Promoting women's sport: theory, policy and practice

Leisure Studies

ISSN: 0261-4367 (Print) 1466-4496 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rlst20

Promoting women's sport: theory, policy and practice David Rowe & Peter Brown To cite this article: David Rowe & Peter Brown (1994) Promoting women's sport: theory, policy and practice, Leisure Studies, 13:2, 97-110, DOI: 10.1080/02614369400390071 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02614369400390071

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Promoting women's sport: theory, policy and practice DAVID R O W E 1 and P E T E R B R O W N 2

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1Department of Communication and Media Arts and 2Division of Leisure Studies, University of Newcastle, New South Wales 2308, Australia While in recent years there has been a good deal of critique of the representation and participation of women in sport, there have been relatively few attempts to link theory and practice by means of cultural policy interventions. This article discusses a communitybased research project designed principally to encourage teenage girls to engage voluntarily in sport by improving local media coverage and developing the media and public relations skills of local sporting clubs and associations. It outlines how the Hunter Medialink Pilot Demonstration Project sought to achieve its objectives and presents findings that suggest, if not conclusively establish, the success of its strategies. The results also indicate that the importance of media coverage may be exaggerated and that word-of-mouth and peer group encouragement are of much greater significance in actually raising sports registration levels among girls and women. The article concludes with a reflection on the constraints imposed by the kind of externally funded cultural policy intervention that the Project represents, pointing to the need for diverse approaches to gender inequality in sport.

Introduction In a recent overview of the current state of the theory and politics of gender in sport, Hall (1993) notes that, while there has been considerable development in the feminist understanding of the place of sport in the reproduction of women's subordination, the opportunity for 'transformation or social change' has in part been thwarted by a disabling failure of praxis: The problem is that there has been little linkage between the theory and the practice, and minimal analysis about how to make women' s sport political. There are literally millions of participants, athletes, coaches, administrators, officials, educators, and volunteers all working toward the betterment of women's sport for whom the theorizing discussed in this paper would be as foreign as another language. On the other hand, theorists often spend little or no time on the front line (Hall, 1993, p. 62). In this article we review the outcome of a recent tour of duty on the 'front line' of sports gender policy. First, there is a brief discussion of the current state of theory and research in women's sport and, m o r e generally, in the discipline of cultural studies. It is argued that the current intellectual and political climate has been favourable to the emergence of policy interventions in the area of gender equity in sport in Australia. Second, we examine the design and implementation of one such policy intervention, the Hunter Medialink Project. In discussing the findings and

Leisure Studies 13 (1994) 97-110 0261-4367

9 1994 E. & F.N. Spon

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D. R o w e and P. Brown

outcomes of the Project, both the possibilities and limitations of ameliorative gender strategies are examined. The article concludes with a consideration of the implications of research studies such as Hunter Medialink for the place of cultural policy interventions in the theory and politics of women's sport and, by extension, in academic disciplines such as media, leisure and cultural studies.


Sport and gender inequality Current feminist analysis has advanced a strong argument that sport is a prime site of gender inequality. Sporting access, participation and spectatorship are, it is argued, heavily weighted against women, while sport itself is a major cultural means by which patriarchal social relations are reproduced and reinforced (see, for example, Bryson, 1987; Deem, 1988; Hargreaves, 1990). This recognition of the socio-cultural significance of sport has prompted a wide-ranging exploration of the dispositions of power in contemporary popular culture. It has been argued by academics operating in the broad (inter)discipline of cultural studies that domains of culture such as sport are, while deeply scored with patriarchal values, not irredeemably reproductive of hegemonic formations of masculinity (Connell, 1987). Instead, sport, an important component of contemporary popular culture, is seen as a site of contestation over the values and structures of power (McKay, 1991). The deep involvement of media, communication and cultural studies academics in this form of sports critique has, in combination with the industrialized expansion of the 'sports/media complex' (Jhally, 1984), produced a continuing emphasis on the mass media as central to the condition of women's sport (Australian Sports Commission, 1985). Sport's increasing dependency on the media and the systematic articulation of gendered values through television, radio and the press mean that any attempt to promote gender equity must of necessity emphasise the sphere of media. In spite of the trenchant nature of critiques of the media's neglect, marginalization and trivialization of women's sport and of other cultural activities, the political potency of much academic condemnation of media practices has been seriously questioned. Cunningham (1992) has argued that cultural studies in general has failed to do more than gesture ineffectually in opposition to media practices. Hall (1993) has, as noted above, expressed similar reservations about the efficacy of the feminist culturalist critique of media sport and hence of the theoretically informed engagement with structures of social power central to the feminist project. The rise of cultural policy studies in the early 1990s has signalled a new willingness among some cultural critics to engage in a more orthodox social democratic politics of policy formation and application. While it must be acknowledged that this pragmatist policy orientation has met considerable resistance and suspicion (not least from feminists - see Grace, 1991; Levy, 1992; Morris, 1992), it has proved attractive in a period when formerly powerful informing theoretical and political orthodoxies (notably, Marxist political economy and neo-Marxist ideological critique) are in decline, and when the universities are under instrumentalist pressure to demonstrate the tangible benefits of public investment in higher education (Rowe, 1991). These overtures from the academy to the state have, in Australia, been


