it.  It’s not about the men’s team versus the women’s team in any regards, but the need for women to be recognized just as well as men. 

The final blog post we found to stand out was written by another male in “MyFDL,” in his blog post, “Women’s College Basketball, Well Worth Watching.” This guy started out admitting that despite all his sports pals dismissing the idea of women’s basketball as a legitimate contender for time worth spent watching sports, he still supported the women’s teams.  He then mentioned that the 2011 NCAA championships were very opposite as far as quality of the game, and picked the women’s game over the men’s game for entertainment and interest.  He wasn’t afraid to admit that women’s sports can be just as, if not more, interesting and well played as men’s sports.  “If you enjoy both the agony of defeat and the thrill of victory that comes with sports, why not avail yourself to the whole spectrum of it, both men’s and women’s athletic competition? To do otherwise is to simply cheat yourself out of the thrills and excitement of athletic competition that women’s sports now provides on a level that is in many ways equal to and sometimes superior to that of men’s sports.”  

So there you have it.  The difference in support for women’s college basketball versus men’s college basketball is duly recognized by many people, and they’re speaking out about it.  The problem is known; we can now just hope to inform all the others that don’t recognize this need for equal coverage and support.

“Know yourself. Never forget where you came from,

and reach back to help someone else come forward too.” 

- Alpha Alexander, co-founder of the Black Women in Sports Foundation

“Never underestimate the heart of a champion.”- Rudy Tomjanovich