Methods
Quantitative and Qualitative Content Analysis
For my quantitative analysis method I utilized basic content analysis. The process here began with a full read through of all fifty articles. From this, I gained a general oversight of what to look for when it came time to count for my code sheet in what I considered to be gendered language and phrases in quantitative analysis. I engaged in a detailed evaluation of the newspaper articles and counted for word frequencies such as “victory”, “triumph”, and “attendance”.
For my qualitative analysis I used deductive coding to create code categories from the findings during my quantitative coding. My code categories were derived from the high frequencies of specific words and phrases from the counting done prior. The latent analysis, or underlying meanings, drawn from these frequencies consisted of larger thematic elements in gendered coverage. A few of the categories I curated were things like discussion of the family and inspiration from early childhood, the way in which the audience was discussed and in what way this impacted the success or failure of the game, and how the games were portrayed in terms of their historical significance on men’s and women’s athletics.
Sampling Frame and Method
The framework in which I defined my population was that of the summer olympic games for men’s and women’s’ soccer. I looked specifically at the 1996 U.S. women’s game, the 1996 men’s games, and the 2016 men’s games. My sampling method was derived from the use of non-probability sampling. In this case, my sample is not completely representative of the entire population and can not be completely generalized. Due to the immense amount of sports during the olympics, the consideration of the winter games, the special olympics, and given that the time frame can not be applied to all of history makes the method of non-probability sampling the best fit. More specifically I engaged in purposive non-probability sampling. I had a general perspective that I was interested in, the coverage of the summer olympic games for men’s and women’s soccer, and purposive sampling helped me more specifically understand that. I used data sources that were both archived from the 1996 coverage of the olympic games, such as the NYT vault, as well as more recent print articles discussing the history of those games.