Promoting women's sport

99

reciprocated in the form of federal and state government reports, policies and inquiries addressing the problems of women's sport. The Federal Labor Government (which has been in power since 1983), various state governments and their respective bureaucracies have all embraced the issue of gender equity in sport in recent years. This newly visible concern reached an unprecedented level in Canberra's Parliament House in February, 1991 when, as part of a series of public hearings on equal opportunity and equal status for Australian women, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs and the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) held a joint Equity for Women in Sport Seminar. McKay (1993) has indicated that this initiative produced, apart from considerable media coverage, a wealth of documentation, including submissions, proceedings, recommendations and a final report from the House of Representatives Standing Commmittee (1991 ), supplemented by discussion papers from the ASC (1992) itself and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (1991). Sport, which has such an exalted place in Australian culture (Rowe, 1991a), is seemingly being enlisted in the task of symbolising the state's commitment to anti-sexism. Out of this conjunction of intensified scrutiny of the gendered media coverage of sport and enhanced commitment to gender-based state policy activism, Hunter Medialink was created. Hunter Medialink

The aim of the Hunter Medialink Project was to encourage sports participation of teenage girls by raising the media profile of women's and girls' participation in sport and by promoting sport more effectively to teenage girls at both sporting association and club levels1. This dual approach reflected the ASC's support of 1. At a conference on Women and Sport, organized by the Hunter Academy of Sport at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales in June, 1990, there was a common concern with the media coverage of female athletes and the impact of media and publicity on female sporting participation. A successful project application was made, following the Conference, for AS 24000 funding for a 12 month period from the Australian Sports Commission's Aussie/Youth Sports Pilot Demonstration Programme. Hunter Medialink was administered by a management/advisory committee, the composition of which was based on expertise in the university-based disciplines of Leisure Studies, Media Studies, and Health and Physical Education (University of Newcastle); federal, state and communitybased sports development (Australian Sports Commission, Department of Sport, Recreation and Racing and the Hunter Academy of Sport); and (freelance) journalism. In the conduct of the Project, a part-time media liaison/project officer for women in sport was appointed whose role was to work with and through six selected sporting associations. The spread of sporting associations deliberately encompassed major/minor sports, winter/ summer sports, and urban/rural settings, as well as different types of association structure. The participating sports were hockey, gymnastics, athletics, basketball, netball and surf life saving. Each association agreed to support the Project by: 1. nominating two public relations officers (PROs) who were willing to serve for at least two years; 2. assisting the PROs to develop and use media liaison and public relations skills at an association level; 3. using the PROs to develop public relations skills at a club level; 4. utilizing a range of public relations strategies which promote teenage participation in sport; and 5. evaluating the effectiveness of alternative public relations techniques on player registration levels at both association and club levels. (Brown and O'Neill, 1992, p. 2)


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both the Aussie/Youth Sports programme and the then Women's Sports Promotion Unit (now the Women and Sport Unit). It is not our intention here to discuss the Project comprehensively and in detail. The Hunter Medialink Report (Brown and O'Neill, 1992) is now in circulation and is available to those who wish to consult it. Our purpose, rather, is to highlight some of its significant findings and to reflect on the implications for cultural policy research arising from the Project. Given that Hunter Medialink is 'a pilot demonstration project' intended, according to its funding selection criteria, to have the ability 'to be duplicated in other Regions' (Brown and O'Neill, 1992, p. 3), it is especially necessary to signal both the strengths and limitations of the approach adopted and the data gathered. At the same time, the inter-organizational relations involved must also be evaluated. The main goal of the Project was to encourage voluntary sports participation by teenage girls. As noted above, it is believed that engagement by girls in sporting activity is desirable not only on straightforward equity grounds of inclusion and exclusion (Bryson, 1985; Thompson, 1992), but also on the understanding that such involvement has tangible benefits in terms of self esteem, physical competence and body image (Dyer, 1986; Heaven and Rowe, 1990; Scraton, 1990). The two principal stated objectives2 of the Project were: 1. to develop media and public relations skills at the sporting association and club levels, with a view to promoting more effectively women's and girls' participation in sport; 2. to liaise with local media to improve both the quantity and quality of media coverage of women's sport in general and girls' sport in particular. (Brown and O'Neill, 1992, p. 1). The rationale for Hunter Medialink was, as noted above, that the enhancement of positive media portrayals of female athletes would encourage teenage girls and women to participate in sport in the Hunter Region (which covers a large coastal and inland area of New South Wales around the Newcastle/Lake Macquarie conurbation). Its overall approach was one of community-based education and action dedicated to the forging of links between the local media and sporting associations. Support for the Project was, as a consequence, immediately sought from journalists in the local print and electronic media. This activity resulted in substantial media coverage for the Project itself and the involvement of sports journalists in a Developing Media Liaison Skills workshop attended by representatives of the participating sports. At the same time, sporting associations (particularly their nominated Public Relations Officers) were surveyed and advised on techniques of seeking and maintaining regular media coverage, as well as on promoting their sports in order to increase registrations among the targeted groups. Two useful 2. The other three Project objectives were: 1. to develop a framework which ensures the on-going development and implementation of the Project at the end of 12 months; 2. to develop a reporting mechanism which facilitates the ready transfer of information relating to the establishment, implementation and outcomes of the project to other regions; and 3. to develop and implement measures for evaluating the effectiveness of the Project in meeting its objectives. (Brown and O'Neill, 1992, p. 1)


