Womens visibility in the news worldwide is extremely and uniformly low in all the 71 countries included in a study conducted by the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) 2010. (Pictured: Womens voices still missing in the media)
A report of the study, which monitored 1281 newspapers, television stations and radio stations, 76 news websites among others, said voices heard remained overwhelmingly those of men. The study has been done every five years and this is the fourth report which confirms the general picture found 15 years earlier.
The 2010 GMMP results showed that there was still a long way to go. Change was occurring and even gaining speed in some important areas, while in others progress remained slow or had even been eroded.”From 2000 to 2010, we have seen an increase of 6 percentage points in womens presence as subjects in the news. At the current rate of change, it will take more than 40 years to reach parity,” noted the report.
Where are the women?
“When challenged, journalists frequently offer simple explanations: there was no time to find a woman, no woman could be persuaded to speak, no suitable female expert could be found, a story highlighting the gender dimensions of a particular news topic was deemed un-newsworthy by the editor, and so on. Responses like these cannot be dismissed as mere rationalisations. They are part of the reality of day-to-day news production, “said the reports foreword written by Margaret Gallagher.
“In the news, the tendency to ignore women or at best to talk about, rather than to or through women, is thus deeply embedded in normative cultural practices, and therefore in newsgathering and general production routines. These practices and routines are extremely difficult, but not impossible, to change. The purpose of the GMMP, since its inception, has been to contribute to that change.”
The research found little change over the past five years in the hierarchy of priorities of the news media agenda. Stories on politics/government (29%), crime/violence (19%) and the economy (18%) dominate the news agenda. Social/ legal, celebrity/arts/sports and science/health stories lag behind with an average of 13%, 11% and 9% respectively of the total number of stories combined across the three mediums.
This study was partly motivated by the fact that despite the recent proliferation of social media in some regions, news media remained the major and most influential source of information, ideas and opinion for most people around the world. It was a key element of the public and private space in which people, nations and societies live. A nation or society that did not fully know itself could not respond to its citizens aspirations. Who and what appeared in the news and how people and events were portrayed matters. Who was left out and what was not covered were equally important.
Only 24% of the people heard or read about in print, radio and television news were female In contrast, 76% – more than three out of four of the people in the news were male
“This is a significant improvement from 1995 when only 17% of the people in the news were women. However, despite a slow but overall steady increase in womens presence in the news over the past 10 years, the world depicted in the news remains predominantly male. This picture is incongruent with a reality in which at least one half of the worlds population is female,” the report noted.
On the one hand the pace of increase in womens visibility in the news had been maintained over the past decade. In 2005 womens presence in the news had risen to 21% – a change of three percentage points from the research carried out in 2000. From 2005 to 2010 there was a second change of three percentage points, evidencing a persistently slow but constant pace of progress over the last 10 years.
On the other hand, the rise in womens visibility stemmed largely from increased presence in topics of lower priority on the news media agenda, and much less in stories of high priority such as those pertaining to politics/government. Womens presence in stories on politics and government increased from 14% to 19% during the period while in stories on the economy there was no change, remaining at 20%.
Out of 25 occupational categories, women outnumbered men in only 2: news subjects presented as homemakers (72%) and those presented as students (54%). “The picture seen through the news becomes one of a world where women are virtually invisible as active participants in work outside the home. As persons interviewed or heard in the news, women remain lodged in the ordinary people categories, in contrast to men who continue to predominate in the expert categories.”
Female news subjects were identified by their family status four times more than male news subjects. “It goes against efforts to assert womens autonomy as individuals with roles, rights and responsibilities in the broader society beyond the home and household. It also discursively re-draws a gender divide in familial responsibilities that in reality is being eroded by mens increasing childcare roles, as women work in paid labour outside the home.”
Stories by female reporters contained more female news subjects than stories by male reporters. This trend has persisted over the past 10 years. Women comprised only 23% of the news subjects in stories from the 84 news websites monitored. This finding suggested that the underrepresentation of women in traditional news media had been carried over into the virtual news world.
Photographs
While men were usually pictured either from the head up or fully clothed, the comparative frequency with which womens bodies were pictured in various states of undress was much higher. Front pages from around the world are populated by images of young women in sexualized poses alongside lurid headlines and sexist catch phrases, often subtly, sometimes blatantly violent.
While it is important to show images of women in non-traditional roles, the portrayal of powerful women and politicians was often subtly different from the portrayal of men. Male politicians often appeared in head shots or alone at podiums above crowds, while female politicians were often pictured as gendered subjects who relied on men. “German Chancellor Angela Merckel appears in a variety of photos (in the DanishJyllands-Posten, and the Spanish Las Provincias), chaperoned by male politicians or flanked by famous past-world leaders like Mikhail Gorbachev.”
Stereotypes
The largest percentages of stories that reinforced stereotypes pertained to crime/ violence, celebrity and political news.
The report noted that when women and men were portrayed through gender stereotyped lenses, this impacted the behaviours, actions and attitudes of society, in turn impacting societal development.
For example, girls and women will have fewer possibilities to secure access to education in comparison to boys and men for different stereotypical reasons.
“A female student who becomes a mother is expected to abandon her studies to fulfil her maternal duties, in particular if no one else is available to care for the child. The standards for a male student who becomes a father are different he is free to complete his studies, find a job and continue on his lifes trajectory. The young mother meanwhile has few possibilities of finding decent employment whereas she has to assume the economic support role for her child, even though this role is not part of the stereotype.
“The social imaginary views the public space as exclusive to men, with women as intruders occupying spaces that they lack the knowledge, capacities and character to reside in. Within this parameter, when a woman is violated in the public space, the event does not generate social uproar. She is obliged to demonstrate that her behaviour before the violation occurred adhered to the female stereotype in compliance with the societal expectations.”
“Womens marginality in the news media, be it due to their relative absence from the content, the type of news considered worthy of dissemination, or the role they play in the news, is illustrative of their minimal importance or relevance in the public and media sphere.
“Continuing to reinforce such human behaviour will distance us further away from the path of development, democracy, justice, and peace. Change is possible only if our imaginaries are transformed. Monumental steps need be taken to construct media messages that shape alternative, more empowering, more equitable understandings of our societies.”
Female journalists continued to cover what were termed as soft stories such as culture, health and other social issues rather than reporting what may be seen to be more challenging topics, such as politics, business, technology, science, elections and finance. Rarely were female journalists considered to be grand reporters.
The report also revealed that media houses in Africa had an impression that gender was synonymous with women.
Post published in: Opinions