The purpose of this study was to determine how the media played a role in how 50 college students remembered gold medalists of the past two summer and winter Olympics. The 50 subjects came from the campus of Western Connecticut State University. All subjects varied in gender, race, and knowledge of the Olympics. A random questionnaire was given out asking the persons' gender, how many hours they watched the 1996 Olympics, a list of 75 men and women gold medalists and ficticious names, and how media played a part in how these subjects remembered these medalists. These subjects remembered the medalists from magazines and television. What about those people not chosen? The researcher examined the difference in media coverage from the three top chosen and three who were not chosen and then compared. The conclusion is that media did have an effect on the students remembering certain medalists.

Media have been a basis for many things in the past decade, whether it being the television, magazines, or newspapers. Is it through the media that certain people are remembered more than others? Or do some people just have a better memory than others?

Taking a look at the Olympics, the 1896 Games were funded by stamps, ticket sales, commemorative medals, program advertising, and, most of all, private donations (Searle and Vaile, 1996). The Olympics then was not based on media coverage but on the general public watching in person and getting involved with the competition of each athlete. Today, on the other hand, the Olympic Games are financed through the sale of television rights, sponsorship, licensing, ticket sales, coins, and stamps (Searle and Vaile, 1996). The Olympics today is a major broadcasting event. "Television is the means by which the world experiences the Games and it is fundamental International Olympic Committee (IOC) policy that broadcasting rights are not sold to the highest bidder, but to those who guarantee the broadcast coverage" (Searle and Vaile, 1996, p. 473).

With this major broadcasting of the Games, according to Searle and Vaile (1996) the Lillehammer Winter Games of 1994, on CBS, was the most watched event in the United States television history with 83.7 percent of viewers watching all or part of the Games. Advertising, in the Olympics, on the other hand remains the only major sporting event where advertisers' messages are prohibited both within the stadium and on the athletes' clothing. In Atlanta some 17,000 media representatives provided live coverage of the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, the Centennial Games. They used the latest technologies to reach every corner of the globe in order to report the joys and disappointments of some 10,000 athletes representing almost 200 countries. Not only was television an influence on the viewers, but people were also exposed to the print media. Olympic stadium journalists sent their stories in words down data phone lines to computers in their offices around the world. Also, photographers linked their mobile telephones to their digital cameras and sent instant images back home (Searle and Vaile, 1996). The Olympics, being a major sporting event, and the media, being the communication link, have to work together in order to communicate the results and news of the Olympics.

The Olympics have been around for 100 years. The first modern Olympic Games was held in 1896 in Athens, Greece with approximately 200 men from 14 different countries competing in nine events (Collins, 1996). If people could remember the the 1896 Olympics, those people would have no problem remembering the gold medalists, considering there were only nine events. Those people could probably remember half of the men who participated without any media attention. Let's take a look at the present numbers of the people participating in the Olympic Games today. In the summer of 1996, more than 10,000 athletes from close to 200 countries participated in the Olympics. With the addition of three women's events, there was total number of 241 events in the 1996 Summer Olympic Games (Kindersley, 1996).

So many people, so many countries, so many events; who can really keep track? The media can do it, whether by the television or newspapers or magazines or radio, they will promote those certain individuals so that viewers will remember a name or a face for future acknowledgement.

One may wonder how this all ties in with people remembering gold medalists. How does a person's memory system work? The human memory is a very complex system. The researcher started out by looking at a person's short term memory. Short term memory is memory of events that have just been presented, only a short time span has gone by (Cermak, 1972). Also this person has not been allowed to think about or rehearse what they have learned. The capacity of short term memory only holds a limited amount of information. A good example of short term memory is a person looking up an unfamiliar phone number and then walking across the room to the telephone to dial it. The chances of that person forgetting the number is very likely; unless, of course, the person repeated the number over and over (Cermak, 1972).

Long term memory is another type of memory function often researched. Long term memory has been described primarily as recall for events that occurred minutes, days, or even years ago. Long term memory is known to have an infinite amount of space to hold and store information (Cermak, 1972). A person can always memorize more facts and information; it is not limited like short term memory.