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documents were generated by these activities - an information kit entitled Promotion and Media Liaison: Tips for Sporting Associations and a directory of media organizations which was regularly updated during the life of the Project. The active collaboration of sports journalists in the compilation of these resources helped to foster the continuing interaction between local sports and local journalists which, as noted above, was one of the main aims of Hunter Medialink. It also facilitated the study of the amount and nature of the coverage of female sport in local media.


Media coverage of female sport

In assessing the effectiveness of Hunter Medialink it was necessary to establish whether any substantial increase (notionally established at 10% over a year) in media coverage of women's sport actually occurred. The technique of content analysis was used for this purpose, with coverage measured by counting the column centimetres devoted to male and female sport. A daily local paper, the Newcastle Herald, was monitored for three eight-week sample periods during the life of the Project. These samples were compared with the corresponding periods in the previous year. In spite of the frequent observation (derived from the research presented in ASC, 1985) that women receive less sports coverage than animals, it was decided not to count horse and greyhound racing coverage on the grounds of conceptual clarity. The results are reported in Table 1 below. The above tables display a significant overall increase in women's sports coverage of 31.9% when comparing corresponding sample periods before and during the Project. Coverage increased by 28.2% during the August/September period and by a more modest 10.3% during the December/January period. The very considerable rise of 66.3% during the April/May period was substantially attributable to the introduction of a weekly eight-page junior sport supplement, which facilitated the contribution of articles by sporting associations and was sensitized to the issue of sports gender equity. The Newcastle Herald's sporting photographs from the sample periods were also monitored, revealing an increase in the number of photos of female athletes during the course of Hunter Medialink. Women were represented in 16% of all sports photographs in the three sample Table 1 Female/male sports coverage Newcastle Herald [sample periods 1990-1992]

Sample period

Aug / Sep '90 Dec/Jan '90/91 Apr/May '91 Aug/Sep '91 Dec/Jan '91/92 Apr/May '92

Female coverage (col cms)

Male coverage (col cms)

Female coverage

5394 5210 4614 6646 5748

25140 21710 34790 23100 20696 25431

17.7 19.4 11.7 22.3 21.7 23.2

7673

Source: Brown and O'Neill (1992, p. 14)

as a

percentage of total sports coverage (%)

102 Table 2

D. R o w e and P. Brown Female sports coverage, Newcastle Herald (pre and during Medialink, 1990-1992) 8000 7000

6000 5000 E

4000


3000

2000 1000 I

0 Aug/Sept

Dec/Jan

I

AprlMay

Sample Periods =

pre Medialink

- - - - D ~ d u r i n g Medialink

periods before the Project commenced and in 25.3% in the corresponding sample periods during it. Qualitative research also revealed an improvement in that women and girls were shown in more active and positive sporting roles, sometimes in colour on the front page. The promising increase in female sports coverage should not be interpreted with excessive optimism. The relatively low base from which measurement was taken favours, in the first instance, large statistical increases. When, however, rel;ltive male and female coverage is calculated, it is apparent that male sport is still massively dominant in the print media. Table 1, for example, demonstrates that, even where the increase of women's and girls' sports (word-based) coverage was most considerable (in comparing April/May 1991 with the same period in 1992), the relative proportion of male coverage only declined from 88.3% to 76.8%. In the case of the Newcastle Herald's sports photography, the male proportion fell from 84% to a still dominant 74.7% during the life of the Project. It could be objected in responding to these statistics that men's sport is more prominent in the media simply because there is more male than female sporting activity. While this argument ignores the significance of the self-reinforcing and so reproductive function of existing coverage, it is in any case apparent that levels of participation do not always correlate with levels of media representation. For example, Brown (1993) notes that rugby league, with 90329 registered male (and 210 female) players in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory in 1992, received over 15 times more coverage in the Newcastle Herald than netball, which in ~hat year had 110000 female (and no male) members in New South Wales alone. While it should be noted that the gender-based disparity between player registration and media representation was not as extreme in every sport, it is



