Obsah obrázku oblečení, Animace, ilustrace, klavír Popis byl vytvořen automaticky Women and media Fall 2023 Journalism •Same as politics = typically masculine field •Emergence of mass media = only few women journalists •Women journalists writing about women and for women •Typically: suffrage, education, women‘s issues, hosehold, domestic life, beauty, fashion etc. •Slowly women demanded to cover typically „male“ topics (from 1960s on) •Men never demanded covering typically „female“ topics (matter of status) Resistance of media outlets •Hostility and discrimination within newsrooms •Little space for women‘s advances •An internal 1973 BBC report stated: „to large numbers of listeners and viewers a female voice is considered to lack authority in news reading and reporting. According to the Head of TV presentation ‘a woman’s voice attracts too much attention. Announcing’, he thinks, ‘represents the supreme authority and a man’s voice is suited to all occasions by tradition, whereas a woman’s voice is more characteristic, but acceptable in the Open University context.“ • • •% of women journalists reporting news increasing slowly •Numbers by: Global Media Monitoring Project •https://whomakesthenews.org/ •More women reporting on politics and economy, but still minority! Obsah obrázku text, snímek obrazovky, číslo Popis byl vytvořen automaticky Journalism as a gendered practice •First analysis of the gendered nature of journalism in 1980s •Catherine Covern (1981): •Journalism valued independence, individual autonomy •Writing emphasizing conflict, competition, controversy •Omitting communal values and language (e.g. harmony, community, affiliation) •Inclusion of more women would bring more feminine values •More women in newsroom = transforming journalism • • • Gendered nature of journalism •Van Zoonen (1998) •Selection of topics (men report more on news, women on soft news = horizontal segregation) •Story angles (men focus more on facts and sensations; women focus on background, context, effects) •Use of sources (men use more men; women use more women) •Ethics (masculine journalism is more detached from audience and the subject women more concered iwtu audience needs) Gendered nature of journalism •Very often the differences between men and women not confirmed in survey studies •Men and women very similar their values and goals) •Some differences hold though •For example Hanitzsch and Hanusch 2012 •Study gender differences across 18 countries •Women and men do not differ in how they understand their roles • • •Entries are mean values of scales: •Institutional roles = from not important to extremely important •Epistemologies = from strongly disagree to strongly agree •Stars indicate that the differences between men and women are statistically significant •Women and men do not differ in most items •Men more as detached observers, as watchdog of democracy, more concerned about attracting big audience, want to motivate civic engagement • Obsah obrázku text, snímek obrazovky, číslo, menu Popis byl vytvořen automaticky Gendered nature of journalism •Ross 2001: surveyed and interviewed female journalists (UK) •Identified journalism as male-dominated culture: •Impossible work-life balance (worst for mothers) •Macho culture •Women often adapt and adopt the boy‘s rule of the game •Or find other strategies (freelancing, work with other excluded proffesionals) •Significant disagreements among women journalists (see the following slide) •Conclusion: increasing the number of women is not sufficient to transform journalism • Obsah obrázku text, snímek obrazovky, číslo, Písmo Popis byl vytvořen automaticky •Inconsistent attitudes among women journalists •Journalists need to be aware of the dominant newsroom culture •Dissenting voices are important •Challenging the culture requires both individual and collective effort • • •Note that the analysis is from late 1990s Individual and collective effort to challenge the culture •Various intiatives of women in media • •E.g. Ženy v médiích (Czech Republic) •https://www.instagram.com/zeny_v_mediich/ • • Stereotypes about topics covered by journalists •Commonly assumed that politics, economy, technology and other „hard news“ topics are more extensively covered by men •Women more in soft news, features, even historically (fashion, beauty, lifestyles…) •Example: North 2016 •Survey and qualitative interviews with women journalists in Australia •More women cover hard news •But majority covers soft news •Women pigeon-holed in these topics • Obsah obrázku text, snímek obrazovky, číslo Popis byl vytvořen automaticky Obsah obrázku text, Písmo, algebra Popis byl vytvořen automaticky North 2016 Are men perceived as more credible? •Historically distrust in women‘s capacity to perform •As in the case of the BBC report •First woman anchor in major US new broadcast network: Katie Couric in 2006. Major concerns that as a woman she would not be a credible news anchor. • •Are women credible enough? Especially when covering hard/stereotypically masculine news? Are men perceived as more credible? •Several experimental studies of poor methodology •Usually small samples, underpowered, not worth mentioning •One (quite okay) example: •Hai and Maurus •Experiment on a mixed sample (Swiss, German, and Austrian) •N = 417 •Manipulated author of the news (Men vs. Woman vs. Computer) •Manipulated the topic of the news (Masculine = footbal vs. Feminine = women‘s movies) •Manipulated content of readers comments (Sexist vs. Non-sexist) Obsah obrázku text, účtenka, dokument, snímek obrazovky Popis byl vytvořen automaticky •No gender effects •Computer as the author of the news decreased credibility •Sexist comments (under both men and women authored article) increased credibility of the message •Seeing sexist comments might have made the respondents process the text more carefully (is the assumed explanation) •Results consistent with another study in the US and Denmark (the Danish study was focused on gender of experts in media) Vertical segregation of women in media •They key factor is the male-dominated nature of top management (therefore vertical) •Lack of women editors, managers, publishers •Reuters Institute analysis of 240 news outlets in 12 markets (2023) •In all markets: majority of top editors are men, women only 22% •Uncorrelated to % of women journalist in the country •Very weak correlation with gender inequality index (= even women with overall high levels of equality have low numbers of female editors) •Diversity may be increasing only at lower levels of the hierarchy (the newsroom)but not in the top leadership positions Obsah obrázku text, snímek obrazovky, číslo, software Popis