A profile of newspaper sports section readers and nonreaders.

Gamst, Glenn ; Sutherland, Yvette N. ; Evans, Barry A. 等

The past two decades have witnessed a rapid expansion of interest in social and psychological analyses of human behavior as it relates to the topic of sport. Numerous journals, textbooks, and technical monographs are beginning to proliferate from a number of fields including psychology, sociology, mass communication and journalism, and physical education (cf. Goldstein, 1989).

This increased interdisciplinary attention reflects, in part, a growing consumer (i.e., spectator) demand for sports information. Historically this need was first met by the print media (Adelman, 1986). As new electronic technologies developed, broadcast media, especially television, played an increasingly important role in sports news delivery (see, Wennet, 1989). This apparent ascendancy of television as the dominant sports information medium is probably the cause of the current neglect of newspapers and their respective sports sections by empirically-oriented media-and-behavior researchers. This is unfortunate since over 60% of U.S. adults read or look into a daily newspaper (Gamst, Aldridge, & Bush, 1987; Meyer, 1985; Stone, 1987). Since the present study focuses on the newspaper sports section, we will briefly review some pertinent literature.

There are a variety of ways that a sports spectator can both enjoy and obtain information about a sports event. Some of which includes actual attendance at an event, viewing the event on television, listening to a radio broadcast, or reading about a sports event, before or after it takes place, in a newspaper or magazine. Emphasizing the continued importance of the latter, Snyder and Spreitzer, (1983) showed that the expansion of television sports broadcasts has stimulated an increase in newspaper sports coverage, with newspapers providing additional depth of coverage.

Similarly, McPherson (1975) argues that the consumption of sport can be either direct or indirect. Direct sport consumption is evidenced by actual attendance at a sporting event. Whereas, indirect sport consumption involves watching a sports event on television, listening to it on radio, or reading about it in a newspaper or periodical. McPherson (1975) has linked a number of key variables to the rate of sport consumption including: income, marital status, age, education, occupation, and proximity to the event. Most studies that have examined sports spectatorship (according to Duncan & Brummett, 1989) have not differentiated the fan's derived satisfaction among the various types of possible spectating (i.e., actual attendance, viewing on television, or reading a sports column). Using the medium of television, Duncan and Brummett (1989) identified three dimensions of spectating that pleasurable experiences are presumed to be derived from. These are the technological, discourse, and social dimensions. We can extend these ideas to newspaper sports reading. The technological dimension refers to the "technical characteristics" of newspaper sports coverage, e.g., headlines, photographs, story length, side bars, tabled box scores, etc. The discourse dimension refers to the content of newspaper sports stories, such as, particular sports columnists, hard vs. soft news, interviews, analytical stories, previews, and sum-ups, etc. The social dimension of newspaper sports reading places the sports spectator (i.e., the reader) into his or her social context which includes social norms and expectations, like when and where the sports section is read, the sports section's perceived relationship to the rest of the newspaper, the intensity of the reading experience, cognitive scanning strategies, etc.

Newspaper sports sections play a prominent role in the lives of many adults. Lever and Wheeler (1989) have conducted a longitudinal content analysis of the Chicago Tribune's sports section from 1900-1975. During this period, the length of sports stories increased by 79%. As a percentage of the total newspaper (excluding advertisements) the sports section accounted for 9% of editorial content in 1900 and grew to 17% by 1975. Most daily newspapers devote more newshole (i.e., space) to sports news than any other topic (Snyder & Spreitzer, 1983). In fact, Edwards (1973, 1980) indicates that the sports section is the principal factor in motivating an estimated 30% of newspaper purchases. Recent sports section research has focused on the characteristics of this section's readers, who tend to be affluent males (Smith, 1988; Waldrop, 1989). Others have examined which sports are the most popular (Yergin, 1986), although attendance figures and interest ratings do not always translate into interest in reading about a particular sports event.

Few, if any, studies have probed the reasons for reading the sports section and its relationship to the frequency of reading a sports section. What is it that sports fans are looking for in a newspaper? Clever columnists, news about favorite local or national tearns, box scores and other numerical information, or perhaps personal profiles of leading sports stars? Why do some newspaper readers avoid or feel ambivalent about this section? Differences in sport section reading frequency may indicate a continuum of reader interest in sports. It seems reasonable to expect that individuals who differ in sports section readership will also differ as to their attitudes concerning the sports section. To examine the relationship between these variables, the following survey was conducted.