103

evident that many more women are actively engaged in sport than the print (and, as shown later, electronic) media generally acknowledge. Qualitative analysis also revealed many examples of sportswomen appearing in photographs, captions and articles in ways preoccupied with ascribed 'feminine' characteristics of nurturance and sexual attractiveness. The critical analysis of articles undertaken during the sample period followed the approach to 'sexist language' employed in the Australian Government Publishing Service's Style Manual (1990, p. 111 ), with particular reference to the concepts of gender-based invisibility, dependence, trivialization and stereotyping. While the Project's limited resources meant that electronic media coverage could not be systematically monitored, the leading local commercial television station, NBN, provided information on its coverage of sport in its key early evening news programme, revealing that around 16% of its 'human' sports news was devoted to female sport. Again, these data reveal a continued paucity of words and images of women as active participants in sport. The nature of the sampled local media coverage of female sport was in general terms mixed, with both encouraging signs of progress and regrettable evidence of persistent neglect and negative coverage. The representativeness of the monitored media organizations must be treated with due caution, given the substantial variations in media servicing metropolitan and rural populations in six states and two territories across a country the size of the USA with the population of the Netherlands (Turner, 1990, p. 166). There is also the question of the impact of Hunter Medialink itself. Incontrovertible evidence that the Project was responsible for the increase and improvement of media coverage of women's sport cannot be provided. Anecdotal evidence, including comments from journalists and sporting associations, indicates that it contributed to a climate favourable to expanded coverage. Similarly, the statistical improvement in the media treatment of women's sport in the sampled period provides strong circumstantial evidence of the Project's (short term) efficacy. It is not possible, however, to isolate the Project entirely as an independent (that is, causal) variable in relation to other external factors - for example, the growing general and professional awareness of equal opportunity and equal status strategies for women in Australia. As noted earlier, the House of Representatives Inquiry into Women, Equity and Sport gave unprecedented prominence to the issue of women, sport and the media. Such methodological 'impurity' is, of course, inevitable in modestly conceived and funded applied social research and it may be safely concluded that Hunter Medialink helped to raise consciousness among local media personnel about the shortcomings of much reporting of female sport and assisted considerably in the development of media liaison skills of sporting associations and clubs. It may also be expected that a lag exists between the Project's initiatives and outcomes, which are likely to be apparent only in ensuing years. To this end, some follow-up research is currently being conducted. There is, however, a danger that the Project's emphasis on media coverage will result in 'mediacentricity' - that is, a blandly unsupported assumption that there is a direct association between greater media coverage of female sport and increased participation levels by girls and women in sport. The media, however, may not be the most important de facto vehicles of sports promotion. It was necessary, therefore, in gauging other influences on

104


participation, to examine also the general promotional and public relations activities of sporting organisations as they relate to the task of recruitment.


Women's sport and public relations A common journalistic response to criticisms of the media's neglect of women's sport is that such complaints are commercially naive. Media organisations are said to be too busy and financially constrained actively to seek out 'inaccessible' information on different sports. Instead, sports seeking media coverage are expected to be readily available to the media and to proffer information about themselves that is 'media friendly' and so easily accommodated to routinized forms of media presentation. It is also often pointed out by media professionals that the more popular a sport demonstrates itself to be, the more attractive it is to media, sponsors and advertisers. Sports journalist Roy Masters (1991, p. 42) follows this line in arguing that: 'If women's sport wants to get the same coverage as men's, it must generate the same commercial interest as do Hayley Lewis and Stefti G r a f t . . . and netball.' For women, according to Masters and the sports administrators he cites, the way to popularity and commercial visibility lies in the use of 'their glamour to promote their sport', as netball in Australia had by raising hemlines, encouraging weight loss and improving the team's grooming. Such proposals to 'sell' women's sport by emphasising sexuality are seen by many feminists as concessions to capitalist patriarchal values (Duncan, 1990) and so as ultimately self defeating. The general requirement for women's sporting associations to develop their promotional, marketing and media liaison functions was stressed in the report 'Women, Sport and the Media' (ASC, 1985, p. 41), which received several submissions asserting that: associations, suffering from a long history of neglect, ignorance and suspicion when it came to media relations, often saw the task of media relations and publicity/promotions as secondary to the job of running the organization. Responsibility for the job was often given to relatively junior and inexperienced officers who had no idea where to begin. They were, of course, voluntary and tended to stay in the position for a relatively short period of time, thus making it hard to develop a continuity in the relationship with the media (Women, Sport and the Media, ASC, 1985). Similarly, a recent survey of the place of sport in the lives of young Australians (ASC, 1991a, p. 19) notes that dubs' and associations' 'lack of co-ordinated, accurate and easily available information concerning the location of clubs, or contact people for clubs' impeded participation in sport by 13-18 year olds. Hunter Medialink set out to develop the capacity of sporting associations and clubs to engage in effective public relations (PR) and also to devise new means of increasing registration numbers. To this end, a second workshop (entitled Developing Public Relations Skills) was held and a questionnaire distributed beforehand which sought to gather information on registration levels and patterns and to clarify PR and promotional goals and methods. The questionnaire rendered a good deal of information on an association-by-association basis (Brown and O'Neill, 1992, pp. 24-29, 89-90). It was supplemented by a second questionnaire