In this paper, long term memory of a person is what the researcher was concerned with. To look back into Olympic history, a person would have to remember this information through the use of long term memory. Within long term memory, two theories have been formulated to explain forgetting. Decay theory stated that forgetting is primarily a function of the time that has lapsed between learning and recall. The second theory is the interference theory. This theory stated that forgetting is a function of the number of relations the memory has to remember in order to recall that specific item (Cermak, 1972).

Another important part of the memory is the person's attention toward something. Attention is defined by Norman as "taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seems several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thoughts. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others" (1969, p.7). To summarize this quotation, a person's mind is completely focused on some object and in order for this person to remember it they must learn everything about the object. The person wants to learn about the object intensely. The object has the full and complete attention of the person. With this attention in mind, this person will want to remember and recall this object whenever needed.

Once a person maintains attention for something, they can remember it for future use. Material remembered usually has to be set in relation with other material, but in most cases this material will be dated and given some kind of personal mark. Remembering involves a certain pattern and an attitude and then sets the attitude and pattern together (Bartlett, 1972). Most people, may say that Kerri Strug will be remembered by her final vault, when she injured her ankle or Gail Devers may be remembered for her long and colorful nails.

Long term memory is what is involved in remembering which is brought back from the past either days, months, or even years later. According to Schacter (1996) remembering, for the rememberer, is mental time travel, a reliving of something that happened in the past.

So how do the media play a role in a person's memory? Media, as stated before, are major communication channels. Without media, people may not be aware of who are the top athletes in basketball, unless someone watches basketball all the time and keeps track of each player. People would not know celebrities' life stories without media. It is amazing how mass media messages are assumed and in a matter of seconds a person knows the complete message, including all the details, perfectly (Kellermann, 1985). With this research previously done, Kellermann described "the notion that an attentive and motivated receiver of a media message should be able to remember the material of that message completely and accurately" (1985, p.83). Looking back at attention, a person can find this statement to be true. The more attention given to something or someone, the easier and more accurately that person or thing will be remembered. Now, because mass media are so popular, people tend to remember what they see or read in the media because it is all around them.

Another article discussed the effects of television news. When a person watches the news, and just before the station goes into a commercial, the station shows a clip or a teaser of the next shocking story or news break ahead. Cameron, Schleuder, and White (1993), wanted to study the viewers attention and memory of those type of clips or teasers. They asked," Do viewers pay more attention to the story when it airs? And do viewers remember the information better when the stories are teased?" (1993, p.437). The result of this study was yes, viewers paid more attention to the story when it aired, and yes viewers remembered the information better when the story was teased.

Another study was done by Dhillon, Dong, and Lang on the effects of emotional arousal on viewers' memory. They wanted to find out if arousing messages are remembered better than calm messages (Dhillon et al., 1995). Their results showed arousing messages are remembered better than calm messages. Both of these studies were tested on undergraduates and both men and women were involved.

So how do these variables intertwine with each other? Media have a major effect on a person remembering gold medalists of previous Olympics. To break this hypothesis down, the independent variable is the media. "Media" is defined as magazines, television, newspapers, and radio. The dependent variable is the person remembering gold medalists. Gold medalists are defined as any United States man or woman receiving a gold medal in the Olympics of 1992, 1994, or 1996. Media are major communication connection to everyone's lives. People tend to remember people and things better when the media get involved. The Olympics is a major sporting event and, in 1994, it was the most watched sporting event in the United States. The researcher will provide information that media do have an effect on people remembering gold medalists.

Participants

Fifty undergraduates, who attended Western Connecticut State University, volunteered to participate. There were 25 women and 25 men, and each of these participants varied in age, race, religion, and knowledge of the Olympics. Each participant was asked to fill out the questionnaire and all participant names were kept completely confidential.

