A New Age for Media Coverage of Women’s Sport? An Analysis of English Media Coverage of the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup

PETTY KAte, Stacey Pope First Published October 4, 2018 Research Article https://doi-org.distant.bu.univ-rennes2.fr/10.1177/0038038518797505 Article information Article has an altmetric score of 46 SAGE Choice Open Access Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License Abstract This article examines English print media coverage of the England national women’s football (soccer) team during the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. It draws on a content analysis of five English national newspapers from 24 May to 14 August 2015. A wide body of research has demonstrated that women’s sport continues to be greatly underrepresented in the media but our findings are important as they demonstrate that during this tournament, women’s football received a significant amount of print media coverage and that this coverage was largely positive. We argue that we have entered a new age of media coverage of women’s sport in the UK, with a shift towards greater gender equality. Keywords football, gender, media, new age, sport, women, Women’s World Cup