105

designed to discover how players receive initial information about sporting clubs/ associations and to ascertain levels of awareness of the various methods of publicity for the registration process. The results of this survey, completed by two of the sporting associations 3, are presented in Table 3 below. While, again, the results of such an exploratory survey must be treated carefully and sceptically, the importance of word-of-mouth information is apparent. Friends of already participating children are likely to be encouraged to join sporting associations and clubs in response to the enthusiastic endorsement of their peers' experience. A multiplier effect of increased registration can, therefore, be deduced. Association publicity, 'come and try it' classes, exhibitions, displays, and media publicity were also mentioned by respondents as means of establishing initial awareness of sports and their activities, but the centrality of peer relationships provides a necessary corrective to simplistic notions that expansion of media coverage of junior/girls' sport will automatically raise the number of registrations. The survey question, however, because it asked how registrants first received information about joining a club, did not allow for the interaction of several factors in the decision to register for a sport. Table 4 below demonstrates that a number of channels of information act in combination. The data again reveal the importance of word-of-mouth, but they also demonstrate (in the case of basketball) the significance of club and association newsletters in the registration process. These non-professional, low-key sources of information are rarely given attention by media analysts, but are nonetheless valuable means of grass-roots communication which help convert interest in a sport into active participation in it. The professional media, therefore, are important primarily in that they give sports a public profile. In the case of athletics, for example, registration levels rose in Olympic years when media coverage of the sport is at its most intense (Brown and O'Neill, 1992, p. 28). Because of constraints on the capacity of community sports to purchase advertising space in the media and the limited effectiveness of the mainstream media promotions that do Table 3 Newcastle Junior Basketball Association and NSW Gymnastics Association (Hunter Region) survey: how registrants first get information about joining a club

Information source Friends School Family Assoc. publcty Other No response

NJBA

NSWGA (Hunter Region)

frequency

percent

frequency

percent

101 14 25 14 8 17

56.4 7.8 14.1 7.8 5.6 9.5

43 5 12 5 16 0

53.1 6.2 14.8 4.9 19.8 0

Source: Brown and O'Neill (1992: 29) 3. These two sports were chosen for this exercise because they organized their registration at association level, whereby members registered for individual clubs in one place at the same time. In this way the issue and return of questionnaires could, in the interests of an acceptable response rate, be handled with greater efficiency than would be possible for the other sports, all of which registered their members on a club-by-club basis, at different venues and at different times.

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Table 4 Newcastle Junior Basketball Association and NSW Gymnastics Association (Hunter Region) survey: registrant awareness of channels used to promote registration process

Promotional channel


Newspaper / TV / Radio Club/Ass. newsletter School Stadium / Gym notices Friends Other

NSWGA (Hunter Region)

NJBA times mentioned

percentage %

times mentioned

percentage %

11 106 10 16 52 1

6.2 59.2 5.6 8.9 29.1 0.6

9 7 10 4 56 8

11.1 8.6 12.3 4.9 69.1 9.8

Source: Brown and O'Neill (1992: 30)

