Published Paper Details:

This study uses a multimodal discourse analysis to examine how gender is portrayed in sports journalism within an Arab cultural framework. This research utilizes Halliday's systemic functional linguistics and Kress and van Leeuwen's framework for visual analysis to examine how the combination of textual and visual aspects in sports articles influences and strengthens gender norms. A dataset consisting of ten sports articles, showcasing a variety of sports and forms of coverage, was chosen from an Arab news website. The textual analysis primarily aims to find thematic, linguistic, and interpersonal themes, hence uncovering patterns in the portrayal of gender in written information. Visual analysis explores the prominence, presentation, and manner of representation to comprehend the focus and depiction of gender in images. The results suggest a notable inclination towards male athletes, who are commonly portrayed highlighting their athletic abilities, whereas female athletes are generally underrepresented or featured with an emphasis on their physical attractiveness or personal qualities rather than their sporting accomplishments. This discrepancy maintains conventional gender assumptions and undermines gender equity in sports. The study emphasizes the necessity of achieving a more just and proportionate portrayal in sports journalism, calling for the impartial inclusion of both male and female players. This research offers a thorough comprehension of how sports media influences society gender expectations by combining textual and visual analysis. The results emphasize the wider impact of sports media in influencing public opinions and advancing gender parity. Additional research is recommended to further investigate the interplay between various modalities in sports journalism in order to have a more comprehensive understanding of their combined influence on gender representation.