Method

Four hundred ten telephone interviews were conducted with a random probability sample of newspaper subscribers, using a systematic sampling procedure of the entire newspaper subscriber data base of over 500,000 households from a major metropolitan newspaper in the western region of the United States. The interviews were conducted in a centralized telephone facility between July 14-18, 1989. The sample was evenly divided among females and males, aged 18 years or older. Demographically the sample was representative of large newspaper reading populations in this region and may not be representative of all newspaper readers nationwide. The response rate was 68%.

Results

Measurement of variables

Table 1 depicts the mean response for a variety of attitudinal questions dealing with the sports section that respondents answered. These 20 attitude questions were developed through an initial focus group interview with senior sports writers and editors of a large metropolitan newspaper. Hence, the questions were derived primarily from experienced sports journalists' intuitions and perceptions of their audience. The resulting altitude questions were based on 4-point Likert-type scales (strongly disagree = 1, somewhat disagree = 2, somewhat agree = 3, strongly agree = 4). The independent variable (reader type) was derived from responses to a daily sports section readership question which measured readership on the basis of read "regularly," "sometimes" (i.e., occasionally), or "never" (nonreaders). This question, while based on a self-report, is a fairly standard way of determining newspaper section readership and is often employed within the industry.

All statistical analyses reported in this section should be assumed to be significant at the 5% level or less. Furthermore, an examination of the distribution of responses to the altitude questions revealed a roughly symmetrical pattern for all items, reinforcing the appropriateness of using analysis of variance procedures on these Likert scales.

Twenty one-way analyses of variance (ANOVAS) revealed that 14 of the 20 attitude questions reliably differentiated among the three readership groups. These 14 items each had an F-value that was significant at the .05 level. Least significant difference (LSD) multiple comparisons tests were subsequently computed (|is less than~ .05) on each set of means. See Carmer and Swanson (1973) for justification of using LSDs. Additionally, |R.sup.2~ values were computed for each significant overall F-ratio to indicate the proportion of the total variability attributed to the differences among the treatment means, and ranged from .02 to .27, with a mean of .11. For instance, Table 1 shows that nonreaders are more likely to agree with negative perceptions about athletics TABULAR DATA OMITTED and reading the sports section than are their regular or occasional reader counterparts. Whereas, regular readers, (and to a somewhat lesser extent occasional readers) showed considerable agreement for positive statements dealing with a variety of sports topics (i.e., both "hard" and "soft" news stories). Interestingly, occasional and nonreaders show more interest in reading about sports personalities than do the regular readers. Also revealing are the areas in which the three reader groups appear to be in accord concerning the sports section. All three readership groups believe the sports section should emphasize local sports talent, and each of these groups prefers to watch sports competition on TV rather than read about it. Conversely, all three groups show an equal lack of enthusiasm for sports columnists, scoreboard tables, and local high school sports results. To further understand these results, a series of multivariate analyses were performed on these attitude items.

A set of composite (sports orientation) dependent variables was derived from a factor analysis using the principle components method of initial factor extraction with a varimax rotation. The factor analysis suggested that these data could be explained by six interpretable groupings of which three yielded reasonably high levels of reliability. Three other factors emerged from the factor analysis: Local Sports News, High School Sports and Columnists, and Number Crunchers. Each of these factors yielded a Cronbach's alpha |is less than~ .40 and were deemed unreliable for further analysis in the present study. The first factor, anti-sports, consisted of four items (Cronbach's alpha = .77) which dealt with negative opinions concerning sports in general and sports newspaper stories in particular. The second factor, entertainment, consisted of five items (Cronbach's alpha = .66) and considered how the sports section provided the respondents with a source of fun, relaxation, and diversion. Factor three, sports personalities, consisted of three items (Cronbach's alpha = .55) and reflected interest in the personal lives of sports stars. The variables comprising each factor were averaged for each respondent into three composite scales and served as dependent variables.

Table 3 reports the means and standard deviations of the three dependent measures across the three levels of reader type. Three one-way ANOVAs using each composite scale as a dependent measure and reader type as an independent variable were conducted to test for differences among the three levels of readership. All effects that achieved significance were reliable at or beyond the .05 level.

The anti-sports dependent variable showed that regular daily sports section readers (M = 1.44) showed less support for negative sports opinions than did occasional readers (M = 1.70) as compared to nonreaders (M = 2.36), |F(2,374) = 41.36~ and confirmed with LSD multiple comparisons tests (|is less than~ .05).