take place, other channels of communication must operate to provide instruction on how to register to play. The Project set itself a notional 10% target for increased female registrations in the nominated sports and also established a 15% target increase for adolescent girls. All six associations (representing hockey, gymnastics, athletics, basketball, netball and surf life-saving) increased female registrations during 1992 and, with the exception of hockey (which experienced a marked decline in registrations between 1987-1991 ), the rate of increase for the remaining five sports exceeded the Project's 10% target. It was not possible, however, because of the limitations of the associations' record keeping, to disaggregate the data on adolescent girls. Again, the statistics indicate that Hunter Medialink had a positive effect on youth, girls' and women's membership levels in local sports organizations, just as it had on the amount of media coverage of female sport, but it is not possible to disentangle the Project from other factors conditioning registration patterns. Community sports participation is affected by, among other things, large-scale factors such as the prominence of a particular sport and the range of competing sports and other leisure activities in a given context. Non-sporting matters such as unemployment levels also affect the level of disposable income available for sporting registration. The ability of individual sporting associations and clubs to attract and retain members is also highly variable. The Project could concentrate only on the area of media liaison and promotional skills and not on the entire field of sports development. It is important, then, to appraise soberly its contribution to women's sport in the Hunter Region without exaggerating or underplaying the Project's impact. It is also necessary to consider in more general terms the lessons learnt from the kind of cultural policy intervention represented by Hunter Medialink. Reflections on cultural policy intervention The impetus behind Hunter Medialink lies in the position articulated in the abovequoted lament by Hall (1993, p. 62) that the advancement of women' s sport has been hamstrung by a largely absent 'linkage between the theory and the practice' and the reluctance of theorists to spend 'time on the front line'. Under the currently prevailing conditions of academic research, the resources for practice/policy



107

research are mainly available from organizations located outside the academy. The Project followed Hall's prescribed course of action insofar as 'independent' critique of media representations of women's sport (for example, Williams, Lawrence and Rowe, 1986) was temporarily supplanted by institutionally funded research and community involvement intended to produce specific, measurable outcomes. This engagement with cultural policy was, while prompted and supported by various activities of the state, addressed not to state 'governmentality' (Foucault, 1979) of sport but to the practices of provincial private and public media organizations and of community-based voluntary associations. As noted above, one advantage of operating in such an extra-textual sphere is that it demonstrated the limits of media influence and, as a consequence, interpretive textual analysis. The quantifiable performance indicators of female/youth media coverage and sporting association/club registration, to the extent that they were successfully 'honoured', gave a particular task orientation to the research rarely evident in the more orthodox academic procedure of scholarly publication or even of the 'populist' exposition of the public intellectual. It nevertheless needs to be stated that policy research of this kind imposes definite constraints on intellectual and political practice. It is necessary to outline some of the limitations on 'engaged' research activities because, if more such work is to be carried out in the realm of women's sport, then researchers, participants and 'end users' (such as government agencies, sporting organizations and academics) alike will need to be well appraised of the processes and structures which shape research outcomes. The acceptance of external research funding requires the observation of binding grant conditions. These conditions make any variation to the structure of the research project after it has commenced difficult, thereby limiting its flexibility and responsiveness to new conditions or unanticipated findings. On completion of the research, the conventional requirement for the content of the final report to be approved for release both delays dissemination of information and may lead to the modification or excision of key material. The Hunter Medialink Project did not suffer much in this regard, the final report being accepted in total by the ASC after some delay. Stipulation that the 'property and copyright of all material created in connection with the project shall vest in the Commission' (Conditions of Grant reproduced in Brown and O'Neill, 1992, p. 53) and similar controls on communication of Project material unapproved by the funding body may also be experienced as frustrating bureaucratic control. While the researchers' involvement with the ASC in the case of Hunter Medialink was generally unproblematic, McKay (1993) provides a detailed account of how his ASC-funded report on the shortage of women executives in Australian sport met with considerable objection from its Executive Director, leading to the cancellation of its scheduled launch and a protracted dispute over its content and method. McKay also refers to another study (funded by the Commission's Applied Sports Research Program) of women's role in servicing the sports participation of others (see Thompson, 1992) which, as a condition of support, required the modification of the research design to incorporate men. While some of these matters are specific to the ASC as presently constituted, they also broadly reflect experiences familiar to those academics engaging in research under contract (Curthoys, 1991). Funded research entailing specific performance criteria is also subject to tensions


