Women still getting raw media deal, new study reveals
2006-02-26 09:26:18
By Matilda Kasanga
The latest global study of women in journalism has revealed that women continue to be the far-second sex in breaking and making news.
According to the Global Media Monitoring Project, which studied a full day of radio, television and newspaper content in 76 countries on a single day, February 16, 2005 women continue to be under-represented, and sometimes outright ignored, as subjects of and sources for news, regardless of the medium.
’’There is not a single major news topic in which women outnumber men as newsmakers. Even in stories that affect women profoundly, such as gender-based violence, it is the male voice (64 per cent of news subjects) that prevails,’’ says the report released last week in London.
The study revealed that equitable treatment of women simply hasn’t advanced along with other measures of development in most countries as the same patterns of under-representation and stereotyped portrayal of women in the news still exist.
The Coordinator of the project, Anna Turley, says: ’’The reason for these patterns is complicated. From the story angle and the choice of interview questions to the use of language and the choice of images; all these have a bearing on the messages that emerge in the news.’’
These patterns are deeply rooted not only in professional practice, but also in wider social assumptions about female and male attributes, roles and competencies. Ms Turley calls for immediate and corrective action.
The Media Monitoring team has joined with the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization in a campaign to ask all media producing daily news to turn editorial responsibility over to women on International Women’s Day scheduled for March 8, 2006.
Ms Turley further urged advocacy groups to undertake their own, similar studies of local media, since newspaper editors and broadcast news directors are much more likely to respond to documentation about shortcomings in their own performance.
According to the study, only 10 per cent of all stories in the global spot check were focused specifically on women. News about gender inequality represented 4 percent of stories. Mainstream media have taken some note of the report.
It has also been revealed in the report that women journalists continue to be assigned ”soft” beats such as entertainment, relationships, food and home.
When women make news, the report finds they are primarily featured as celebrities or ordinary people, not as figures of authority women offer reactions to events; men offer expert opinion about events, the study reveals.
Women are twice as likely to be portrayed as victims as are men. Photo images also reinforce the notion of women as victims.
While women are 20 per cent of news subjects in stories about violence, they are 27 per cent of those who appear in photos on the topic of crime and violence.
Meanwhile, the study found that the situations most likely to cause specific harm to women such as domestic violence are not widely covered.
Stories that challenge stereotypes and that highlight gender inequality are still more likely to be reported by women, although men now produce a larger number of these stories than they have in the past.
This study is the fourth one since the media monitoring project was started in 1994 at a meeting in Bangkok by a group of media practitioners who believed that improving women’s media know-how and access to information are essential to their participation in civic life.
IPP Media’s source: Sunday Observer
Temporarily available at: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0602/S00322.htm
Source: IPPMedia Ltd.