Materials

A questionnaire was made in order to gather information about what the individual remembered about Olympic gold medal winners and participant exposure to media. The questionnaire consisted of four questions. The first question asked the participants' gender. Gender was important in determining if women remembered women athletes better than men, or men remembered men athletes better than women. The second question asked how many hours the participant watched the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. There were three choices, either 0 - 10 hours, 11 - 24 hours, or 25 hours or more. This question gives an idea of how much direct knowledge the person had of the 1996 Olympics by finding out how many hours they watched, keeping in mind, the Olympics was televised for 17 straight days. The next question consisted of a list of 24 women gold medalists, 23 men gold medalists and 28 ficticious names. The medalists were taken from the past four Olympic Games; the 1996 and 1992 Summer Olympics at Atlanta and Barcelona and the 1994 and 1992 Winter Olympics at Lillehammer and Albertville. Each of the gold medalists are from the United States and each of these names can be verified in the Chronicle of the Olympics 1896 - 1996. The names of those who were not gold medalists either came from the telephone book or were ficticious names. The final question was open ended. This question let the researcher find out through what kind of media the participants remembered the chosen medalists.

Procedure

In a two week period of time, the researcher handed out a questionnaire randomly to students at the midtown campus of Western Connecticut State University. An equal number of men and women were chosen to fill out the questionnaire. Each participant answered each of the questions to the best of their knowledge. In the third question, the participant had to check off any name or names they remembered as being gold medalists. After reviewing the results, the researcher took the most chosen medalists and the medalists who were not chosen and went to the Ruth A. Haas Library at Western Connecticut State University to check the coverage of each gold medalist. For this study, only magazine articles were considered media.

The researcher will first consider the results of the women participants, out of 25 women, 18 women watched up to 10 hours, 5 women watched from 11 to 24 hours, and only 2 women watched more than 25 hours of the 1996 Summer Olympics. The women participants tended to remember more women gold medalists than the men gold medalists. Only 11 men gold medalists out of 23 men were remembered and 20 women gold medalists out of 24 women were remembered. The women participants chose eight ficticious names also.

The men participants tended to watch less of the 1996 Olympics than the women. Out of 25 men participants, 21 men watched under 10 hours, 4 men watched 11 - 24 hours, and no men watched over 25 hours of the 1996 Summer Olympics. The men participants also tended to remember women gold medalists more than the men medalists. One woman medalist was not remembered out of 24 women medalists and only six men were not chosen out of 23 men gold medalists. At the same time seven ficticious names were chosen.

The women participants chose Kerri Strug, Jackie Joyner Kersee, Kristi Yamaguchi, and Shannon Miller more than any other. The men participants found Jackie Joyner Kersee, and Shannon Miller as well, but Rebecca Lobo and Gail Devers were the other top chosen medalists. A majority of both genders chose Shaquille O'Neal, Michael Jordan, Carl Lewis, and Michael Johnson as medalists for the men.

Looking at the grand totals of both genders, Kerri Strug and Jackie Joyner Kersee were tied with 24 people choosing them and Carl Lewis, Shaquille O'Neal, and Michael Jordan were tied with 24 people choosing them. To compare media coverage, the researcher needed to take those medalists who were not chosen and compare them with these top choices. Kendall Cross, Charles Austin, Nelson Diebel, and Mike Barrowman were not chosen at all. Cathy Turner was only chosen once.

Reviewing each questionnaire, revealed that each participant who remembered the Olympic gold medalists stated they remembered them either from magazine articles, newspaper articles or television. With this knowledge, the researcher took a look through magazine articles, magazines being the quickest and easiest way to compare coverage among these medalists.

Taking a look at the comparison of the women medalists shows that Kerri Strug had 25 articles written on her and Jackie Joyner Kersee had 117 articles written on her. Cathy Turner, on the other hand, had only five articles written on her. The comparisons of the men medalists are even more divergent. Carl Lewis had 131 articles written on him, Shaquille O'Neal had 211 articles written on him, and Michael Jordan had 536 articles written on him. Mike Barrowman and Nelson Diebel had five articles written on each of them, Kendall Cross had two articles written on him, and Charles Austin had only one article written on him. It is clear that there is a difference in media coverage of these particular gold medalists.