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D. R o w e and P. Brown

between the expectations of different communities of interest. In the case of Hunter Medialink, the objectives of the Project were not conducive to the construction of a research design with the kind of rigorous empirical methodology demanded by academic studies which have no other principal aim than that of the testing of hypotheses. Given the necessarily interventionist nature of the Project under its conditions of grant, greater concentration of effort and resources on the technical validity, reliability and replicability of its findings would have breached the expectations of its funding body. While significant choices must be made at every stage of the research process irrespective of its source of funding, research facilitated by an 'interested' body will inevitably have specific priorities which close off other research options. It is, therefore, difficult for externally-funded research to satisfy all those groups who lay claim to it. Hunter Medialink may be viewed as a project which sought to mediate competing demands and aims, thereby producing data and conducting activities in pursuit of a tenable compromise. Both its explicit outcomes and the process by which they were produced are instructive in exploring the relationships between theory, policy and practice. The Project's experience reveals that while there can be a fruitful interchange between different research objectives and priorities, negotiating outcomes satisfactory to diverse interests is no easy matter 4. These (potential and actual) difficulties in conducting policy research have been highlighted as a counter to the strain of naive optimism contained in clarion calls for cultural studies academics to embrace cultural policy studies as a means of exercising greater influence over the organization of culture (for example, Bennett, 1989; Cunningham, 1992). There is a need for both cultural policy research (whether or not externally funded) and the more open forms of cultural analysis and critique that do not immediately privilege policy concerns. In regard to women's sport, there is a requirement for interpretive research to be simultaneously conducted on media images of femininity (for example, Birrell and Cole, 1990; Duncan, 1990) and also for policy-oriented research on the distribution of municipal and other publicly funded sporting and leisure resources (for example, Wearing and Wearing, 1990; Mowbray, 1993). In the case of Hunter Medialink, both approaches were simultaneously (if unevenly) adopted, but it is not imperative that all research studies equally combine theoretical, empirical and policy discourses. Instead, the foregoing discussion indicates that, while there is much to be gained from the reflexive enrichment of divergent aims and methods in researching women's sport, attempting a theory-policy-practice synthesis in each project would unduly limit the scope of research. The attraction of research requiring a policy intervention in sport or any other domain of culture lies principally in its predisposition to 'action'. Seeking to frame, influence and implement institutional policy - relating to local media and sports organizations in the case of Hunter Medialink - helps meet the needs of those politically engaged in the task of seeking equity, as well as the demands of the state and other likely funding bodies for tangible measures of performance and 4. For a sharp exchangebetweenan ethnographicresearcherand two groups layingclaimto represent those being'researched',see Nava's (1992, pp. 39-70) recordedexperienceof fieldwork on the subject of lesbian attitudes and identitiesamong London girls.



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progress. While such activity may produce both useful data and practical results, it does not constitute a research blueprint. Conducting research which requires (in broad terms) policy intervention does not only provide university-based researchers in sport and leisure with an often unaccustomed task orientation, but also helps to break the circle and rhythm of academic discourse, with its well established network of journals, conferences and peer reviews. Venturing onto the 'frontline' does not only advance the cause of equity in sport and leisure, but also highlights new and unanticipated avenues of research. The benefits of policy intervention research lie, therefore, as much in the research process as in its explicit outcomes. The research exercise discussed and analysed here may be viewed, then, as a 'pilot demonstration project' in the widest sense, laying bare many of the advantages and limitations of funded, policy-oriented research. Hunter Medialink fostered and monitored a considerable but highly localized improvement in the media representation women's sport which has continued well after the Project concluded. In the case of the Newcastle Herald, for example, positive front-page stories and (colour) pictures of sportswomen and girls are now reasonably common. The argument and data provided above clearly demonstrate, however, that in the media representation of women's sport s , as well as in the areas of socialization, education, information and resource provision, there is still plenty of cultural theory and policy work to do. References Australian Government Publishing Service (1990) Style Manual AGPS, Canberra, Australia. Australian Sports Commission and the Office of the Status of Women (1985) Women, Sport and the

Media: A Report to the Federal Government from the Working Group on Women in Sport AGPS, Canberra, Australia. Australian Sports Commission (1992) Towards Equity in Sport ASC, Canberra, Australia. Australian Sports Commission (199 la) Sport for Young Australians AGPS, Canberra, Australia. Bennett, T. (1989) Culture: Theory and Policy Culture and Policy 1, 5-8. Birrell, S. and Cole, C.L. (1990) Double Fault: Renee Richards and the Construction and Naturalization of Difference Sociology of Sport Journal 7(1), 1-21. Brown, P. (1993) Changing Representations of the Female Athlete in the Australian Print Media. In C. Brackenridge (ed) Body Matters: Leisure Images and Lifestyles Brighton, Leisure Studies Association, 45-53. 5. That there is still negative and demeaning media coverage of women's sport is evident in the following example of a story in the general circulation magazine The Picture, which carried a recent front-page headline SPORTY SPUNKS DROP THEIR DAKS FOR NUDE NETBALL. Inside, an article by 'netball editor' Ron Ely (1993, p. 12) conceded that women's netball now receives some limited television coverage (including prime-time on the publicly funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation): 'Yet deep in our hearts, we at The Picture know that even though our girls are all genius sheila netballers, the game is as dull as shite. It's crap and we all know it. That's why we propose to save the game before the sponsors realise they've backed a real turkey.' The proposed solution is 'all-night nude netball', the practice of which is amply demonstrated by a two-page photographic spread devoted to two very young-looking naked girls. Readers (clearly positioned as male) are enjoined to 'whack off a fax to the National Netball Association' supporting the concept. While clearly this is an extreme example of the denigration of women's sport in the media (which is no less derogatory for its 'humorous' tone), it indicates the resilience - sometimes visible, sometimes hidden - of male sports hegemony (Mason Cox and Fullagar, 1992).