byl vytvořen automaticky Challenge the dominant concept of journalism? •The final strategy of women to transform media (Melin-Higgins 2008) •The first is „tamend feminism“ – building female only spaces within newsrooms, magazines etc. •The second one is women act within mainstream journalism not questioning hierarchies •Some media employ „gender equality manager/editor“ responsible for ensuring that the content complies with gender equality •Example: Spain has at leas 8 media who employ Gender/equality editor •Study among these people (Iranzo-Cabrera, Figueras-Maz, Muri-Ríos 2023) indicates that: •There is no consensus on the definition of such a position •Time consuming •Resistance from colleagues, negative reactions •Lack of support by the management and editors •Mostly they do not have control over content • • Obsah obrázku oblečení, Animace, ilustrace, klavír Popis byl vytvořen automaticky How media cover politics and politicians? Obsah obrázku text, noviny, Zprávy, oblečení Popis byl vytvořen automaticky Appearance, sexism, and objectification •Women described more then men in terms of their sex, martial status and children •More focus on appearance and clothing •Objectification harmful for women in politics •Reducing people to their physical selves •Experiment (Funk and Coker 2016) manipulated politicians gender and presence/absence of objectifying comments in a mock-up Facebook thread. Findings: men tend to rate objectified politicians as less suitable for political office, less reliable and less honest. •Framing women politicians as attractive = more negative evaluation (compared to men labeled as attractive and both men and women not labeled as attractive) (Lizotte and Meggers-Wright 2019) Obsah obrázku text, noviny, Publikace, časopis Popis byl vytvořen automaticky News media effects on politician‘s evaluations •Meta-analysis of available experiments about how media coverage affects the way voters evaluate men and women candidates •Rohrbach, Aaldering, Van der Pas 2023 •50 studies, 670 evaluations, 23,000 participants •Results: •Most types of media practices do not have different effects on men and women with exceptions: •Media tonality: negative coverage decreases voters‘ likelihood of voting for women (no effect for men) •Coverage of communal (feminine) personality traits worsens evaluation of women's’ viability (ability to win) •Coverage of appearance diminishes preferences for women candidates •But negative evaluation of candidate's appearances. Impacts men and women in the same way •Coverage of candidate’s. family diminishes women’s viability •Coverage of emotionality impacts men and women similarly for evaluation of issue competence, viability and voting preferences •Emotionality coverage makes people evaluate women politicians more strongly on communal (feminine) traits) • • • Constructing image of women politicians in the press •Mediated representation of women in politics •Reproduction of dominant discourses •Portrayal of women politicians through gender-specific frames •Sometimes reinforcing stereotypes, ideas that women belong to private sphere not politics •Analysis of media discourses about women politicians in French, Spanish, Italian, and UK media (Garcia-Blanco and Wahl-Jorgensen 2012) at the time of the first female majority Spanish cabinet appointment: •Personalization •Appearance and sartorial choices (more in some countries (UK) than others •Attention to the Spanish Minister of Defence pregnancy: 1) framed as great and symbolic achievement, normalization of pregnant women in politics; 2) negatively framed as problematic and unsuitable for the office •Framing the government gender composition as media-oriented strategic choice to attract positive attention or controversy •Women as „extensions“ of PM Zapatero rather than full-fledged ministers with skills and intentions of their own (women politicians as puppets) •Some text were counterarguing this by emphasizing the ministers education, achievement, skills (emphasizing gender bias, because men ministers' competences were not discussed at all) •The cabinet also framed as PM Zapatero‘s achievement, undervaluing the long term efforts of civic society, interest groups, politicians, parties (collective dimension of the situation). • • Coverage of women candidates •Women typically covered less intensively then male candidates •There are lots of studies which bring evidence to this •E.g., study of the 2009 European Parliament election by Lühiste and Banducci (2016): •Women candidates received less media coverage •Effects dependent on electoral system. Closed-list systems had positive effects on women candidate‘s coverage •Party viability a key factor. Women candidates‘ covered more when they and also their parties were more viable (grater chances of being elected). Representation of women in the media matters •In line with poststructuralist feminist theory (i.e. Butler, Mouffe etc.) •Role of hegemonic production of gender attributes and media are part of this production (produces and reproduces gendered structures in societies) •Gender is not a fixed condition which individuals are •Gender is something that individuals do •Gender articulated through practices (what we do and how we behave, even what we think) which reveals (and is also deeply rooted) in the structure of power relations (women of lower status and power, this structure is kept by the hegemonic reproduction of the structure – media part of this, they accept, normalize, legitimize certain images of men and women ). •Read some work by feminist theorists if interested ;) • BTW the GMMP 2020 report: •Even though the numbers of women in media are growing •Very low % of representation of minorities •Media content not challnehíing gender stereotypes • •Read the report here: https://whomakesthenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/GMMP-2020.Highlights_FINAL.pdf • • • • More resources (will not be in the exam) •https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaBJFSAxVgY&ab_channel=TED-Ed •Ted talk on representation of women in the media •https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=714d18CS9k4&t=955s&ab_channel=AndreaSanchez •Classical documentary Miss Representation. It is already a little dated (you might probably not get some of the cultural references such as Britney Spears in her prime years) the standards might have sifted since then. But still some interesting moments, especially speakers not easily seen in context of gender (like Condoleeza Rice). • •https://www.writingwithfire.in/ •Inspirative Oscar nominated documentary about women journalists in India. Available through Apple TV or Amazon Prime.