TABULAR DATA OMITTED

TABULAR DATA OMITTED

The entertainment dependent variable revealed an opposite pattern of results with regular readers (M = 3.91) finding more entertainment value in the sports section than occasional readers (M = 3.54), and nonreaders (M = 2.87), F((2,374) = 48.13~, as confirmed with LSD multiple comparisons tests (|is less than~ .05). However, the effect of sports personalities did not reveal any differences among the readership groups, |F(2,368) = 2.11, p |is greater than~ .05.~. This finding suggests a common lack of interest in the personal lives of sports figures across all readership groups. The minor fluctuation among the degrees of freedom (e.g., 374 vs. 368) reflect item nonresponse among a few respondents.

Discussion

The present study trichotomized a sample of newspaper sports section readers and nonreaders on the basis of sports section reading frequency (reader type) and based upon their responses to 20 sports attitude questions, three composite sports orientation variables were established and examined across reader type.

Newspaper subscribers, who presumably are highly motivated to read certain kinds of newspaper information, are attracted and repelled to and from the sports section for a variety of reasons (e.g., Duncan & Brummett, 1989). The present findings have revealed two important composite attitudinal variables that sports section readers and nonreaders appear to differ on, and one variable that shows consistency across sports section readership groups.

Anti-sports attitudes are must likely to be held by nonreaders and least likely by regular readers. This is somewhat analogous to recent findings of greater interest in sports among those individuals actively engaged in sports activity (Cox, 1990), and who prefer a more direct consumption of sport (McPherson, 1975). Individuals seeking entertainment and relaxation are more likely to be regular readers. While the sports section appears to provide sports spectators or fans with the necessary pre and post event analyses, it clearly plays an important recreational role in helping some individuals unwind and reduce daily tensions (cf. Duncan & Brummett, 1989; Zillman, Bryant & Sapolsky, 1989).

Sports personalities (i.e., soft news) failed to differentiate the three readership groups in the present study. However, two of the three items that compose this scale revealed a significantly stronger pattern of interest among the nonreaders for these soft news items. This finding may have practical applications for print media executives who are constantly challenged to find ways of enticing people into reading their product.

More research needs to be undertaken to explore the relationship between print media and sports spectators' relationship to it. Further, research needs to be undertaken that provides a national cross-section of newspaper sports section readers and nonreaders. What are the other factors involved in a fan's desire to read about a sporting event? What compels some individuals to read the sports section habitually every morning and others to rarely give it a glance? The present study is a modest attempt at addressing these questions and should be considered a beginning of a construct validation process for these sports orientation scales which are clearly complex and multivariate.

References

Adelman, M.L. (1986). A sporting time: New York City and the rise of modern athletics, 1820-70. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Carmer, S.G., & Swanson, M.R. (1973). An evaluation of ten pair-wise multiple comparison procedures by Monte Carlo methods. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 68, 66-74.

Cox, R.H. (1990). Sport psychology: Concepts and applications (2nd ed.). Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown.

Duncan, M.C., & Brummett, B. (1989). Types and sources of spectating pleasure in televised sports. Sociology of Sport Journal, 6, 195-211.

Edwards, H. (1980). The struggle that must be: An autobiography. New York: Macmillan.

Edwards, H. (1973). Sociology of sport. Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press.

Gamst, G., Aldridge, T., & Bush, S. (1987). Effects of targeted sales messages on subscription sales and retention. Journalism Quarterly, 64, 463-473.

Goldstein, J. H. (1989). Sports, games, and play. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Lever, J., & Wheeler, 5. (1984). The Chicago Tribune sports page, 1900-1975. Sociology of Sport Journal, 1, 299-313.

McPherson, B.D. (1975). Sport consumption and the economics of consumerism. In D.W. Ball, & J.W. Loy (Eds.), Sport and social order: Contributions to the sociology of sport, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Meyer, P. (1985). The newspaper survival book: An editor's guide to marketing research. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Smith, G. J. (1988). The noble sports fan. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 12, 54-65.

Stone, G. (1987). Examining newspapers: What research reveals about America's newspapers. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Snyder, E.E., & Spreitzer, E.A. (1983). Social aspects of sport (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Waldrop, J. (1989). Ball-park figures. American Demographics, 11, 6.

Wenner, L.A. (1989). Media, sports, & society. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Yergin, M. L. (1986). Who goes to the game? American Demographics, 8, 42.

Zillman, D., Bryant, J., & Sapolsky, B. S. (1989). Enjoyment from sports spectatorship. In J. H. Goldstein (ed.), Sports, games, and play. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.