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Brown, P. and O'Neill, H. (1992) Hunter Medialink: A Pilot Project Funded through the Aussie/Youth Sports Programme Report for the ASCT, University of Newcastle, Australia. Bryson, L. (1985) Why Women are Always Offside Australian Society 4(6), 33-34. Bryson, L. (1987) Sport and the Maintenance of Masculine Hegemony Women's Studies International Forum 10, 349-360. Connell, R.W. (1987) Gender and Power Allen & Unwin, Sydney. Cunningham, S. (1992) Framing Culture Allen & Unwin, Sydney. Curthoys, A. (1991) Unlocking the Academies: Responses and Strategies Meanjin 50, 386-393. Deem, R. (1988) Together We Stand, Divided We Fall: Social Criticism and the Sociology of Sport and Leisure Sociology of Sport Journal 5,341-354. Duncan, M.C. (1990) Sports Photographs ~nd Sexual Difference: Images of Women and Men in the 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games Sociology of Sport Journal 7(1), 22-43. Dyer, K. (1986) Girls, Physical Education and Self-Esteem Commonwealth Schools Commission, Canberra, Australia. Ely, R. (1993) It had to Happen! It's Nude Netball! The Picture 230, Feb. 12-13. Foucault, M. (1979) On Governmentality Ideology and Consciousness 6, 5-21. Grace, H. (1991) Eating the Curate's Egg: Cultural Studies for the Nineties, West 3(1), 46-49. Hall, M.A. (1993) Gender and Sport in the 1990s: Feminism, Culture, and Politics Sport Science Review 2(1), 48-68. Hargreaves, J. (1990) Gender on the Sports Agenda International Review for the Sociology of Sport 25,287-308. Heaven, P. and Rowe, D. (1990) Gender, Sport and Body Image. In D. Rowe and G. Lawrence (eds) Sport and Leisure: Trends in Australian Popular Culture Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Sydney, 59-73. House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs (1991) Equity for Women in Sport HRSCLCA, Canberra, Australia. Human Rights and the Equal Opportunity Commission (1991) Women, Sport and the Commonwealth Discrimination Act HREOC, Syndey, Australia. Jhally, S. (1984) The Spectacle of Accumulation: Material and Cultural Factors in the Evolution of the Sports/Media Complex Insurgent Sociologist 3, 41-57. Levy, B. (1992) Ruffling the Feathers of the Cultural Polity Meanjin 51(3), 552-555. Mason Cox, S. and Fullagar, S. (1992) The 'Feminine' in Sport Refractory Girl 43, 21-24. Masters, R. (1991) If You've Got It, Flaunt It, Be Yea He or a She, The Sydney Morning Herald March 5, p. 42. McKay. J. (1991) No Pain, No Gain? Sport and Australian Culture Prentice Hall, Syndey, Australia. McKay, J. (1993) Masculine Hegemony, the State and the Politics of Gender Equity Policy Research Culture and Policy 5,223-240. Morris, M. (1992) A Gadfly Bites Back Meanjin 51(3), 545-551. Mowbray, M. (1993) Sporting Opportunity: Equity in Urban Infrastructure and Planning ANZALS Leisure Research Series 1, 120-141. Nava, M. (1993) Changing Cultures: Feminism, Youth and Consumerism Sage, London. Rowe, D. (1991) Sociology of and as Popular Culture. Paper delivered at the Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Sociological Association Murdoch University, Perth. Rowe, D. (1991a) Player's Worktime: Sport and Leisure in Australia ACHPER National Journal 131, 4-10. Scraton, S. (1990) Gender and Physical Education Deakin University Press, Geelong, Australia. Thompson, S. (1992) Men Play Football: Women Wash the Dirty Socks Refractory Girl 43, 2-5. Turner, B.S. (1990) Australia: The Debates about Hegemonic Culture. N. Abercrombie, S. Hill and B.S. Turner (eds) Dominant Ideologies Unwin Hyman, London, 158-181. Wearing, B. and Wearing, S. (1990) Leisure for All? Gender and Policy. In D. Rowe and G. Lawrence (eds) op. cit., 161-173. Williams, C., Lawrence G. and Rowe, D. (1986) Patriarchy, Media and Sport. In G. Lawrence and D. Rowe (eds) Power Play: Essays in the Sociology of Australian Sport Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 215-229.