The underrepresentation of the media towards women's sport reaches social media. Case study on Instagram

Abstract

Women's sport has gained ground over the years; However, in the field of communication media, there is still a long way to go, including the social media that information professionals use to broadcast their content. Taking as an object of study the newspapers Marca, As, Mundo Deportivo and Sport (the four with the highest audience in Spain), during a period of a year and a half (January 2020 - June 2021), we analyse their Instagram accounts and the publications that involve women and the sport practiced by them, observing some parameters that determine the quality of these contents, in addition to quantifying them with respect to the total number of publications. This work is intended to illustrate that female athletes continue to be underrepresented in the field of social media owned by the media, adding a series of recommendations, above all, increasing the number of investigations of this type in favour of visibility and equality in sport.