Covering the Rooney Rule: An Exploratory Study of Print Coverage of NFL Head Coaching Searches

IF 1 Q3 COMMUNICATION

Howard Journal of Communications Pub Date : 2021-11-09 DOI:10.1080/10646175.2021.1999349

Guy Harrison, C. Kerns, Jason Stamm

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract This content analysis uses media framing theory to explore and compare the rate at which NFL beat writers discussed race in their coverage of the 2020 and 2021 NFL head coach hiring cycles, a perennial process that has historically maintained the statistical overrepresentation of white men among the league’s head coaches. The study of the articles (N = 374) found significant year over year increases in 2021 in both the percentage of all sampled articles overall that mentioned race and in the percentage of stories that mentioned race after a team’s head coach was hired. This study’s findings suggest that, while NFL beat writers are unsurprisingly likely to avoid using race to frame their coaching search stories, their willingness to include race in their reporting may be increasing. Given increased calls for the NFL to address its lack of Black head coaches, sportswriters’ (un)willingness to include race in their reporting of coaching searches has become increasingly relevant. Given this study’s results, we therefore call for further qualitative and longitudinal quantitative studies to more definitively investigate these results as a sustained (and sustainable) phenomenon.

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覆盖鲁尼规则:NFL主教练搜索的纸媒报道的探索性研究

本内容分析使用媒体框架理论来探索和比较NFL新闻记者在其2020年和2021年NFL主教练招聘周期的报道中讨论种族的比率，这是一个长期的过程，从历史上看，联盟主教练中白人男性的统计比例过高。对这些文章(N = 374)的研究发现，在2021年，提到种族的所有抽样文章的百分比和球队主教练被聘用后提到种族的故事的百分比都有了显著的同比增长。这项研究的结果表明，尽管NFL的新闻记者们很可能会避免使用种族因素来构建他们的教练招聘故事，但他们在报道中纳入种族因素的意愿可能正在增加。鉴于越来越多的人呼吁美国国家橄榄球联盟解决缺乏黑人主教练的问题，体育记者(不)愿意将种族因素纳入他们对教练招聘的报道变得越来越重要。鉴于这项研究的结果，我们因此呼吁进一步的定性和纵向定量研究，以更明确地调查这些结果作为一个持续的(和可持续的)现象。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Howard Journal of Communications COMMUNICATION-

CiteScore

2.70

自引率

10.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Culture, ethnicity, and gender influence multicultural organizations, mass media portrayals, interpersonal interaction, development campaigns, and rhetoric. Dealing with these issues, The Howard Journal of Communications, is a quarterly that examines ethnicity, gender, and culture as domestic and international communication concerns. No other scholarly journal focuses exclusively on cultural issues in communication research. Moreover, few communication journals employ such a wide variety of methodologies. Since issues of multiculturalism, multiethnicity and gender often call forth messages from persons who otherwise would be silenced, traditional methods of inquiry are supplemented by post-positivist inquiry to give voice to those who otherwise might not be heard.