This article is based on the scientific report called ”Förenaren och utestängaren”, where we studied people’s sports preferences and their consumption of sports media. The population was divided after gender and physical activity (active and passive). As far as we know, the latter variable hasn’t been used in media research before.

The main result is that men and people that are physically active consume more mediated sports than others. For the most part, gender plays a more important role than physical activity, since men – active and passive – consume more sports media than women. But even if women don’t consume as much sports in the media as men, they still have a great interest in sports. As we see it, women don’t reject sports per se, but the way sports are portrayed in the mass media. Since sports in the mass media are seen as a masculine activity, and the language used is more common for men, most women reject it. We believe that the mass media organizations are conservative and afraid they’ll lose audiences if they try to reach out to females. This reinforces the social and cultural structures where women are left behind where sports are concerned.