After looking at the results of this study and looking at the reviewed related literature in the introduction, the researcher finds a very similar pattern. In the beginning, the researcher discussed the work done by Searle and Vaile (1996) by talking about the 1994 Olympics as being the most watched sporting event ever. This statement is believed true, not only by actual statistics but by the comparisons done between the medalists. The media coverage was obviously not lacking in 1994. The results, suggests that if it was not for the media, these participants may not have remembered and chosen the medalists they did, unless these participants went to the Olympics and watched the Games in person. Also the researcher must consider that each participant stated that it was through television, magazines, or newspapers that they remembered the gold medalists. The research done by Cameron, Schleuder, and White (1993) and Dhillon, Dong, and Lang (1995), indicated that with teasers a person remembered a story better and something which is arousing on is remembered better also; both of these studies involved media. Along the same lines, the researcher can say that these medalists who were most chosen were remembered better because they were given much more media coverage than those medalists not chosen at all. Another conclusion of the questionnaires, the researcher can assume that some people were motivated by loving a certain sport and this is how they remembered certain names, as well as the media playing an important role. This assumption agrees with what has been discussed by Kellermann (1985).

Short term and long term memory discussed by Cermak (1972) is also an important issue. Short term memory is not so much of an issue, only unless when the participants filling out the questionnaire and others around them mentioned certain names then that person added those names to their list. This is not relevant to this study. Long term memory is an important issue because these gold medalists ranged from the 1992 Olympics to the 1996 Olympics. In remembering any of the gold medalists, people have to get into their long term memory and recall those certain patterns and settings which Bartlett (1972) discussed. Maybe people remembered Michael Johnson's pattern of wearing specially made golden shoes, or Gail Dever's lengthy nails. As Schacter (1996) stated, to remember something is to take a mental time travel. Each of these participants relived the past Olympics when filling out this questionnaire whether they knew it or not. Each one had to trace back into time and connect names to sports to medals.

Media are the major form of communication in this part of history which is what the researcher observed in the results. Without media, people would probably not remember all of these gold medalists of the past four Olympics. Back in 1896, a person could probably only remember a few medalists because there was no mass media or very little. And unless that person was at the Games, they would not know the medalists.

After the researcher received the questionnaires back, the most important information was not who the participants remembered but how many people chose the same medalist, such as Kerri Strug, Jackie Joyner Kersee, Carl Lewis, Michael Jordan, and Shaquille O'Neal. With these top selections, the researcher needed to compare them to something. So the medalists who were not selected such as, Cathy Turner, Mike Barrowman, Charles Austin, Kendall Cross, and Nelson Diebel were chosen to be compared in media coverage. This was the most important part of the study. The difference in media coverage between these two groups was so incredibly drastic, it was amazing. From more than 500 articles on Michael Jordan to only two articles on Kendall Cross and these articles only being from magazines,this difference is amazing. Imagine if newspapers or television were used in place of, or added to, magazines. The contrast would probably be even more drastic.

This project was fun, difficult, and interesting at the same time. This project opened the eyes of the researcher on just how important and how dominant media are on a person's memory. If this project were to be done again, other than looking just through the magazine articles, it would be beneficial to review newspaper articles as well as television clips of the Olympics or even just news broadcasts of the Olympics to observe who the newscasters' report mainly about.

After researching, getting the results, and drawing some conclusions on each of the variables, it would be interesting to do some other kinds of studies as well. For instance, what if this same questionnaire was given to people in California ? Would Lisa Fernandez be chosen over Rebecca Lobo ? Lets consider, Lisa Fernandez was a top softball pitcher at the University of California in Los Angelos (UCLA) and Rebecca Lobo was a top basketball player at the University of Connecticut (UCONN), would this question be true. In this study, Lobo was the top woman medalist chosen by the men participants while Fernandez was chosen only four times. This kind of question may vary from state to state depending on individuals being from certain parts of the country. Another question is raised by observing the grand total results. Every women gold medalist was chosen at least once, but there were four men gold medalists who were not chosen at all. Why? Why are people remembering women gold medalists more than the men gold medalists? Is it because women are becoming more dominant in sports today? Being a female athlete, both of these questions are intriguing, but will we ever find the answers?

Bartlett, F.C. (1972). Remembering: a study in experimental and social psychology. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Cameron, G.T., Schleuder, J.D., White, A.V. (1993).Priming effects of television news bumpers and teasers on attention and memory. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 37, 437-452.

Cermak, L.S. (1972). Human memory: research and theory. New York, NY : Ronald Press Company.

Collins, D. (1996). Olympic dreams: 100 years of excellence. New York, NY: Universe Publishing.

Dhillon, K., Dong, Q., Lang, A. (1995). The effects of emotional arousal and valence on television viewers' cognitive capacity and memory. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 39, 313- 327.

Kellermann, K. (1985). Memory processes in media effects. Communication Research, 12, 83- 131.

Kindersley, D. (1996). Chronicle of the olympics. New York, NY: DK Publishing Inc.

Norman, D.A. (1969). Memory and attention: an introduction to human information processing. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Schacter, D.L. (1996). Searching for memory: the brain, the mind, the past. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Searle, C., Vaile, B. (1996). The official olympic companion 1996. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's Sports.

Medalists	# of times chosen	Medalists	# of times chosen
Kerri Strug	24	Carl Lewis	24
Jackie JoynerKersee	24	Shaquille O'Neal	24
Shannon Miller	21	Michael Jordan	24
Kristi Yamaguchi	20	Michael Johnson	19
Rebecca Lobo	20	Dan Jansen	13
Bonnie Blair	19	Earvin Johnson	13
Gail Devers	17	Oscar de la Hoya	11
Jennifer Capriati	15	Tommy Moe	4
Amy van Dyken	13	Trent Dimas	4
Summer Sanders	13	Pablo Morales	4
Janet Evans	12	Mike Marsh	3
Mia Hamm	10	Michael Conley	2
Gwen Torrence	10	Melvin Stewart	2
Amanda Beard	9	John Smith	1
Lisa Leslie	8	Kevin Jackson	1
Michelle Smith	6	Kevin Young	1
Dot Richardson	6	Quincy Watts	1
Lisa Fernandez	5	Michael Stulce	1
Theresa Edwards	5	Mark Lenzi	1
Michelle Akers	5	Kendall Cross	0
Karen Josephson	2	Charles Austin	0
Diann Roffe	2	Nelson Diebel	0
Nicole Haislett	2	Mike Barrowman	0
Cathy Turner	1

Women		Men
Bruce Lockwood	1	Irene Taylor	1
Irene Taylor	1	Reggie Moore	1
Reggie Moore	2	Cathy Lippi	1
Maryann Waters	1	Valerie Elliott	1
John Burke	1	Amanda Thomas	1
Bobbi Wilson	1	Robin Williams	1
Brian Hill	1	Brian Hill	3
Greg Peters	1
Bruce Lockwood	1	John Burke	1
Irene Taylor	2	Valerie Elliott	1
Reggie Moore	3	Bobbi Wilson	1
Maryann Waters	1	Robin Williams	1
Cathy Lippi	1	Greg Peters	1
Brian Hill	4	Amanda Thomas	1
Total	21		15

Top Picks

Name	# of Articles	Dates of Articles
Jackie Joyner Kersee	117	Jul. 86 - Feb. 97
Kerri Strug	25	Jan. 91 - Jan. 97
Carl Lewis	131	Feb. 86 - Jan. 97
Shaquille O'Neal	211	Feb. 90 - Feb. 97
Michael Jordan	536	Mar. 88 - Feb. 97

Low Picks 

Name	# of Articles	Dates of Articles
Cathy Turner	5	Jan. 92 - Mar. 94
Mike Barrowman	5	Aug. 89 - Jul. 92
Kendall Cross	2	Mar. 89
Charles Austin	1	Jul. 92
Nelson Diebel	5	Jun. 92 - May 94

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